Space Sciences

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NASA's Suni Williams on 9 Unexpected Months in Space

"I only promised my husband a week to walk the dogs…” NASA astronaut Suni Williams spent 9.5 months in space after a malfunction, but she never felt stranded.
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Where's the Edge?

Today we’re going right to the edge! Or edges, actually. Or, well, where the edges of things should be. Or might be. Or…okay, you know what, it turns out defining the edges of things out in space is notoriously hard. And because a lot of this is very...
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How the Moon Formed in a Day

The worst day on Earth may have given us the Moon. Astrophysicist Erika Hamden breaks down the giant impact theory, which suggests an object the size of Mars collided with early Earth, liquefying the surface and launching debris that formed the Moon, all...
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Signs of Ancient Life Found on Mars?

NASA’s Perseverance rover recently discovered colorful mineral deposits on the Bright Angel formation in Jezero Crater, features that scientists think could be biosignatures, or fossil-like traces of ancient microbes.
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Going with the Tide

Some people love the ocean, a sentiment that I personally cannot get behind, and one characteristic of those oceans are their tides. But here’s the thing: tides aren’t an ocean thing, they’re a space thing! So in the interest of reclaiming this oceanic...
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Can a Black Hole Swallow a Planet?

A recent new theoretical study suggests that if enough dark matter builds up in a gas giant’s core, it could trigger the formation of a black hole and consume the planet from within.
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What’s What with the Asteroids

There are a whole lot of asteroids in our solar system and we have several different terms that we use to keep track of what asteroid is where and made of what. So let’s continue the vocab lesson and talk about all the (many) ways we can talk about the...
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Blood Moon: How to See It

A Blood Moon is coming on September 7! This total lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon moves into Earth’s darkest shadow, causing it to glow red from sunlight refracted through our atmosphere.
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Are We Missing Alien Signals?

Astrophysicist Simon Steel works with the SETI Institute to detect radio waves from intelligent life across the galaxy. What if the universe has been talking all along, and we’re only just learning how to listen?
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Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Shrinking

Astrophysicist Erika Hamden explains how images from the Hubble Space Telescope show the iconic anticyclone in Jupiter’s southern hemisphere getting smaller since the 1990s.
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Supernovae

I get asked about supernovae a lot in the Planetarium. There’s something incredibly evocative about the violent death of a star via explosion. So what is a supernova? How do they happen? And how did we find a completely new type? Become a kid in a...
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Why is Pluto So Unique: Planet or Not

Despite its 2006 reclassification as a Kuiper Belt object, Pluto remains one of the most intriguing worlds in our solar system.
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Why We Haven’t Found Alien Life

Astrophysicist Simon Steel from the SETI Institute puts it in perspective: If our solar system were the size of a quarter, the Milky Way would stretch across North America.
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New Moon Found Orbiting Uranus: NASA’s JWST Discovery

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has uncovered a brand-new moon orbiting Uranus! At only 6 miles wide, this tiny moon escaped decades of detection.
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Gold vs Diamonds: Which Is Rarer and Why?

Diamonds or gold? Astrophysicist ‪Erika Hamden‬ breaks it down: Diamonds are made of carbon, one of the most common elements in the universe. Gold is forged in incredibly rare events like neutron star collisions.