Why Do We Assume Extraterrestrials Might Want to Visit Us?
It is presumptuous to assume that we are worthy of special attention from advanced species in the Milky Way. We may be a phenomenon as uninteresting to them as…
Tag: Space
To us humans, a single Sun feels completely normal, but our Solar System is actually a weird outlier. Most stars in the Milky Way galaxy have at… Read More
Space exploration achieved several notable firsts in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, including commercial human spaceflight and returning samples of an asteroid to Earth. Read More
A broken cable was the final straw for the already badly damaged Arecibo Observatory’s radio telescope in Puerto Rico. The massive structure’s 900-ton instrument platform collapsed on… Read More
China’s Chang’e 5 mission, tasked with bringing a sample of lunar dirt back to Earth, successfully landed on the Moon on Tuesday, marking the third time that… Read More
A Solar-Powered Rocket Might Be Our Ticket to Interstellar Space
If Jason Benkoski is right, the path to interstellar space begins in a shipping container tucked behind a laboratory in Maryland. The set up looks like something out…
After launching one of its rockets to orbit on Thursday, small satellite launcher Rocket Lab successfully brought the vehicle back to Earth and landed it gently in… Read More
As a professor of physics and astronomy, Janna Levin has contributed to our growing understanding of black holes. In her new book, Black Hole Survival Guide, she takes the… Read More
In April, a group of astronomers spotted a short, powerful blast of radio waves coming from outer space and then successfully found where it was coming from:… Read More
The world’s most advanced telescopes were not made for today’s temperatures, and it’s messing with our observations of the night sky. Read More