2+ hour, 4+ min ago   (195+ words) Explanation: At the latitude of ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile, about 25 degrees south, Earth's rotation moves the planet's surface eastward at over 1,500 kilometers per hour. And while that's faster than the speed of sound at sea level, the motion is…...

2+ day, 2+ hour ago   (381+ words) Explanation: Are we looking at the future of our Sun? The James Webb Space Telescope captured today’s composite image of the Lion’s Head Nebula (NGC 2392) with its NIRCam and MIRI instruments. The Lion’s Head Nebula is the remnant of a…...

2+ day, 23+ hour ago   (192+ words) Explanation: What’s creating this giant hole in space? This is not a black hole — it’s a shadow. It’s Earth’s shadow. Since at least the time of Aristotle, people have noted that Earth's dark shadow on the Moon during a partial…...

3+ day, 21+ hour ago   (362+ words) Explanation: Comet 220P is unexpectedly bright. Normally, periodic Comet 220P/McNaught is so dim that to see it requires a telescope. Two surprising outbursts this year, however, have made it about 20,000 times brighter than usual, so that it is now visible with…...

4+ day, 5+ hour ago   (971+ words) In August of 2006, astronomers at the International Astronomical Union (IAU) democratically voted to reclassify Pluto as a dwarf planet — but 20 years later, with our greater knowledge and understanding of planetary systems, is it time to revisit the controversial decision? Should…...

5+ day, 1+ hour ago   (327+ words) Explanation: What would it look like to approach the grand planet Saturn? One doesn't have to just imagine -- the Cassini spacecraft did just this in 2004, recording thousands of images along the way, and hundreds of thousands more since entering orbit....

1+ week, 1+ hour ago   (183+ words) Explanation: What does it feel like to zoom around a spinning supermassive black hole? The featured video is an animation showing a time-lapse of 4 years of observations of the star S301 orbiting Sagittarius A*, the 4-million-solar-mass black hole in the center…...

1+ week, 8+ hour ago   (176+ words) Abstract Introduction: The “simulation hypothesis” is a radical idea which posits that our reality is a computer simulation. We wish to assess how physically realistic this is, based on physical constraints from the link between information and energy, and based…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago   (46+ words) I went to the animal fair, The birds and the beasts were there. The big baboon by the light of the moon Was combing his auburn hair. The monkey he got drunk And sat on the elephant’s trunk; The elephant…...

1+ week, 3+ day ago   (271+ words) Explanation: This was a good year for the Perseids meteor shower. A key reason was the Moon was absent from lighting up Earth's night sky so that more meteors were visible than usual. Where was the Moon? It was busy…...