365 Days of Astronomy - Weekly Edition

Here’s a familiar question: How’s the weather? We’re familiar with the weather on Earth and telescopes and missions are watching the weather on other planets in the Solar System. But for the first ti…

Most of the exoplanets we’ve found are around stars, where they belong. But a few have been found free-floating in interstellar space. The evidence is growing that there are a lot of them out there, …

Our galaxy series continues, on to spiral galaxies. In fact, you’re living in one right now, but telescopes show us the various shapes and sizes these galaxies come in. Thanks to JWST, we’re learning…

How old is that star? That planet? That nebula? Figuring out the ages of astronomical objects is surprisingly challenging. Fortunately, astronomers have developed a series of techniques they can use …

Last week, we learned about the death of Peter Higgs, a physicist and discoverer of the particle that bears his name. The Large Hadron Collider was built to find and describe the particle. Today, we’…

Several of the planets and moons in the Solar System are in orbital resonance, orbiting in a geometric lockstep. And not just the Solar System, astronomers have found the same resonances in other sta…

Last week was one of the most exciting meetings we’ve seen from the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, with hundreds of announcements and discoveries from various missions. One theme kept coming…

You’ve probably heard that the best kind of science is peer-reviewed research published in a prestigious journal. But peer review has problems of its own. We’ll talk about that today.

NASA works on many missions using tried and true technology, but they also invest in creative ideas that could drive the future of space exploration. It’s called NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts o…

In the olden days, NASA developed its missions using a variety of in-house engineers and external suppliers. As more commercial companies are targeting the Moon, NASA is working with partners to deli…

Last week we talked about sample return missions from the Moon and Mars, but scientists have retrieved samples from other objects in the Solar System, including comets and asteroids. What does it tak…

We’ve sent robots to other worlds, but the amount of science we can deploy to another planet can’t compare with the vast science labs we have on Earth. That’s why more and more missions are for a sam…

We’re so familiar with NASA’s exploration efforts in space, but you might be surprised to learn that China launches almost as many rockets as the US. They’ve got their own space exploration program t…

Wherever we find liquid water on Earth, we find life, so it makes sense to search for water across the Universe, and hopefully we can find evidence of life. But what about worlds which are completely…

NASA’s Juno spacecraft has completed dozens of flybys of Jupiter, seeing the planet from many angles and delivering some of the most beautiful images we’ve ever seen of the Jovian world. Now it’s foc…