A high school student simulated how humans trace patterns in the night sky. The Big Dipper’s stars are a celestial landmark. Visible in the Northern Hemisphere’s night sky, the stars draw out a shape like a scoop with a handle. Beginner stargazers can easily pick it out. Now, scientists haveContinue Reading
The flight in the Red Planet’s thin air is the first in a planned series of daring flights. NASA has just flown a helicopter on Mars. Named Ingenuity, the craft hovered for about 40 seconds above the Red Planet’s surface. This marks the first flight of a spacecraft on aContinue Reading
A remote planet isn’t ruled out, but evidence for one may be fading. Planet Nine might be a mirage. What once looked like evidence for a massive planet hiding at the solar system’s edge may be an illusion. That’s the conclusion of a new study. “We can’t rule it out,”Continue Reading
Rocks collected in Greenland may hold traces of an ancient magma ocean that bubbled over much of Earth’s surface soon after the planet’s birth, a new study finds. Scientists gathered the rocks from the Isua supracrustal belt, a region in southwest Greenland where the exposed rocks are between 3.7Continue Reading
It’s our constant companion, and influences life on Earth in ways big and small The moon is more than a bright, beautiful orb in the night sky. Our nearest neighbor also plays a big part in making the Earth a good place to live. Located an average of only 384,400Continue Reading
If a planet you’d like to be, you must fulfill criteria three. Planet (noun, “PLAN-et”) These are more than rocky bodies orbiting the sun. Planets have to fulfill three criteria. First, they have to orbit a star in a predictable way. In our solar system, that star is the sun.Continue Reading
It was suspected, but it took seeing one in a distant galaxy to know for sure. Astrophysicists had thought that if a magnetar ever exploded, it would release one of the highest bursts of energy ever seen in the universe. But until now they could never prove it. Then oneContinue Reading
Astronauts and animals that spent time in space show similar symptoms. Space travelers face a number of health risks. Astronauts have reported loss of bone and muscle. Some have developed immune disorders or heart and liver issues. A new study finds that energy-producing structures in cells might be to blameContinue Reading
Called RBC EXT8, the cluster challenges some theories of how galaxies form and evolve A strange, newly measured clump of stars orbiting the nearby Andromeda galaxy has the lowest level of heavy chemical elements ever seen in one of these mysterious star clusters. Named RBC EXT8, this globular cluster isContinue Reading
At least two dozen planets outside the solar system might be better for life than Earth. These planets are just a little older, a little wetter, a little warmer and a little larger than Earth is, researchers wrote Sept. 18 in the journal Astrobiology. All of these factors could meanContinue Reading