Space

The Wow Signal: No, It Wasn’t Aliens

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On a typical muggy midwestern August evening in 1977, astronomers at the Ohio State University’s Big Ear radio telescope got a big surprise. It was a signal so loud that it could only be described with one word: “wow!”

When We’ll Know if NASA’s Asteroid Impact Test was a Success

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Recently NASA’s DART mission succeeded in its primary goal, which was to slam a spacecraft face-first into an asteroid. For science. The intention of the mission was to test if we could actually redirect an asteroid and send it into a different orbit. But how and when will we know if it worked?

The Secret of Pluto’s Ocean

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When we think of an ocean, we don't necessarily think of Pluto. If we can’t see the liquid water, why do astronomers think it’s there?

Is Interstellar Travel Really Possible?

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Listen folks, I love a good sci-fi movie as much as anyone. Cruising around the galaxy, finding weird stuff, and blowing up aliens--it’s all good. But just because a writer can come up with something, it doesn’t make it possible. I’m sorry to say that we’re going to be bound to our solar system for a really, really long time. As in, probably forever.

What to Know About the Crew-1 Spacewalks

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We watched last year as the NASA and SpaceX Crew-1 mission launched and docked to the International Space Station. After roughly ten weeks aboard the station, Crew-1 also known as Expedition 64 is now preparing to take their first spacewalk of the year.

The Kuiper Belt: When Solar Systems Dance

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Pluto isn't alone after all. Besides being the home of Pluto, the Kuiper belt hosts dwarf planets, and smaller bits of rock and ice.

Farewell, Earth’s Mini-moon

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It's time to say goodbye to the mini-moon that's no bigger than your car.

Why has the 2020 Great Conjunction Been Called the Christmas Star?

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The eyes of much of the world have been looking up this week, gazing at Jupiter and Saturn as they dance tantalizingly close to each other.Many in the media and elsewhere have dubbed this planetary pair “the Christmas Star”, in reference to an oft-cited possible connection between the Bible’s Star of Bethlehem and such planetary “conjunctions” as Jupiter and Saturn are now displaying.

First Meteor Shower of 2021 Peaks This Weekend

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Meet the Quadrantids. An annual meteor shower that graces the skies right around January 1. This year the shower will be competing with the light of the moon, but if you're lucky you may be able to catch it in the sky this weekend.

Want to See a Black Hole’s Magnetic Field? Now’s Your Chance

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A couple years ago, the team of astronomers with the Event Horizon Telescope wowed the world by providing our first-ever snapshot of a real-life black hole. Now they’ve done one better and mapped out the swirling magnetic fields around the monster. It’s our first ever glimpse of the forces that power the largest engines in the universe.

Last Call for the King of Planets

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This month Jupiter is entering conjunction which means it's the last chance this year to catch a glimpse of the largest planet in our solar system.

The Milky Way Broke its Arm (But is Totally Okay)

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The Milky Way is a giant, magnificent, truly transcendently beautiful spiral arm galaxy. It’s too bad we can’t get a decent picture of it. The problem is that we live inside it, and so astronomers have to work extra-hard to construct an accurate map.

Female Firsts: Meet Dr. Kathy Sullivan

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In honor of Women's History Month, we're celebrating the achievements of women around the globe and throughout history. From the pages of The Explorers Journal, we're sharing stories from four women who broke boundaries in exploration, research, and science. In our final spotlight, meet the first American woman to walk in space and to reach the deepest known point in the ocean, Dr. Kathy Sullivan.

Lowell Scientists Reveal Second Known Minimoon

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Through use of the Lowell Discovery Telescope, astronomers have gathered data proving that a second known minimoon of Earth exists. Let's learn more about this newly discovered asteroid!

The Nobel Prize Fell Into a Black Hole (and That’s a Good Thing)

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The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics is being awarded to scientists to have dedicated their careers to the study of black holes.

What is “Dark Flow”?

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It sounds super-scary: something from outside the universe, a force so unimaginable, is pulling every single galaxy towards it. What monstrosity of cosmic physics could it be?

Stuck at Home? What to See in the Night Sky this Month

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In times of darkness and incertainty, opt for exploration of wonder in the skies.

That’s a (Weirdly) Big Black Hole!

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Recently astronomers identified a black hole near a star called LB-1 and they found out that the black hole is 70 times the mass of the sun. This is a mystery because the biggest black holes we can get from the deaths of the most massive stars are around 30 times the mass of the sun, so how did black hole get this big?