Category: Solar System

Our solar system

Magnetic fields on the sun could solve longstanding solar heating mystery

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Scientists have long wondered why the hot soup of charged particles in our sun’s atmosphere gets hotter moving away from the surface of the sun. New research may have the answer, finding the super-hot nature of the sun’s outer atmosphere or “corona” could be due to the intriguing behavior of small-scale waves in this nebulous plasma. These waves, known to scientists as “kinetic Alfvén waves” or “KAWs,” are wave-like vibrations of magnetic fields manifested by motions in the sun’s photosphere. The findings could provide an important clue to decoding the…

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Can the moon help preserve Earth’s endangered species?

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Could the moon soon be home to frozen biological samples of Earth’s endangered creatures? New research suggests scientists could use naturally occurring lunar cold spots, some of which haven’t seen sunlight for billions of years, to do just this. Recent studies have shown that as many as 8 million species exist on Earth, and over 1 million of these are under threat of extinction. Worryingly, this estimate could be the tip of the iceberg, as there could be many species that could become extinct before they have even been identified.…

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Moon robots could build stone walls to protect lunar bases from rocket exhaust

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An autonomous, robotic hydraulic excavator could build a dry stone wall to act as a blast shield around a launch pad on the moon, propose a team of Swiss researchers. The excavator would make use of in situ materials (rather than the costly practice of transporting building material from Earth to the moon), collecting rocks on the lunar surface for use in a ringed wall with a radius of between 50 and 100 meters (164 to 328 feet). “The robot would be used to both collect the boulders as well…

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Astrophotographer peers into a cosmic ‘eye’ looking out into the universe

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Miguel Claro is a professional photographer, author and science communicator based in Lisbon, Portugal, who creates spectacular images of the night sky. As a European Southern Observatory Photo Ambassador and member of The World At Night and the official astrophotographer of the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve, he specializes in astronomical “Skyscapes” that connect both Earth and the night sky.  This unusual portrait appears to depict what could be a giant eye, viewed from our lovely planet Earth while staring deep into the beauty of the Milky Way galaxy. It is important to remember that this collection of…

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Astronaut traveling to Titan loses his grip on reality in 1st ‘Slingshot’ trailer (video)

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Slingshot | Official Trailer | Bleecker Street – YouTube Watch On It seems that acclaimed actor Laurence Fishburne (“The Matrix“) has some uncanny attraction to sci-fi projects centered around doomed spaceships, having co-starred in 2016’s “Passengers” and the 1997 cult classic, “Event Horizon.” Now he’s sharing the screen with the Academy Award-winning Casey Affleck (“Manchester By the Sea”) and Tomer Capone (“The Boys”) in Bleecker Street’s upcoming outer space thriller, “Slingshot,” and we’ve got the first full trailer to share to prove our point.  The basic plot revolves around a…

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Dark matter ghosts its way through powerful (and messy) collision of galaxy clusters

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Observing a distant and messy collision between galaxy clusters, astronomers have discovered that dark matter, the most mysterious “stuff” in the universe, passed through the wreckage like a cosmic phantom. The dark matter was detected racing away from the conventional “normal” matter that comprises stars, planets, moons and everything we see around us in the colliding clusters. The galactic clusters “getting ghosted” in this research are part of a complex of thousands of galaxies that are collectively known as MACS J0018.5+1626, which is located around 5 billion light-years from Earth.…

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Watch Atlas V rocket launch on its final national security mission early July 30

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July 30 LIVE Broadcast: Atlas V USSF-51 – YouTube Watch On United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) venerable Atlas V rocket will fly its final national security mission on Tuesday morning (July 30), and you can watch the action live. The Atlas V is is scheduled to launch from Florida’s Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday at 6:45 a.m. EDT (1045 GMT), on a classified mission for the U.S. Space Force called USSF-51.  You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of ULA, or directly via the company. Coverage will begin…

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‘Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Season 5 trailer launches the crew on one last wacky mission (video)

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Official Teaser Trailer | Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 5 | StarTrek.com – YouTube Watch On Parting is such sweet sorrow, and that’ll certainly be the case when Paramount+’s “Star Trek: Lower Decks” rolls out its fifth and final season starting on Oct. 24, 2024. We’ll totally miss “Lower Decks’” zany outer space hilarity enjoyed for the past four seasons and its colorful cast of low-ranking ensigns aboard the U.S.S. Cerritos.  This past weekend during Paramount’s informative “Star Trek” Universe panel at San Diego Comic-Con, the streaming service not…

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Watch devastating Park Fire rage in stunning satellite video

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The second-largest wildfire of 2024 continues to rage in northern California, and satellites are watching the destruction unfold. The Park Fire wildfire is currently burning north of Sacramento and has already consumed more than 560 square miles (1,455 square kilometers), an area larger than the city of Los Angeles. It is already the largest wildfire California has experienced this year. As of July 29, the fire was only 12% contained, according to InciWeb, a wildfire information service operated by the U.S. National Interagency Fire Center. As the fire continues to…

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SpaceX launches back-to-back Starlink satellite missions (photos, videos)

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SpaceX has regained its stride after a failure earlier this month. The company launched two missions on Sunday morning (July 28), lofting batches of its Starlink internet satellites from both coasts atop Falcon 9 rockets less than five hours apart.  The two liftoffs came about 24 hours after a Saturday morning (July 27) Falcon 9 launch, which was the vehicle’s return-to-flight mission after a July 11 failure. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches 23 Starlink satellites from Florida on July 28, 2024. (Image credit: SpaceX) Sunday’s first launch occurred at…

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