SpaceX’s huge Super Heavy Starship The most powerful rocket ever built made its third test flight on Thursday morning. The test was intended to elevate the pilotless upper stage into space with a suborbital jump for a controlled re-entry and splashdown into the Indian Ocean. The giant rocket’s 33 Raptor engines, consuming 40,000 pounds of… Read More »
Dusty barns, shiny barns and damp basements. These are all places where you might find a house mouse or a member of my research team. I’m an evolutionary biologist, and my lab at Drexel University studies wild house mice. With the help of Philly residents, we’ve been collecting mice from high-rises and rowhouses to learn… Read More »
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. After two exciting and explosive test flights in 2023, the SpaceX Starship rocket has returned to the launch pad of the Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. The deep space rocket system aims to undergo… Read More »
Scientists have taken a device originally designed to study massive celestial bodies in the universe and repurposed it to study Earth on a much smaller scale. With this device, they managed to examine the heart of the atom. The team wanted to understand the quantum-scale changes occurring in unstable atoms and realized they had a… Read More »
Math geeks around the world, from college kids to rocket scientists, celebrate Pi Day on Thursday, March 14, or 3/14; this is the first three digits of an infinite number that has many practical uses. Many people around the world will celebrate the day with a slice of cake (sweet, savory, or even pizza). Simply… Read More »
If there is one thing that has bothered me most in my more than 50 years of working in the field of astronomy, it is that most astronomy books give the impression that the planet Mercury is a very challenging, if not nearly impossible, object to see. In fact, this has earned the planet the… Read More »
This waving mass of dust filaments and gas tendrils stretches for 100 meters. light years It is the Vela of space like delicate lace supernova remnant – scattered ashes of a star that exploded about 11,000 years ago. The image was obtained by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) mounted on the Victor M. Blanco 4… Read More »
The Red Planet continues to surprise us. New research has revealed a giant volcano and possible buried glacial ice sheet. The location for this groundbreaking announcement is in the eastern part of the Tharsis volcanic field on Mars, near the planet’s equator. Due to its eroded, difficult-to-detect nature, the feature had been overlooked since Mariner… Read More »
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Excavations at an archaeological site in Panama have uncovered the tomb of a religious leader buried 1,200 years ago, as well as gold objects and numerous other human remains. Researchers found the ancient tomb in… Read More »
Imagine driving to work on a rainy day when a distracted, careless driver suddenly crashes into your car. With a “bang” the airbag deploys faster than you can blink to save your life. This airbag deployed quickly thanks to sodium azide, an energetic material that produces nitrogen gas during the chemical reaction to inflate your… Read More »