As sci-fi fans who love our furry friends, we can all agree that there needs to be more dogs included in our favorite franchises. Except for Cosmo the Wonderdog and “Spaceballs’” Barf, there’s an unacceptable void when it comes to a diversity of cosmic canines sniffing around the universe. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” IDW Publishing will be gifting us a new five-issue comic book miniseries “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The Dog of War (opens in new tab)” in April of 2023…
Read MoreMonth: December 2022
‘Atmospheric river’ hits US West Coast with rain and snow as satellites watch from space
An “atmospheric river” is dumping a “pineapple express” upon the U.S. west coast, but no fruits are involved in this process. Heavy rain and snow are visible in Earth-gazing satellites on Thursday (Dec. 29) gazing at the U.S. west coast, including several in the fleet of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Much of California is now under flood watch after facing severe droughts and wildfires through 2022, NOAA said in a tweet (opens in new tab). The state is now under an “atmospheric river”, which is a thin…
Read MoreHIRISE Spots Martian Crater Deposits
This image taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft’s HIRISE instrument on Oct. 23, 2022, of the northern plains of Arabia Terra shows craters that contain curious deposits with mysterious shapes and distribution.
Read MoreNobody took John F. Clauser’s quantum experiments seriously. 50 years later, he’s collecting a Nobel Prize.
On Oct. 4, 80-year-old John F. Clauser woke up in his California home to the news that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in physics (opens in new tab). He received the prize at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on Dec. 10 together with Anton Zeilinger and Alain Aspect for their work on quantum entanglement. It was a moment of celebration for Clauser, whose groundbreaking experiments with particles of light helped to prove key elements of quantum mechanics (opens in new tab). “Everybody wants to win a Nobel Prize,”…
Read MoreSatellite sees deadly blizzard and ‘bomb cyclone’ blanket the US northeastern in snow (photos)
A “bomb cyclone” had widespread effect across the United States and Canada. Fresh satellite imagery shows snow and clouds blanketing the northeastern U.S. states along with Canada’s province of Ontario. The treacherous conditions on the ground Saturday (Dec. 24) and Sunday (Dec. 25) included blizzards, thick snow and freezing rain, posing a threat to travelers during the peak holiday season. “As winds howled and snow piled up from what some forecasters called a ‘once-in-a-generation’ storm (opens in new tab), so did the traffic accidents, power outages, and transportation woes,” NASA officials…
Read MoreThe James Webb Space Telescope can use its full name in British journal again after controversy
A prominent British scientific society is allowing James Webb’s name to appear in academic papers again, following an “apparent failure” to investigate the former NASA chief’s past. The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) previously criticized NASA for not immediately addressing concerns that Webb persecuted queer employees; the NASA-led James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) that launched in December 2021 is named after him. But with new information to hand suggesting Webb played no direct role in these issues, Webb’s name can now reappear in scientific papers, the RAS stated Dec.…
Read MoreBest Space Station Science Imagery of 2022
The International Space Station continues its scientific journey orbiting over 200 miles above the Earth’s surface.
Read MoreStars young and old glitter with ‘nebulosity’ in Hubble telescope photos
The Hubble Space Telescope has captured two dazzling views from a single star-studded place. When the first stars formed in the globular cluster NGC 1850 about 100 million years ago, they expelled gas and dust into space. But their collective gravity was massive. And so, the cluster held on tight to the cast-off stuff and drew in more stellar building-blocks from its surroundings, too. This led to a second generation of stars. NASA officials shared this story (opens in new tab) to accompany two images of the cluster from the…
Read More‘The Short Story of the Universe’ fits a big topic into your pocket
It’s a big universe, but a new book from an All About Space editor crunches it down into a compact guide. The universe, Milky Way and other incredible space objects are the centerpiece of “The Short Story of the Universe (opens in new tab)“, by astronomer Gemma Lavender. The book is available now from Laurence King Publishing. Lavender is a long-time space writer for All About Space and also Space.com, as the two are sister websites. Lavender summarizes nearly 14 billion years of the universe’s history in little more than…
Read MoreHow do we know the fundamental constants are constant? We don’t.
Through a variety of tests on Earth and throughout the universe, physicists have measured no changes in time or space for any of the fundamental constants of nature. All of modern physics rests on two main pillars. One is Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which we use to explain the force of gravity. The other is the Standard Model, which we use to describe the other three forces of nature: electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force. Wielding these theories, physicists can explain vast swaths of interactions…
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