On Wednesday morning, a robotic lunar lander launched by a company in Houston came close to reaching the moon. The Intuitive Machines company announced that the Odysseus spacecraft fired its engine for six minutes and 48 seconds, slowing down enough to be pulled by the moon’s gravity into a circular orbit 51 miles above the… Read More »
At any moment this could happen: We could detect an asteroid in an orbit that would pass the Earth. It may be small; It could be something big. Tomorrow may be; It could happen a thousand years from now. So what can we do about this? We know rocks of all shapes and sizes hit… Read More »
Private company Intuitive Machines may soon make history when its commercial lunar lander Odysseus attempts to land near the moon’s south pole on Thursday, February 22. If successful, the Intuitive Machines lander would be the first private probe to make a soft landing on the moon and the first U.S. landing on the lunar surface… Read More »
Scientists analyzed an unusually long burst of high-energy radiation known as a gamma-ray burst (GRB) and determined that it was caused by the collision of two ultra-dense neutron stars. And more importantly, this result helped the team observe a flash of light emanating from the same event, confirming that these mergers were places that created… Read More »
Researchers have synthesized five new isotopes that could help knock stars down to Earth, bringing scientists one step closer to understanding how collisions between ultra-dense, dead stars can create heavy elements like gold and silver. The isotopes are Thulium-182, Thulium-183, Ytterbium-186, Ytterbium-187, and Lutetium-190; This is the first time they were synthesized on Earth. Their… Read More »
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Astronomers have spotted the brightest known object in the universe, and it’s a quasar powered by the fastest-growing black hole on record, according to a new study. Originally classified as a star, the quasar managed… Read More »
Political polarization can be reduced by telling people to think about the personal importance of issues they may not initially care about. As a social psychologist and evolutionary psychologist, we decided to investigate this topic with two of our undergraduate students and recently published our results in the scientific journal PLOS One. Previous research has… Read More »
While expanding nuclear energy production could provide carbon-free energy and help countries around the world meet their climate goals, nuclear energy can also present some inherent risks. Radioactive pollution harms the environment and is almost impossible to detect without special equipment. What if plants growing around the facility could detect radiation pollution? Currently used mechanical… Read More »
Over the next few decades, NASA aims to land humans on the Moon as part of the Artemis program, establish a lunar colony, and use the lessons learned to send humans to Mars. While researchers know that space travel can stress space crew members both physically and mentally and test their ability to work together… Read More »
Two dwarf planets in our solar system, Eris and Makemake, may exhibit enough geothermal activity to maintain oceans of liquid water within them, according to modeling describing new observations made with the James Webb Space Telescope. “We’re seeing some interesting signs of warm times in cool places,” said planetary geochemist Christopher Glein of the Texas… Read More »