By serendipity, scientists have photographed Venus’ surface from space for the first time. Though the planet’s rocky body is concealed beneath a thick veil of clouds, telescopes aboard NASA’s Parker…
Category: Space
The James Webb Space Telescope has reached its new home at last
The James Webb Space Telescope has finally arrived at its new home. After a Christmas launch and a month of unfolding and assembling itself in space, the new space observatory…
Scientists can’t agree on how clumpy the universe is
The universe is surprisingly smooth. A new measurement reveals that the universe is less clumpy than predicted, physicists report in a series of papers posted July 30 at arXiv.org. The…
‘The End of Everything’ explores the ways the universe could perish
The End of EverythingKatie MackScribner, $26 Eventually, the universe will end. And it won’t be pretty. The universe is expanding at an accelerating clip, and that evolution, physicists expect, will…
Despite a new measurement, the debate over the universe’s expansion rages on
When it comes to the expansion rate of the universe, physicists have apparently agreed to disagree. Two types of measurements clash over how fast the cosmos is expanding (SN: 7/30/19).…
This is the most comprehensive X-ray map of the sky ever made
A new map of the entire sky, as seen in X-rays, looks deeper into space than any other of its kind. The map, released June 19, is based on data…
Half the universe’s ordinary matter was missing — and may have been found
At long last, all of the universe’s ordinary matter seems to be present and accounted for. Astronomers have taken a new census of matter in the universe by examining how…
Ingenuity is still flying on Mars. Here’s what the helicopter is up to
The Ingenuity Mars helicopter was never supposed to last this long. NASA engineers built and tested the first self-powered aircraft to fly on another planet to answer a simple question:…
A space rock called Kamoʻoalewa may be a piece of the moon
The moon’s violent history is written across its face. Over billions of years, space rocks have punched craters into its surface, flinging out debris. Now, for the first time, astronomers…
Pluto’s dark side reveals clues to its atmosphere and frost cycles
Pluto’s dark side has come into dim view, thanks to the light of the dwarf planet’s moon. When NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past Pluto in 2015, almost all the…
