Space, features and articles | Educational Science

Aug 31, 2021

Asteroid three times the size of the Statue of Liberty will zoom past Earth on fall equinox

On Wednesday (Sept. 22), the fall equinox will bring the Earth about 12 hours of daylight, 12 hours of night and a renegade space rock measuring about three times the size of the Statue of Liberty. This asteroid, named 2021 NY1, will sail harmlessly past our planet, according to NASA's...

Aug 31, 2021

Louisiana's missing moon rock found in Florida thanks to broken gun

A long-lost piece of the moon belonging to the state of Louisiana may have remained missing — if not also been discarded or destroyed — had the plaque on which it was mounted not attracted the eye of a Florida gun collector. The man, who was looking for wood samples...

Jul 31, 2021

Mysterious dimming of bright star Betelgeuse possibly explained

The mysterious strange dimming seen last year in the huge star Betelgeuse may be from giant sunspots and temperature fluctuations. A new study suggests a large dark spot led to Betelgeuse's surface temperature dropping, which in turn contributed to a temporary dimming in the red giant's luminosity or inherent brightness....

Jul 31, 2021

Black holes could give away their size by their 'messy eating'

Astronomers think they have a new way to calculate the size of supermassive black holes: by studying the feeding patterns of these invisible giants. Scientists have long noticed flickering patterns in the brightness of accretion disks, the fat ring of matter pulled in by a black hole's gravity. But researchers...

Jul 31, 2021

What is multiverse theory?

Multiverse theory suggests that our universe, with all its hundreds of billions of galaxies and almost countless stars, spanning tens of billions of light-years, may not be the only one. Instead, there may be an entirely different universe, distantly separated from ours — and another, and another. Indeed, there may...

Jun 30, 2021

Virgin Galactic launches Richard Branson to space in 1st fully crewed flight of VSS Unity

Early this morning (July 11), billionaire Richard Branson and three other passengers briefly went to space for the first fully crewed spaceflight of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo spaceplane. At 8:40 a.m. local time (10:40 a.m. EDT; 1440 GMT), the crew of Virgin Galactic's Unity 22 test flight mission took off from...

Jun 30, 2021

18-year-old physics student to fly to edge of space with Bezos

Blue Origin has revealed the identity of the first paying customer aboard its New Shepard capsule, set to launch on Tuesday, July 20, and reach the edge of space. And it might not be someone you expected. The lucky (and wealthy) winner of an auction for the seat is Oliver...

Jun 30, 2021

NASA revives ailing Hubble Space Telescope with switch to backup computer

The Hubble Space Telescope has powered on once again! NASA was able to successfully switch to a backup computer on the observatory on Friday (July 16) following weeks of computer problems. On June 13, Hubble shut down after a payload computer from the 1980s that handles the telescope's science instruments...

Jun 30, 2021

What would happen if the moon were twice as close to Earth?

In the 2003 Jim Carrey movie Bruce Almighty, Carrey's character suddenly acquires God-like powers, and uses those powers to lasso the full moon and pull it closer to Earth to woo his beloved. Later in the movie, background shots show TV news reports about massive, unprecedented flooding around the world....

Jun 30, 2021

How much will Jeff Bezos' New Shepard rocket warm the planet?

How much pollution is Jeff Bezos going to generate during his trip to space? It turns out that, when it comes to adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket should be among the cleanest launch vehicles around, though climate change concerns from suborbital spacecraft could increase...

May 31, 2021

SpaceX launches new solar arrays to space station, nails rocket landing at sea

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX launched its 17th rocket of the year today (June 3), sending a robotic Dragon cargo capsule toward the International Space Station before nailing a landing at sea. A two-stage Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Pad 39A here at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 1:29...

May 31, 2021

How to watch the 'ring of fire' solar eclipse on Thursday

In the first solar eclipse of the year, the moon will almost entirely block the sun, leaving only a fiery ring of Earth's star visible Thursday (June 10) morning. Skygazers in just a few places — in parts of Canada, Greenland and northern Russia — will be able to spot...

May 31, 2021

How to watch 'ring of fire' solar eclipse live or online

The moon will blot out part of the sun during the ring of fire solar eclipse on Thursday (June 10) morning. But, no one should simply gaze upward at a solar eclipse (unless the sun is completely covered by the moon during totality, which is NOT happening this time). So,...

May 31, 2021

What is the Milky Way?

The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy, one of hundreds of billions in the observable universe. It's also our home. Like other galaxies, the Milky Way is an isolated collection of stars and other material bound together by their common gravity. In addition to the 100 billion to 400...

May 31, 2021

100,000 star nurseries mapped in first-of-its-kind survey

Stellar nurseries, the cauldrons of gas and dust where stars are forged, are far more diverse than astronomers first thought, according to a new, first-of-its kind survey. Astronomers at the Physics at High Angular Resolution in Nearby Galaxies (PHANGS) project have systematically charted more than 100,000 nurseries across 90 galaxies,...