Astronomy, features and articles | Educational Science

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...

Mar 31, 2018

Here's How We Know the Big Bang Happened

At 13.8 billion years ago, our entire observable universe was the size of a peach and had a temperature of over a trillion degrees. That's a pretty simple, but very bold statement to make, and it's not a statement that's made lightly or easily. Indeed, even a hundred years ago,...

Mar 31, 2018

Heat Shield for NASA's Next Mars Mission Breaks During Testing

The heat shield for NASA's next Mars spacecraft just cracked open. Luckily, engineers found this out during testing here on Earth, long before the Mars 2020 rover mission leaves for the Red Planet in search of habitable environments there. In preparation for landing, both the rover and the craft's landing...

Feb 28, 2018

Why Meteorologists Don't Know if Tonight's Nor'easter Will Bring Rain or Snow

A powerful storm is on track to strike the U.S. East Coast tomorrow, the second nor'easter to visit the area in two weeks. The storm will arrive tonight (March 6) at 10 p.m. EST and will last until 4 a.m. on Thursday (March 8), according to a winter storm warning...

Jan 31, 2018

These Are the Most Out-of-This-World Photos Ever Taken — Literally

The photos don't look like much: blurry green splotches against pixelated blue. But they're arguably among the most amazing photographic images ever. That's because they were taken from the farthest point from planet Earth of any images ever captured, snapped by a spacecraft just over 3.79 billion miles (6.12 billion...

Dec 31, 2017

Out-of-This-World Diamond-Studded Rock Just Got Even Weirder

A tiny chunk of stone that looks like nothing else ever seen in the solar system might be even weirder than scientists thought. The Hypatia stone was found in southwestern Egypt in 1996. It was hardly more than a pebble, just 1.3 inches (3.5 centimeters) wide at its widest and...

Dec 31, 2017

Wild 360-Degree Video Lets You See the Milky Way As a Giant Black Hole Would

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Ever wish you could see the galaxy from the perspective of a black hole? A new 360-degree simulation that uses data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory is helping astronomers better understand more than 22 stellar giants found at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The...

Dec 31, 2017

How to Watch the Super Blue Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse

A lunar eclipse on Wednesday comes equipped with all sorts of superlatives — and most of North America will get to see at least some of the event. The Super Blue Blood Moon eclipse will occur in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday, Jan. 31, when the full...

Nov 30, 2019

The Universe Remembers Gravitational Waves — And We Can Find Them

Gravitational waves slosh throughout the universe as ripples in space-time produced by some of the most cataclysmic events possible. With facilities like the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo, we can now detect the strongest of those ripples as they wash over the Earth. But gravitational waves leave behind...

Nov 30, 2019

The 10 Biggest Science Stories of the Decade

Given the rapid pace of change in technology and science, it can be easy to forget what we didn't know just a few short years ago. The past decade has seen breakthroughs in physics, biology and astronomy, to name just a few. Which of these discoveries are the most important...

Nov 30, 2019

The Decade in Astronomy: These Space Discoveries Shaped the 2010s

As the 2010s come to a close, it's time to revisit how some of the biggest space science stories shaped the decade. From the rise of TESS to flybys of Pluto and Cassini's dramatic demise, the past ten years have produced some incredible science. Here are some of our favorite...

Oct 31, 2019

The Curiosity Rover Just Took a Very Emo Photo of Its Rocky Martian Prison

Mars is the only known planet in the universe inhabited solely by robots. There's InSight, the sturdy robo-stethoscope listening for the Red Planet's heartbeat; there's Odyssey and the gang, a cadre of droids surveilling the planet from orbit. And then, climbing a lonely crater hundreds of miles away from its...

Oct 31, 2019

Monday, Mercury Makes Rare Appearance with a Trek Across the Sun. Here's How to Watch It.

Our cosmic neighbor Mercury is the runt of the solar system; it's not much bigger than Earth's moon and is so hard to spot that it's known as the elusive planet. But we're about to get a rare and spectacular view of the tiny world as it sails across the...

Oct 31, 2019

'Improbable Planet' Somehow Survives Being Swallowed by Red Giant Star

Scientists have discovered a survivalist planet that shouldn't exist orbiting a pulsating star. Using astroseismology data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, a team of researchers studying the red giant stars HD 212771 and HD 203949 detected oscillations, which are gentle pulsations at the surfaces of stars, lead...

Sep 30, 2019

Is Our Solar System's Mysterious 'Planet 9' Really a Grapefruit-Size Black Hole?

Two physicists think that we should check to see if there's an ancient, grapefruit-size black hole hiding out in our solar system. And that tiny, heavy object might in fact take the place of a theoretical planet that some researchers think might be tugging on other objects in our solar...