Space, features and articles | Educational Science

Aug 31, 2018

Weird Infrared Signal Emanates Across Space, But What Created It?

Space is filled with bizarre signals that we scramble to put meaning to — and now, researchers have detected yet another mysterious signal. This one emanated from near a neutron star, and for the first time, it's infrared. So, what's nearby that could have created the weird signal? Scientists have...

Aug 31, 2018

They Made It! Japan's Two Hopping Rovers Successfully Land on Asteroid Ryugu

The suspense is over: Two tiny hopping robots have successfully landed on an asteroid called Ryugu — and they've even sent back some wild postcards from their new home. The tiny rovers are part of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa2 asteroid sample-return mission. Engineers with the agency deployed the...

Jul 31, 2018

Trump Hails Astronauts That Will Fly on SpaceX and Boeing Spaceships. And Space Force, Too?

NASA, which is making a BIG comeback under the Trump Administration, has just named 9 astronauts for Boeing and Spacex space flights, Trump wrote on Twitter. We have the greatest facilities in the world and we are now letting the private sector pay to use them. Exciting things happening. Space...

Jul 31, 2018

NASA's Solar Probe Blasts Off to the Sun

It was very emotional, Fox told Space.com. I was speechless and I’m not normally speechless. The United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket carrying NASA's Parker Solar Probe launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida on Aug. 12, 2018. It is the first mission ever to attempt to touch the...

Jul 31, 2018

'Foreign Object' on Mars Spotted by Curiosity Rover Is Just a Rock

Don't worry: NASA's Mars rover Curiosity isn't falling apart. On Monday (Aug. 13), Curiosity photographed an odd, flat object that mission team members initially thought might have fallen off the car-size robot. Indeed, they dubbed the weirdly shaped target the Pettegrove Point Foreign Object Debris, or PPFOD in NASA-speak. (Pettegrove...

Jul 31, 2018

Why Does the Earth Rotate?

This story was updated at 9:40 a.m. E.D.T. on Monday, Sept. 10. Every day, the Earth spins once around its axis, making sunrises and sunsets a daily feature of life on the planet. It has done so since it formed 4.6 billion years ago, and it will continue to do...

Jun 30, 2018

New Telescope Will Hunt for Asteroids on Collision Course with Earth

Around sunrise on Feb. 15, 2013, an extremely bright and otherworldly object was seen streaking through the skies over Russia before it exploded about 97,000 feet above the Earth's surface. The resulting blast damaged thousands of buildings and injured almost 1,500 people in Chelyabinsk and the surrounding areas. While this...

Jun 30, 2018

The Edge of Space Just Crept 12 Miles Closer to Earth

Did you feel that? Does it suddenly feel a little bit stuffier in here to you? Does it feel like, I don't know… outer space just got 12 miles (20 kilometers) closer? Nothing actually moved, of course (unless you count the constant and increasing expansion of the universe). But according...

Jun 30, 2018

Longest Lunar Eclipse of the Century Dazzles Skywatchers

The 21st century's longest total lunar eclipse entranced skywatchers around the globe on Friday (July 27). With totality lasting for an incredible 1 hour and 43 minutes, this eclipse clocked in only 4minutes shorter than the longest possible such event calculated by astronomers. The duration let viewers from around the...

Jun 30, 2018

Weird Volcanoes Are Erupting Across the Solar System

NASA's Juno spacecraft recently spotted a possible new volcano at the south pole of Jupiter's most lava-licious moon, Io. But this volcanically active moon is not alone in the solar system, where sizzling-hot rocks explode and ooze onto the surface of several worlds. So how do Earthly volcanoes differ from...

May 31, 2018

NASA Satellites Make Magnetic Discovery in Turbulent Space Near Earth

Earth is surrounded by charged particles known as plasma. Most of these high-energy particles are deflected by the magnetosphere, which is the protective magnetic field that surrounds the planet. As Earth's magnetic-field lines absorb this energy, they stretch and eventually snap, releasing powerful bursts of particles toward Earth, which, in...

May 31, 2018

Confused Baby Falcon Rescued from Inside Balloon Telescope

(Image credit: Photo courtesy of Erika Hamden)When lofting a huge telescope under a giant balloon, you have to prepare for the unexpected. On Friday (June 9) in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, the unexpected arrived in the form of a very confused and unhappy baby falcon. The falcon entered the hangar...

May 31, 2018

Physicists Just Found the Last Missing Protons and Neutrons In the Universe

The universe's missing matter has been found, and it's floating between the stars. Researchers who study the ancient history of the universe know how much ordinary matter — matter that makes up baryons, a class of subatomic particles that includes protons and neutrons — the universe created during the Big...

May 31, 2018

Water May Not Be the Only Sign of Alien Life

(Inside Science) – When it comes to looking for alien life, scientists mostly focus on where there is water. Now researchers suggest that looking at bioessential elements such as phosphorus and molybdenum could help judge a world's potential for life. There is life virtually wherever there is water on Earth,...

May 31, 2018

Will China's Second Space Station Fall Out of the Sky Soon?

China's recently abandoned space station did a big, unexplained wobble in orbit this month. And the event left observers outside the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSE) guessing about the country's plans for the long-term future of Tiangong-2, the middle child of China's space station family. Tiangong-2, the successor to...