World / Science & Health May 5, 2023
With a gulp and burp, a bloated star swallows a Jupiter-sized planet
by Will Dunham
As the star grew, its surface reached the orbit of the doomed planet, with mayhem ensuing.
World / Science & Health Mar 20, 2023
How can we measure droughts and deluges? Weigh the planet.
by Mira Rojanasakul
Scientists have long cautioned that warming temperatures would lead to wetter and drier global extremes. A new study shows where that may already be happening.
World / Science & Health Mar 16, 2023
New analysis reveals dynamic volcanism on Venus
by Will Dunham
Radar images taken by NASA's Magellan spacecraft show that a volcanic vent about 1.6 kilometers wide on the Venusian surface expanded and changed shape over an eight-month span in 1991.
National Nov 9, 2022
The total lunar eclipse coincided with a lunar occultation of Uranus, in which the planet is eclipsed by the moon — something that hasn't been seen in 442 years.
National / Science & Health Jul 5, 2022
Japanese research project aims to create Earth-like artificial gravity
by Tomoko Otake
The study by Kyoto University and construction firm Kajima hopes to bring ideas out of sci-fi and into reality by enabling humans to live outside of Earth.
World / Science & Health Dec 24, 2021
Massive Webb telescope may see close to the beginning of time
by Justin Bachman
When it begins its work in mid-2022, the telescope will help scientists study some of the earliest light in the universe and peer more closely at planets in other galaxies.
World / Science & Health Dec 3, 2021
Hot little planet as dense as iron zips around red dwarf star
by Will Dunham
Scientists are eager to find exoplanets — as these alien worlds are known — to look for good candidates that may nurture extraterrestrial life.
World / Science & Health Jun 3, 2021
New NASA missions will study Venus, a world overlooked for decades
by Kenneth Chang
After numerous missions by the United States and the Soviet Union to explore it in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, attention shifted elsewhere.
World / Science & Health Apr 20, 2021
NASA’s Mars helicopter completes first flight on another world
by Kenneth Chang
Like the first flight of an airplane by Wilbur and Orville Wright, the flight did not go far or last long, but it showed what could be done.
World / Science & Health Mar 5, 2021
'Super-Earth' may offer clues about atmospheres on distant worlds
by Will Dunham
Scientists have spotted a planet orbiting a star relatively near our solar system that may offer a prime opportunity to study the atmosphere of a rocky Earth-like alien world — the type of research that could aid the hunt for extraterrestrial life. The researchers said ...
Commentary / World Dec 23, 2020
We’re never going to mine the asteroid belt
by David Fickling
One factor rules out most space mining at the outset: gravity. It guarantees that most of the solar system’s best mineral resources are to be found under our feet on Earth.
National Jul 28, 2020
Japan team finds traces of one of largest craters in solar system
A Japanese research team has announced the discovery of traces of the largest impact craters in the solar system on a moon of Jupiter. The group from Kobe University and National Institute of Technology, Oshima College analyzed images of Ganymede's surface taken by the Voyager ...