The world’s first asteroid sample return mission is providing some stunning insights to the evolution of the primordial pieces of rock floating around in our solar system. But far from asteroids being quiet, peaceful objects drifting through space, analysis of the tiny dust samples from the surface of near-Earth asteroid Itokawa has shown they are…
Scientists are keeping a close eye on a big asteroid that may pose an impact threat to Earth in a few decades. The space rock, which is called 2011 AG5, is about 460 feet wide. It may come close enough to Earth in 2040 that some researchers are calling for a discussion about how to…
Neil deGrasse Tyson, a science crusader and regular guest on “The Daily Show” and other outlets, has a brand-new book out that tackles some of America’s profound space questions. “Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier” is a collection of essays, a few of which have already appeared in other publications. It also includes selected tweets…
Our Milky Way galaxy may be teeming with rogue planets that ramble through space instead of being locked in orbit around a star, a new study suggests. These “nomad planets” could be surprisingly common in our bustling galaxy, according to researchers at the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology. The study predicts that there…
NASA has announced that astronomers using the Spitzer Space Telescope have found solid materials made out of Buckyballs in the star system XX Ophiuchi, which is 6,500 light years from Earth. This builds on some earlier findings, which detected Buckyballs in gaseous form in outer space. Buckyballs are probably one of the funnest molecules in…
If seismic activity on Mars is recent, and it can be traced to a volcano, it could mean that there is a source of heat to melt ice and provide potential habitats for simple forms of life.
After the furies of birth, the mature cosmos now evolves more slowly. Stars will continue to form for as long as another 100 trillion years (about 10,000 times the present age of the universe), which leaves plenty of time for slow-building cosmic phenomena to occur. Check out Scientific American’s cosmic timeline.
Scientists have measured the fastest winds yet observed from a stellar-mass black hole, shedding light on the behavior of these curious cosmic objects. The winds, clocked by astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, are racing through space at 20 million mph, or about 3 percent the speed of light. That’s nearly 10 times faster than…
In three stars far, far away, one of the rarest elements known to man has been spotted, improving our understanding about how heavy elements are created, bolstering evidence that a rare type of supernova may have been responsible for their creation. Tellurium — a brittle and toxic semiconducting metal — has for the first time…
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson relates his personal story of how he became a scientist and his peak spiritual experiences in doing science—including his comprehension that “we are made of stardust!”