30 years ago, ‘The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror special introduced us to Kang & Kodos, the series’ iconic alien invaders

“Foolish, Earthlings!” The line most commonly uttered by two drooling aliens who have become a staple of “The Simpsons”‘ famed Treehouse of Horror episodes – Kang and Kodos. No, literally,…

Simulating solar storms for satellite operator training

Space weather simulations exercise at ESOC. Credit: ESA Threats from space aren’t always obvious, but statistically, it’s only a matter of time before one of them happens. One of the…

Europe’s deep-sea telescope on a hunt for the origins of the universe

Credit: AI-generated image Below the waves of the Mediterranean, Europe’s KM3NeT neutrino telescope is on a cosmic hunt. Towering strings of sensors stretch a kilometer down to the seafloor, arranged…

Cosmic ‘brain’ ponders the cosmos in colorful new photo of the Medulla Nebula

Kentucky-based astrophotographer David Joyce has shared a glorious deep space vista revealing the fossil light of a vast supernova remnant created in the death throes of an enormous star some…

Astronomers expose CO-dark molecular gas, previously invisible to telescopes

Watch SpaceX launch its record-breaking 139th mission of the year today

SpaceX will launch its record-setting 139th mission of the year today (Oct. 23), and you can watch the action live. A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off from…

Condensation defying gravity

Experiment viewed from above. Credit: European Space Agency From dew at dawn to a foggy mirror after a shower, condensation is part of our daily lives on Earth. In space,…

3 billion-year-old white dwarf still consuming its planetary system challenges previous assumptions

Credit: Space Telescope Science Institute In approximately 5 billion years, the sun will deplete its hydrogen fuel and collapse under its own gravity, becoming a white dwarf. Though Earth-sized, this…

The Smithsonian might have to cut space shuttle Discovery into pieces to get it to Texas

The tug-of-war over space shuttle Discovery is becoming more volatile. Discovery — the crown jewel of the Smithsonian Institution’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia — is the subject of a…

Sentinel-4 offers first glimpses of air pollutants

First image of nitrogen dioxide from Sentinel-4, depicting tropospheric nitrogen dioxide with clear pollution hotspots visible along the Mediterranean coast and over Italy’s Po Valley. Credit: modified Copernicus Sentinel data…