Many countries are targeting the Moon as an extraterrestrial target for long-term human existence. It’s highly praised for NASA to once again make a real “footstep” on the Moon through the Artemis program the The way to walk and train to walk towards Mars. Such a future endeavor could in many ways be compared to… Read More »
The first British professional female astronomer, Caroline Herschel, made contributions to astronomy that are still important today. But even many astronomers may not recognize his name. Most scientists care about the latest techniques, data, and theories in their field, but they often know little about the history of their discipline. Astronomers like me are no… Read More »
Texas is no stranger to winter wildfires, but the severity of the Smokehouse Creek fire — the state’s largest fire on record after burning more than 1 million acres — caught even experts off guard. Its severity was due to a perfect storm of environmental factors: highly flammable grasses and strong winds, coupled with record… Read More »
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Those who look at the sky A total solar eclipse will occur across North America on April 8 over Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The event will be visible to millions of people, including… Read More »
Abraham “Snake” Ah Hee rides the waves when the tide is high and dives for octopus and shells when the water is calm. The lifelong Lahaina, Hawaii resident spends so much time in the ocean that his wife jokes he should wet his gills. But these days, Ah Hee worries that the water in front… Read More »
Move over, moon rocks: There’s a new kind of space rock on display at Space Center Houston. The official visitor center of NASA’s Johnson Space Center on Friday, March 1, became only the second place in the world where the public can view a sample of asteroid Bennu collected and returned to Earth by the… Read More »
Editor’s note: A version of this story appeared in CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Sign up for free to get it in your inbox Here. Fungi are fascinating and integral parts of the web of life. They also have a somewhat mixed reputation. On the one hand, fungi and fungal root networks are sought-after sources… Read More »
Two supermassive black holes in colliding “fossil galaxies” are so massive that they refuse to collide and merge. This discovery may explain why supermassive black hole mergers have been theoretically predicted but never observed. The supermassive black hole system is located in the elliptical galaxy B2 0402+379. The common mass of two black holes is… Read More »
Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to investigate a stellar nursery full of baby stars in the Orion Nebula. The research helped reveal the impact of radiation from massive stars on planet formation. The Orion Nebula is a huge complex of gas and dust that forms the building blocks of new stars. In fact,… Read More »
Scott Kelly recently returned to the International Space Station during a trip to Berlin. Kelly, who became the first American astronaut to spend more than 500 days away from the planet, including nearly a year on the space station during his fourth and final spaceflight in 2016, was in Germany when he stepped back into… Read More »