Explorer

There are almost one million asteroids and comets in our solar system. And every single one of them (we think) formed here, within our solar system, alongside the planets just over 4.5 billion years ago. However, in the summer months of 2017, an object not borne from the Solar System made a silent entrance, whipped around the Sun in September 2017, and started heading out again, never to return. This object, now named ‘Oumuamua, was the first asteroid discovered from outside the solar system

The Boomerang Nebula is the coldest location in the known universe at roughly 2 degrees colder than empty space! This nebula is the result of the death of a red giant star, and the extreme temperature is caused by the rapid expansion of the nebula. According to thermodynamics, if you expand a gas you cool a gas (just try using one of those compressed air cans for cleaning electronics). However, according to astronomers, a single star's death could not account for a strong enough wind to create

The first exosolar planet (a planet orbiting a star other than the Sun) was discovered in 1995, and since then humans have found over 3600 planets outside of our solar system. Some of those found are orbiting not one star like we do, but two stars. For example, stars Kepler-35A and 35B orbit each other, but a planet Kepler-35b, orbits both of them. This is much more like the fantasy word Tatooine in the space epic Star Wars than our own planet Earth. In A New Hope, we see young Luke Skywalker

A new company called Earth-i has announced it will be launching a constellation of satellites into Earth's orbit that will download "fast-turn-around pictures and colour video of the planet's surface."

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has issued a challenge to its public: increase the efficiency of one of its high-level research software and win $55,000 USD. Many of us forget that NASA also works in aeronautics, not just space. In order to develop cutting edge air planes and other flight tech, NASA begins with simulating airflow using a Fortran code called FUN3D. However, FUN3D isn't able to keep up with some of the simulations its been given. As a result, NASA has

Around this time of year, the Black Sea blooms with a massive growth of phytoplankton. This particular species of phytoplankton known as coccolithophores, are plated with white calcium carbonate, making the bloom very easy to see from space. NASA's Aqua satellite gathered these data.

When you read a scientific story in a popular blog or magazine, many times you will see the caveat "artist interpretation" next to some of the accompanying images. This as a gross undersell of the time, effort, and most important, accuracy, that goes into developing the renders. While we don't know what a black hole or an exoplanet looks like, it is important to attempt to visualize them, and to do it as accurately as possible. This video is an interview with two people who are responsible for

The Cassini spacecraft took this image of the north pole of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, in the near-infrared. The dark spots near the top of the image are Titan's massive polar lakes of methane. Also visible are white streaks of cloud. The Saturnian system has moved into summer solstice for the northern hemisphere, shedding more light on Titan's north pole.

The Boomerang Nebula is the coldest location in the known universe: it measures at roughly 2 degrees colder than empty space! This nebula is the result of the death of a red giant star, and the extreme temperature is caused by the rapid expansion of the nebula. According to thermodynamics, if you expand a gas you, cool a gas (just try using one of those compressed air cans for cleaning electronics). However, according to astronomers, a single star's death could not account for a strong enough

The Cassini spacecraft has made some truly remarkable discoveries within the Saturnian system, where it has been orbiting for the last 13 years. One such discovery is of the walnut-shaped moons: Atlas, Daphnis, and Pan. These moons sport a prominent equatorial ridge pattern circumnavigating the moons (Saturn's moon Iapetus also as an equatorial feature, though not as prominent as these). The ridges are due to where the moons are located. They are all located in or very near to the ring system