Reading Time: 7 minutes Some of the best science fiction illuminates our stark reality: We are here now, in this present moment, and we have a choice to live, and grow, and learn, and love. Or to give up on all that and destroy ourselves and each other. The scenario is not great, but the choice seems obvious.
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Webb captures galaxy collision bursting with stars
Reading Time: 2 minutes Last week, Vice President Kamala Harris and French President Emmanuel Macron visited NASA headquarters to take a peek at a recent snapshot of two galaxies gracefully swirling together – a galaxy merger referred to as II ZW 96. Taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, this image of two galaxies colliding 500 million light years […]
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‘Planet killer’ asteroids found in inner solar system
Reading Time: 2 minutes Scientists studying inner solar system objects have discovered three nearby asteroids previously shrouded in the Sun’s glare. Two of these are larger than one kilometer, earning the label “planet killer”—and one is the largest potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) discovered in at least the past eight years. Astronomers studying inner solar system asteroids have the odds […]
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Webb’s infrared capabilities reveal hidden cosmic details
Reading Time: 2 minutes The James Webb Space Telescope has continued to capture dazzling interstellar scenery since the first batch of images was released in July. Recent discoveries highlight how useful Webb’s high-resolution, infrared capabilities really are. As Webb’s infrared cameras plunge past visibly opaque gas and dust, previously obscured treasures are revealed. This is particularly useful in the […]
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New tech shatters previous model of Moon’s origin
Reading Time: 3 minutes A team of scientists at Durham University in the UK has flipped the chessboard of our longstanding consensus about the origin of the Moon. It was a story made to capture my attention. In high school English classes, I often lightly plagiarized the last line of Walt Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.” Whitman’s […]
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NASA’s DART shows the explosive power of astronomical collaboration
Reading Time: 2 minutes On September 26th, the clickbait-able happened: NASA smashed a spacecraft going 14,000 mph into an asteroid larger than the Washington Monument. This was intentional, the years-long result of careful planning, engineering, and worldwide collaboration that constituted the Double Asteroid Redirection Test. What was surprising to scientists was just how spectacular DART’s impact with its target […]
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Juno mission snags first close-up of Europa in 22 years
Reading Time: 3 minutes On January 3, 2000, NASA’s Galileo spacecraft passed just 218 miles over the surface of Europa, and gave us our last close-up data of Jupiter’s frozen moon for 22 years. Galileo’s overall tour of the Jovian moons had offered plenty of food for thought: A magnetic field for Ganymede! Volcanic activity on Io! And on […]
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WATCH: NASA livestream of DART probe collision with asteroid begins 9/26 at 6pm EDT
Reading Time: < 1 minute At 7:14pm Eastern Daylight Time, NASA’s DART probe will impact the asteroid Dimorphos in the first attempt to deflect an asteroid from its path. The mission is a dry run for future attempts to deflect asteroids threatening Earth. Livestream begins at 6:00 pm on Monday September 26. Watch a stream of still images from the […]
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NASA shoots for the Moon with Artemis launch
Reading Time: 7 minutes UPDATE: Artemis 1, the first stage of a mission to return people to the surface of the Moon, was originally scheduled to launch on Monday August 29 at 8:33am EDT. That launch has been pushed back due to a failed engine bleed 40 minutes prior to launch. The next available window for launch is September […]
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How much should we worry about asteroids?
Reading Time: 2 minutes I was first introduced to astronomy research through the study of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), when I attended the Yale Summer Program in Astrophysics as a high schooler. I liked to think of it as a kind of astrophysical babysitting project: we kept an eye on our assigned baby asteroid every night, watched its movements, and, […]