THE UNIVERSE IS A LOT OF THINGS, BUT EASY TO understand isn’t one of them. Take the fact that more than 80% of its mass is missing. Galaxies spin so fast, they would fly apart if the gravity of some unseen mass weren’t keeping them intact, sur rounding them like a glass paperweight encasing a butterfly. Cosmologists have been trying […]
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NASA scientists have discovered evidence that a large freshwater lake existed on Mars billion of years ago, further strengthening the case that Earth’s neighbor once harbored life.The lake was part of a network of waterways that could have lasted thousands or even millions of years—possibly long enough for simple organisms to take hold there.Those conclusions come from an analysis of […]
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In the sci-fi movie Armageddon, astronauts intercept a killer asteroid heading for Earth, saving mankind. NASA is taking the first step to develop the technology to do just that, by planning a mission to slightly alter an asteroid’s orbit. The mission will also serve as an initial test of a solar-electric propulsion system and other technologies essential for a manned […]
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Out past Pluto NASA has spotted an icy formation that is about 4 billion miles past Earth. This formation has been named Ultima Thule and looks like a snowman. The spacecraft New Horizons while on autopilot is sending back black and white photos to Mission Control in Maryland. This is very exciting since this is the first time a spacecraft […]
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NASA’s InSight Steers Toward Mars. The InSight lander has made its first course correction towards Mars. InSight, short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport, is the first mission dedicated to exploring the deep interior of Mars. The lander is currently encapsulated in a protective aeroshell, which launched on top of an Atlas V 401 rocket on […]
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British astronomers have identified a celestial object so large that it challenges scientists’ basic assumptions about the nature of the universe. Huge-LQG is a cluster of 73 quasars, each of which lies at the center of its own galaxy.The structure measures 4 billion light-years across at its greatest dimension; our own Milky Way galaxy, which is 100,000 light-years across, is […]
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Scientists have discovered a new branch of the Taurids meteor stream that could prove to be a major disaster for Earth, with asteroids up to 1,000 feet wide flying past us every few years. The Taurids meteor shower peaks every October and November, producing a relatively small display of shooting stars as Earth passes through its stream. Meteor showers are […]
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Giant chunks of manmade space junk regularly fall to Earth. It has been reported that only one person has been hit by falling debris and she was not hurt. According to a Harvard University astronomer rocket parts and satellites that weigh two tons, or more are falling uncontrollably to the earth about once a month. If you go back a […]
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Astronomers have discovered two clouds of gas some 12 billion light-years away that appear to preserve the primordial conditions of the universe in the minutes after the big bang. The clouds contain just hydrogen and its isotope deuterium, making them “the first examples to fit precisely” into what scientists think the early universe was like, University of California astronomer Jason […]
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