The sphere surrounding the Milky Way is called the Local Volume, and it is 35 million lightyears in diameter. In the Local Volume is PGC 18431, a galaxy the Hubble caught as part of a mission to figure out how galaxies cluster and move. … [Read more...]
Could This Be The ESA’s Missing Comet Lander?
After months of searching, the European Space Agency says it may have finally caught a glimpse of the missing Philae Lander on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. During its historic descent back in November 2014, the lander’s harpoons failed to properly deploy and its ice screws were not enough to secure it at its intended landing site, an area known as Agilkia. … [Read more...]
SpaceX’s New Hangar Is A Mammoth Gateway To The Stars
To send really big rockets into space, you need equally enormous buildings to construct them in. Enter SpaceX’s new hangar, under construction right next to the pad that used to send Apollo missions to the Moon. … [Read more...]
What Are Those Pom-Pom Things On A Giraffe’s Head?
Are they horns? Are they antlers? Are they feelers? What are the little tufts on the top of a giraffe’s head? The protuberances that come out of a giraffe’s head make them look a bit like Dr. Seuss characters. … [Read more...]
Three Days Before Returning to Earth, An Astronaut’s Picture of Home
On June 11, Samantha Cristoforetti will return to Earth after two hundred days on the International Space Station. She’ll be setting a record for length of a single mission for ESA astronauts, Italian astronauts and all female astronauts. … [Read more...]
Physicists Recreate Sartre’s No Exit, Using The Efimov Effect
Here’s an example of science becoming dangerously poetic. Under the right conditions, three atoms that all repel each other will be forced into an inseparable triad. It’s time to get existential. … [Read more...]
Eternal Youth Goes Really Dark In The African Clawed Frog
Very occasionally, African clawed frog tadpoles never stop being tadpoles and into frogs. They increase in size, and they reach a form of sexual maturity, but they look eternally young. And then things get grotesque. … [Read more...]
SNORT Is Where NASA Engineers Destroy Next-Generation Parachutes
The fantastically-named Supersonic Naval Ordnance Research Track, or SNORT, is a naval facility in the heart of the Californian desert. It’s also where NASA engineers let their evil side run free by wreacking havoc on innocent objects, using a rocket sled to destroy prototype parachutes destined for Mars. … [Read more...]