space

For central Floridians, a rocket breaking the blue serenity of a Florida sky with its white contrails is almost—although not quite—as common as the fireworks from nearby theme parks that paint the night sky a kaleidoscope of colors. And…

The sun is always releasing streams of charged particles, dubbed “solar winds.” When a fast-moving solar wind stream overtakes a slower stream, it creates a shock wave, much like a boat moving through water creates a wake, resulting in…

Silica aerogel could warm the Martian surface similar to the way greenhouse gasses keep Earth warm

The largest planet in the solar system also has the brightest aurora, with a radiant power of 100 terawatts. It would take 100,000 power plants to produce this light. Jupiter's auroras, like Earth’s, display themselves as two huge oval…

For the first time since 1969, America is in a space race. This time, though, the race is happening (largely) within our borders, and amongst the participants are several well-known entrepreneurs with clear goals – and strong rationales –…

It's happening May 1st.

Fire in any kind of confined space or controlled atmosphere is even more terrifying than it is in the wild. Fires in space are particularly tough to tackle for two reasons: fire behaves differently in space and most of the fires that occur…

The first-ever image of a black hole, captured from more than 55 million light years away in galaxy Messier 87, did more than open a new era of astrophysics. It unleashed a flurry of memes across the Web. From speculations of what the…

As exploration missions venture beyond low-Earth orbit and to the Moon — and eventually Mars — NASA must consider automated technologies to keep habitats operational even when they are not occupied by astronauts. To help achieve this, NASA…

The space race has shifted to the private sector and visionaries are setting their sights on locations beyond the moon. But the fuel used to propel rockets into space hasn’t changed since the days of Apollo 11 and the space shuttle era.…