Space

Trading Planets- How Space Is Like Baseball

Billions of stars in our galaxy have acquired released planets that once roamed interstellar space. Those free agent worlds left the star systems in which they formed, and found a new home with a different sun. If it sounds a lot like baseball, that's ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 17 2012 - 5:30pm

DeGrasse Tyson Missing Silicon While Distorting Science

Neil deGrasse Tyson shared “deeply cosmic” thoughts, whatever that is supposed to mean, and then “a fascinatingly disturbing thought”- watch it on liveleak. There is a lot one can criticize * about his claims, however, he is missing something obvious that ...

Article - Sascha Vongehr - May 26 2016 - 12:09am

Space Resources: Re-Igniting A Can-Do Spirit Of Ambition

It appears that a small cabal of  billionaires-- those who got rich through innovation and who feel loyal to the future-- are about to to fund a new effort worth some excitement and attention ...

Article - David Brin - Apr 24 2012 - 5:35pm

Stellar Deserts And Planetary Pileups- Why Some Orbits Are More Popular Than Others

Here's an astronomy puzzles: Rather than occupying orbits at regular distances from a star, giant gas planets, like Jupiter and Saturn in our solar system, appear to prefer to occupy certain regions in mature solar systems while staying clear of other ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 23 2012 - 5:00pm

Mini-Jets Blazing Trails In Saturn's F Ring

Half-mile-sized objects have been seen punching through parts of Saturn's F ring, leaving glittering trails behind them.  These mini-jets' trails in the rings fill in a missing link in our understanding of the curious behavior of the F ring.  Sc ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 24 2012 - 5:56pm

Like Life On Earth? Thank Exploding Stars

Research suggests that the explosion of massive stars near the Solar System has strongly influenced the development of life.  When the most massive stars exhaust their available fuel and reach the end of their lives, they explode as supernovae, tremendousl ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 27 2012 - 3:30pm

Samarium-146 Half-Life 30 Percent Shorter So How Long Did It Take Our Solar System To Form?

Our solar system is believed to be around 4.5 billion years old, but it's difficult to know how long it actually took to form.   The reason is, basically, our 'clocks'.   Establishing chronologies of past events or determining ages of object ...

Article - News Staff - May 1 2012 - 1:45pm

Is Our Time In Outer Space Finally At-Hand?

Last week it was asteroid mining, as Peter Diamandis and his partners showed us their bold new venture, Planetary Resources, aiming eventually to start harvesting trillions of dollars worth of materials that would then no longer have to be ripped out of M ...

Article - David Brin - May 2 2012 - 7:28pm

Astronomers: Paparazzi With Brains

Stars live for a long time- millions of years- but near the end of their lives, some massive stars go through what astronomers call the yellow supergiant phase. Because the timeframe is so short, cosmically, witnessing a yellow supergiant phase is rare- al ...

Article - News Staff - May 5 2012 - 10:17am

Tycho Supernova Remnant 55 Light Years Wide

Type Ia supernovae are important for measuring the universe because they're bright enough to be seen across large distances and similar enough to be a reference, an an object of known luminosity- but astronomers still don't know what star systems ...

Article - News Staff - May 9 2012 - 9:13pm