Space, features and articles | Educational Science

May 31, 2016

Take the Moon Home with Incredibly Detailed Lunar Globe

If you want a nice view of the moon, instead of squinting into the night sky or cursing tall buildings, you could soon gaze at an expertly crafted model of the stunning celestial object. And this version is small enough sit atop your coffee table. The lunar globe, dubbed MOON,...

May 31, 2016

Light Pollution Ruins Night-Sky Views for One-Third of Humanity

A new, comprehensive atlas of worldwide light pollution reveals that one-third of all people cannot see the Milky Way in the sky, including nearly 80 percent of North Americans. The atlas, painstakingly produced over the course of more than 10 years from satellite data and verified by more than 30,000...

May 31, 2016

Mars Rover Panorama Shows Sweeping 'Marathon Valley' (Photo)

An epic Mars panorama shows the snaking valley that NASA's long-lived Opportunity rover has been exploring for the last year — and will likely soon leave behind. The newly released photo — a composite of many images Opportunity captured in April and May — depicts Marathon Valley, a feature that...

Apr 30, 2016

The Universe Has Probably Hosted Many Alien Civilizations: Study

Many other planets throughout the universe probably hosted intelligent life long before Earth did, a new study suggests. The probability of a civilization developing on a potentially habitable alien planet would have to be less than one in 10 billion trillion — or one part in 10 to the 22nd...

Apr 30, 2016

Superflares from the Sun May Have Sparked Life by Warming Earth

Life on Earth may owe its existence to incredibly powerful storms that erupted on the sun long ago, a new study suggests. Potent and frequent solar eruptions could have warmed the planet enough for life to take root, and also provided the vital energy needed to transform simple molecules into...

Mar 31, 2016

Surprise! Gigantic Black Hole Found in Cosmic Backwater

One of the biggest black holes ever found sits in a cosmic backwater, like a towering skyscraper in a small town. Astronomers have spotted a supermassive black hole containing 17 billion times the mass of the sun — only slightly smaller than the heftiest known black hole, which weighs in...

Mar 31, 2016

Giant Green 'Spider' Invades Stellar Nursery in Eerie New Image

An enormous space spider, glowing a strange and radioactive shade of green, stretches its many legs across the cosmos. But breathe easy, arachnophobes; it's just a photo, and a pretty one at that. The image, which NASA released Thursday (April 14), shows the Spider Nebula, a giant cloud of gas...

Mar 31, 2016

Hubble Telescope Captures Sharpest Image Yet of Mysterious Red Rectangle

A striking new image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope delivers a deep look into a mysterious cosmic object called the Red Rectangle Nebula. The Red Rectangle, so named because of its bizarre shape and striking color, is a nebula — a cosmic cloud of gas and particles. In this...

Feb 29, 2016

Mon-Stars! Cluster of Massive Suns Spotted by Hubble Telescope (Photo)

Some of the biggest and brightest stars in the universe are packed within a single cluster, a new study reveals. Researchers used the Hubble Space Telescope to image the young star cluster R136 in ultraviolet (UV) light for the first time. The cluster is located in the Tarantula Nebula of...

Jan 31, 2016

'Moon Glint' Magic: Astronaut's Photo Reveals Dreamy Patterns

When an astronaut aboard the International Space Station trained a camera on a picturesque view of the northern Mediterranean Sea, the space flyer instead captured a unique effect created by the reflection of the moon on the surface of the water. The astronaut's moon glint photo shows the twinkling lights...

Jan 31, 2016

Stephen Hawking Wants to Ride Virgin Galactic's New Passenger Spaceship

MOJAVE, California — Virgin Galactic's new spaceship has the enthusiastic endorsement of one of the world's greatest scientists, who plans to fly on the vehicle one day. Famed cosmologist and physicist Stephen Hawking revealed the name of the new SpaceShipTwo suborbital craft — VSS (for Virgin Spaceship) Unity — during...

Dec 31, 2015

I Spy: Satellites Capture ABCs from Space (Photos)

Sometimes, looking at satellite images of planet Earth is a bit like playing hidden pictures. A few years ago, NASA science writer Adam Voiland noticed that a satellite image of smoke plumes over Canada looked like the letter V. Eager to play a worldwide game of hidden pictures, he began...

Dec 31, 2015

Visible Light from a Black Hole Spotted by Telescope, a First

For the first time, astronomers have seen dim flickers of visible light from near a black hole, researchers with an international science team said. In fact, the light could be visible to anyone with a moderate-size telescope. These dramatically variable fluctuations of light are yielding insights onto the complex ways...

Nov 30, 2017

Man's Unusual Sunburn Lets Him Make A Dent in His Forehead

See more A man in Texas got a reminder about the importance of sunscreen: He developed a sunburn so severe that the swelling allowed him to make a dent in his forehead. On Monday (Dec. 4), Cade Huckabay posted a series of photos to Twitter showing the sunburn that developed...

Nov 30, 2017

Stratolaunch's Monster Jet Completes First Test-Drive Down Runway

Stratolaunch's rocket-launching mothership was driven down the runway for the first time this past weekend. The double-bodied jet —which has the largest wingspan of any aircraft in the world —has been undergoing tests at Stratolaunch's facility at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. The latest phase in this...