Space, features and articles | Educational Science

Jun 30, 2019

Neil Armstrong's Family Received $6 Million in a Secret Wrongful-Death Settlement: Report

A Cincinnati hospital paid Neil Armstrong's family $6 million in a wrongful-death settlement after the astronaut and Apollo moonwalker died due to complications following a cardiovascular procedure, according to a new report from The New York Times. When Armstrong died in 2012 at age 82, the world stopped to remember...

Jun 30, 2019

How Astronomers Missed the Massive Asteroid That Just Whizzed Past Earth

A large asteroid just whizzed past our planet — and astronomers weren't expecting it. Ranging in size from 187 to 427 feet (57 to 130 meters) wide, the space rock named 2019 OK snuck up on us Thursday morning (July 25). It swung as close as 45,000 miles (73,000 kilometers)...

Jun 30, 2019

These Butter Sculpture Celebrate NASA's Apollo 11 Astronauts and They're Legen-DAIRY!

The sculptures are of the Apollo 11 moon crew — Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins — as well as a separate buttery interpretation of Armstrong in his spacesuit by the lunar module, Eagle. There's also a butter cow and calf standing beside the Apollo 11 patch. This took...

Jun 30, 2019

Newly-Discovered, Nearby Alien World Has 3 Blazing-Red Suns

Astronomers have discovered a planet in our galactic neighborhood that has three red suns. LTT 1445Ab, a rocky world a bit bigger than Earth, zips in a tight orbit around the biggest star in a triple-star system just 22.5 light-years from Earth, transiting between Earth and its host star on...

May 31, 2019

Why Does the Moon Keep Flashing Us?

There's something flashing us on the moon, and we don't know what it is. But that might be about to change. We have known about the mysterious flashes since at least the late 1960s, when the astronomers Barbara Middlehurst and Patrick Moore reviewed the scientific literature and found nearly 400...

May 31, 2019

Mysterious 'Bathtub Rings' of Titan Replicated on Earth

Something dark is spreading across the surface of Titan, and we may finally have some idea what it is. Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is the only other object in our solar system (besides Earth) known to have liquid on its surface. Frigid seas of methane and ethane fill depressions on...

May 31, 2019

How Did the Universe Begin?

How did the universe come to be? It is perhaps the greatest Great Mystery, and the root of all the others. Humanity's grandest questions — How did life begin? What is consciousness? What is dark matter, dark energy, gravity? — stem from it. All other mysteries lie downstream of this...

May 31, 2019

If You're On the Moon, Does the Earth Appear to Go Through Phases?

If you lived on the moon, you'd have to give up lots of things you take for granted on Earth. The feeling of your feet planted firmly on the ground. Your ability to breathe outside without a helmet. And your night-sky view. Humans have spent millennia staring up at the...

Apr 30, 2019

This Asteroid Will Come Incredibly Close to Earth on Friday the 13th, 2029

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — The solar system has a sense of humor: A decade from now, on Friday, April 13, 2029, a large asteroid will streak across the sky — but it's a cause for excitement, not fear, scientists say. That asteroid, called Apophis, stretches about 1,100 feet (340 meters)...

Apr 30, 2019

Navy Plans to Document UFO Sightings, But Keep Them Confidential

Extraterrestrials, take note: The U.S. Navy plans to set up an official reporting and investigative system that will monitor reports from its pilots about unidentified flying objects. But while this X-Files-worthy operation sounds newsy, don't expect to hear details about it anytime soon. The Navy doesn't intend to make the...

Apr 30, 2019

Could Life on Earth Have Come from Another Star System?

Life may have traveled to Earth from afar, aboard an interstellar visitor like the weird, cigar-shaped object 'Oumuamua, researchers say. 'Oumuamua, which zoomed through the inner solar system last fall, is the first confirmed interstellar object ever observed in our neck of the woods. But that doesn't mean it was...

Apr 30, 2019

1st Evidence of a Black Hole Devouring a Neutron Star Sends Ripples Through Space-Time

The world’s largest gravitational-wave detectors may have just found the first evidence of a black hole devouring a neutron star. When massive objects like neutron stars or black holes collide, they send gravitational waves rippling through the fabric of space-time. It’s these telltale wrinkles in space-time that physicists detected using...

Apr 30, 2019

A Giant Hole in the Martian Atmosphere Is Venting All Its Water into Space

There's a hole in the Martian atmosphere that opens once every two years, venting the planet's limited water supply into space — and dumping the rest of the water at the planet's poles. That's the explanation advanced by a team of Russian and German scientists who studied the odd behavior...

Apr 30, 2019

Here's What SpaceX's Starlink Satellites Look Like in the Night Sky

It's been one day since SpaceX launched its first 60 Starlink internet satellites into orbit, and a skywatching sleuth has already spotted them soaring across the night sky. Netherlands-based satellite tracker Marco Langbroek stunned space fans tonight (May 24) with this jaw-dropping video of dozens of Starlink satellites soaring overhead....

Mar 31, 2019

Dead Planet's Heavy Metal Core Found Rocketing Around a Dead Sun in a Distant Solar System

In case you forgot that nature is totally metal, astronomers have discovered the shattered remains of a dead planet orbiting a dead sun in a distant, desolate solar system. The dead planet's broken heart consists of heavy metal, and it orbits at breakneck speed through a dirty cosmic boneyard full...