How to Mourn a Space Robot
NASA’s Cassini probe will soon plunge into Saturn, ending its 13-year mission to the ringed planet and triggering a wave of grief among scientists, engineers, and an adoring public.
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Beawiharta Beawiharta / Reuters The King of Totality
A veteran astronomer describes more than 60 years’ worth of memories from inside the moon’s shadow.
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Courtesy of Pat Rawlings What Would the Solar Eclipse Look Like From the Moon?
A space artist dreamed up the experience in a painting in 1989, nearly three decades before the actual event.
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Yomiuri Yomiuri / Reuters American Marketing Casts Its Shadow
The “Great American Eclipse” is a showcase for great (and sometimes not great) American branding efforts.
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Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters Is the Solar Eclipse a Message From God?
Some communities are anticipating the two-minute astronomical event through the lens of faith.
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NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS Why the Curiosity Rover Stopped Singing 'Happy Birthday' to Itself
The answer, a NASA engineer warned, “will sound rather cold and unfeeling.”
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NASA What Happens When You Heat Moon Rocks to 1,400 Degrees?
Scientists are exposing lunar samples from the Apollo missions in order to peer deep into our lonely satellite’s past.
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Paul Spella / The Atlantic How Blind Astronomers Will Observe the Solar Eclipse
Eclipses are a total sensory experience even for those who can’t see them.
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NASA / JPL-Caltech / Space Science Institute A Crucial Ingredient for Life on Saturn's Largest Moon
Scientists have confirmed the existence of a molecule that potentially could form cell-like membranes on Titan.
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Courtesy of Fred Herrmann The Intergalactic Winds That Built the Milky Way
Computer simulations show that powerful streams of gas can leave one galaxy, travel across space, and get absorbed into another.
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NASA / JPL / USGS Uncovering the Moon’s Hidden Water
Researchers say volcanic deposits across the lunar surface contain water that originated from deep within.
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Google The Street View From Space
The newest images on Google Maps were taken by an astronaut as he floated from module to module.
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NASA / JPL-Caltech / University of Arizona / ... The Mysterious Origins of Mars’s Trailing Asteroids
A cluster of space rocks orbiting the planet may have come from within the planet itself.
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Carolyn Kaster / AP The Strange Radio Signals Coming From a Nearby Star
Astronomers have detected a mystery transmission at a frequency they haven’t observed before.
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Gene Blevins / Reuters How to Find the Smallest Stars in the Universe
While looking for exoplanets, astronomers discovered the tiniest star ever found, just slightly bigger than Saturn.
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David Moir / Reuters How the Internet Deciphered a Fake Alien Message
Dozens of people answered an astrophysicist’s call to decrypt a transmission from an imaginary civilization 50 light-years away.
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NASA / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstädt ... The Closest-Ever Shot of the Great Red Spot
The Juno spacecraft has returned stunning images of Jupiter’s best-known feature.
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Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP Jill Tarter, Feminist Cosmic Icon
A new book about the astronomer describes the struggles she faced while trying to answer one question: Are we alone in the universe?
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Amanda Smith The Milky Way's Fastest Stars Might Be Stolen
New research suggests hypervelocity stars are runaways from another galaxy.
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NASA / JPL-Caltech / GSSR How to Get an Asteroid Named After You
The rules behind the naming rights for cosmic rocks
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Carlo Allegri / Reuters There's a Fried-Chicken Sandwich Floating in the Stratosphere
A high-altitude vehicle has launched high into the Earth’s atmosphere, with a passenger from KFC.
