Science

Update (7:27 p.m.) – SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base Tuesday night. It took off at 7:05 p.m. and carried 26 Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit. The first-stage booster successfully landed on a drone ship in the Pacific. ___ A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to liftoff from Vandenberg Space Force Base Tuesday night. …

Dark shapes pictured on the surface of Mars resembling spiders. Image credits: NASA / ESA. For years, satellites around Mars have been finding mysterious, spider-like geological structures. Mars spiders, scientifically known as araneiform terrain, are unique geological formations predominantly found in the southern hemisphere of Mars. They appear as branching, spider-like channels etched into the Martian surface, sometimes spanning over …

When an asteroid made Meteor Crater in northern Arizona, it did more than leave the Earth’s best preserved impact crater. According to new research, the earthquake that the collision caused induced a landslide, which caused water to back up to the height of a 20-storey building above the current river. Meteor Crater, also known as Barringer Crater after the family …

The mysterious “interstellar visitor” that was recently spotted whizzing through the solar system may be around 3 billion years older than our cosmic neighborhood, a new study suggests. If confirmed, the alien interloper would be the oldest comet ever seen from Earth. And, if it’s made of what researchers think it is, it may also grow a spectacularly long tail …

When a team of scientists studied a group of olms in a Balkan cave, they were hoping to reveal new information about how these fascinating amphibians behave outside of the lab. They weren’t, however, expecting to find they were mind-blowingly lazy, with some individuals not moving from a single spot for years and years.  Olms are rare, cave-dwelling salamanders native …

Scientists predict one of the major surveys by NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope may reveal around 100,000 celestial blasts, ranging from exploding stars to feeding black holes. Roman may even find evidence of some of the universe’s first stars, which are thought to completely self-destruct without leaving any remnant behind. Cosmic explosions offer clues to some of the …

Each summer, amateur astronomers from all over the world look forward to observing the famous Perseid meteor shower, but often overlook four lesser showers that reach their peak between July 29 and Aug. 16. This year, a waning gibbous moon three days past full moon phase will seriously hamper the Perseid meteor shower, so why not take this opportunity to …

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill graduate will be a commander for a SpaceX mission to the International Space Station. According to NASA, Zena Cardman, a UNC graduate and current astronaut, will serve as the commander for the Crew 11 mission set to depart for the ISS later between …

Explosive volcanic eruptions don’t just damage property and cancel flights. They can kill hundreds or even thousands of people, burying them under lethal ‘pyroclastic’ flows.  Now, scientists in Australia have identified a possible cause of gigantic volcanic eruptions – mysterious ‘blobs’ about 1,200 miles under our feet.  Blobs are three-dimensional regions that span the length of continents and stretch 100 times …

Interested in why the moon looks like it does tonight? Wonder no more, here’s what you need to know about tonight’s moon, as it moves through the lunar cycle. The lunar cycle is a series of eight unique phases of the moon’s visibility. The whole cycle takes about 29.5 days, according to NASA, and these different phases happen as the …