Tag Archives: space

For the first time in more than half a century, a US-built spacecraft has made a soft landing on the moon. There was high drama and plenty of intrigue on Thursday evening as Intuitive Machines attempted to land its Odysseus spacecraft in a small crater not all that far from …

It’s been over a half century since humans first set foot on the Moon, but today we understand more about our universe than ever. Our journey into the unknown has been fueled by human curiosity, innovation and even war. Join us as we dive deep into the history of space …

Voyager 1 is still alive out there, barreling into the cosmos more than 15 billion miles away. However, a computer problem has kept the mission's loyal support team in Southern California from knowing much more about the status of one of NASA's longest-lived spacecraft. The computer glitch cropped up on …

Way up in the sky and sprinkled across the seas, two of the littlest yet most influential things in the world have stubbornly guarded their secrets: aerosols and phytoplankton. Today, NASA launched its Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem mission, or PACE, to unravel their mysteries. The mission’s findings could be …

In the beginning there was only one. It looked like an aluminum beach ball with four car antennas sticking out. Stuffed with radio transmitters, history’s first human-made satellite emitted a spectral beeping signal from its solitary orbit for just three weeks before its batteries died. That was enough to terrify …

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. When Galileo Galilei, a mathematician at the University of Padua, trained a spyglass of his own creation on the sky, he was overwhelmed with what he saw—more than 500 new stars in the constellation Orion, in addition to the familiar …

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. For most of humankind’s existence, Earth was the only known ocean-draped world, seemingly unlike any other cosmic isle. But in 1979, NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft flew by Jupiter. Its moon Europa, a frozen realm, was decorated with grooves and fractures—hints …

The Apple TV+ series For All Mankind is an alternate history story in which the Soviet Union beats the United States to the moon, leading to a greatly intensified space race. Screenwriter Rafael Jordan was excited to see another science fiction show from Ronald D. Moore, creator of the hit …

Since its launch in December 2021, the James Webb Telescope continues to provide breathtaking images and unprecedented insight about the celestial beyond. From stunning exoplanets, to galaxies far, far away, the $10 billion dollar telescope has become an integral instrument for space exploration. These are 10 mind-blowing discoveries from the …

“Where did all this come from? How did it all get started?” These are the questions that Dr. Nergis Mavalvala asks about the universe. It’s not the meaning-of-life stuff in the traditional sense, but more of how everything around us came to be. These are the questions we all have, …