High-Tech Meteorite Hunting
Scientists estimate that thousands of extraterrestrial rocks enter our atmosphere every year, most of which burn up or fragment into smaller pieces before hitting Earth. Here’s how the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at NASA/JPL refer to various space objects. Asteroid: A relatively small, inactive, rocky body orbiting the Sun. Comet: A relatively small, […]
First Extragalactic Planets Found
No doubt you’ve heard about extrasolar or exoplanets; planets that were discovered orbiting a star outside of our own solar system. Nearly 3,000 of these planets have been confirmed so far, with many more candidate planets waiting to be verified. However, these planets have all been discovered within our own Milky Way galaxy. An astrophysics […]
Science Images – January 2018
Voyager 1; Humans Peak; Distant Black Hole
JPL Fires Up Voyager 1 Thrusters after 37 Year Rest Imagine you’ve discovered a rare gem of a car that’s been tucked away in a barn for the last 37 years. The barn’s owner says it’s yours if you can drive it away. But if you’ve ever tried to start a motor vehicle and keep it […]
Light Pollution Increasing; No Flowing H20 on Mars; Keeping Cows Happy
Light Pollution Continues to Ruin View of Night Sky More of us are becoming unable to witness the full breathtaking beauty and majesty of the sparkling Milky Way because of a growing problem called light pollution. According to oxforddictionaries.com, light pollution is defined as the brightening of the night sky caused by street lights and […]
October 2017 Science Images
Eek! Spiders and Snakes; Interstellar Visitor; Sugar Boosts Cancer Growth
Why We Don’t Like Spiders and Snakes Two of the most common fears among people from around the world are arachnophobia, which is a fear of spiders and ophiophobia, the fear of snakes. Whether they live in rural communities or in the heart of a big city, most people generally get, at least, a little […]
September 2017 Science Images
60 Days in Bed For Science; Asteroid Belt Mystery Solved & Ice on Mercury?
Mystery Asteroid Belt Object Really a Binary Asteroid Back in 2011 a Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System or PanSTARRS survey detected an object in the asteroid belt displaying comet-like activity. So along with being labeled an asteroid, when it was discovered five years earlier, scientists also gave it a comet designation. After analyzing […]
Goodbye Cassini; Shape-Shifting Bacteria; New Horizons Wakes Up
NASA Cassini Mission to Saturn Comes to Fiery End English Poet Geoffrey Chaucer once said, “all good things must come to an end”. And so it goes with NASA’s Cassini mission, which provided a close-up look of Saturn, its moons and famous rings over the last 13 years, came to a blazing end on September […]