Astronomy, features and articles | Educational Science

Dec 31, 2018

This Exploding 'Cow' May Be the First Black Hole Birth Ever Observed

On June 16, 2018, a stupendously bright explosion tore across the cosmos and lingered in the sky above Earth for several weeks. The mysterious blast traveled 200 million light-years from the gut of the Hercules constellation, shone with the light of nearly 100 supernovas and captured the attention of the...

Dec 31, 2018

See Far Side of the Moon in Amazing Panorama from China's Chang'e 4 Lander

China made history earlier this month with the first successful soft landing on the far side of the moon — and now, the mission has sent back an incredible panorama view of its work site. The mission consists of two robots: the Chang'e 4 lander and the Yutu 2 rover....

Dec 31, 2018

What to Expect from the Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse

Call in late to work on Monday (Jan. 21) and prepare to spend Sunday night staring at the sky: The Super Blood Wolf Moon eclipse is coming. That's a mouthful, but let's break it down. January's full moon is a supermoon, meaning that the moon is at the point in...

Dec 31, 2018

How Flat-Earthers Explain Total Lunar Eclipses

During the Super Blood Wolf Moon this weekend (Jan. 20-21), skywatchers in much of the Western Hemisphere saw the moon pass directly through Earth's shadow. Our natural satellite appears red during lunar eclipses for the same reason that sunrises and sunsets appear that shade here on Earth: because sunlight is...

Nov 30, 2020

Drone catches Arecibo Observatory's last moments

The exact moment of Arecibo Observatory's final collapse — when the cables supporting its instrument platform broke — was caught on video by a drone doing a routine inspection flyby, according to a new video released by the observatory Thursday (Dec. 3). The footage, taken just before 8 a.m. local...

Nov 30, 2020

Most accurate map of our galaxy pinpoints 1.8 billion cosmic objects

Astronomers were hit Thursday (Dec. 3) with a huge wave of data from the European Space Agency's Gaia space observatory. Those researchers can now explore the best-yet map of the Milky Way, with detailed information on the positions, distances and motion of 1.8 billion cosmic objects, to help us better...

Nov 30, 2020

Voyager mission finds a new type of electron burst at the edge of our solar system

The Voyager probes left our Solar System years ago, yet even as they travel through interstellar space, they are still detecting bursts of cosmic rays from our Sun, more than 23 billion kilometers (14 billion miles) away. A detailed analysis of recent data from both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2...

Nov 30, 2020

Two strange blobs of X-ray energy are swirling out of the galaxy's center

Millions of years ago, a powerful explosion shook the center of the Milky Way, sending twin shock waves blasting across the sky. Those waves bulldozed through the galaxy, heating up all the gas and dust in their path and leaving two telltale blobs of hot, highly energized gamma-rays in their...

Nov 30, 2020

What was the Star of Bethlehem?

As the well-known story in the Gospel of Matthew goes, three Magi, or wise men, followed the Star of Bethlehem to Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago. And after consulting with King Herod of Judea, the men found newborn baby Jesus in the little town of Bethlehem. Whether such an event...

Nov 30, 2020

Mysterious asteroid the size of a dwarf planet is lurking in our solar system

There's a giant asteroid somewhere out in the solar system, and it hurled a big rock at Earth. The evidence for this mystery space rock comes from a diamond-studded meteor that exploded over Sudan in 2008. NASA had spotted the 9-ton (8,200 kilograms), 13-foot (4 meters) meteor heading toward the...

Oct 31, 2020

Mars: Mounting evidence for subglacial lakes, but could they really host life?

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. David Rothery, Professor of Planetary Geosciences, The Open University Venus may harbour life some 50km above its surface, we learned a couple of weeks ago. Now a new paper, published...

Oct 31, 2020

A Thanksgiving sun treat: Big sunspot rotates into view

A group of sunspots has emerged on the Earth-facing side of the sun, just in time for Thanksgiving. Researchers identified the sunspots before they were even visible from Earth, via a technique called helioseismology, which uses acoustic waves beneath the sun's surface to probe for the features. We measured a...

Sep 30, 2020

Astrophysicists figure out the total amount of matter in the universe

The stuff that makes up our universe is tricky to measure, to put it mildly. We know that most of the universe's matter-energy density consists of dark energy, the mysterious unknown force that's driving the universe's expansion. And we know that the rest is matter, both normal and dark. Accurately...

Sep 30, 2020

Warm pasta helps hot, angry neutron stars cool down

Neutron stars are the angry ghosts of giant stars: hot, whirling cores of exotic matter left behind after supernovas. Like thermoses filled with hot noodle soup, it takes eons for them to cool down. But now, researchers think they know how these stars do it: with a giant helping of...

Sep 30, 2020

NASA finds water on the moon's sunlit surface for the first time

Editor's note: You can follow NASA's announcement of water on the moon live here. For the first time ever, scientists have identified water on the moon's sunlit surface. They also found that water is more common on the moon than previously thought, with pockets of ice hiding in shadowy regions...