On December 21, the two largest planets in our solar system will align more perfectly in the night sky than they have since 1623. No one saw that alignment thanks to the glare of the sun, so if you catch a glimpse of it this year you’ll actually be seeing something no person has beheld … Continued
A growing body of research indicates that there are likely billion of Earth-like planets that we haven’t yet discovered.
That’s good news for astronomers seeking alien life. Since Earth is our only example of a life-bearing world, scientists…
NASA and other agencies are building a handful of telescopes to probe the universe’s most puzzling mysteries.
From vantage points on Earth and in space, the upcoming telescopes will rely on next-generation technologies in their attempts to an…
You’re not going to wake up one morning to see Jupiter hanging in the sky, but two stunning animations show what it would look like if you did.
Amateur astronomer Nicholas Holmes makes videos about space on his Youtube channel, <a href="http…
NASA’s Mars InSight lander has measured and recorded for the first time ever a likely “marsquake.”
The faint seismic signal, detected by the lander’s Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument, was recorded on April 6, 201…
Just as dust gathers in corners and along bookshelves in our homes, dust piles up in space too. But when the dust settles in the solar system, it’s often in rings. Several dust rings circle the Sun. The rings trace the orbits of planets, whose grav…
Scientists looking for signs of life beyond our solar system face major challenges, one of which is that there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy alone to consider. To narrow the search, they must figure out: What kinds of stars are mos…
One of the most successful and enduring feats of interplanetary exploration, NASA’s Opportunity rover mission is at an end after almost 15 years exploring the surface of Mars and helping lay the groundwork for NASA’s return to the Red Planet.
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Even after decades of observations and a visit by NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft, Uranus held on to one critical secret — the composition of its clouds. Now, one of the key components of the planet’s clouds has finally been verified.
A global…