For the first time ever, scientists have detected molecular nitrogen on a comet. The discovery is sheds light on the nature of the pre-Solar System environment in which Comet 67P/C-G formed.
Heisenberg's definition of his uncertainty principle ("The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa") may not be instantly clear, but here's a simple example that somehow makes it all remarkably easy to grasp.
NASA's Dawn spacecraft arrived in orbit around Ceres on March 6th – so why haven't we seen any close-up photos of the dwarf planet?
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I don't recommend doing this, but I do recommend watching it. A couple of people set fire to one edge of a drift of cottonwood seeds. The fire travels slowly from one side of the drift to the other, leaving the grass underneath it unburned.
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Possibly the coolest view of the International Space Station I've seen taken during today's solar eclipse.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the most audacious physics experiment in human history. Now scientists are about to restart the giant particle collider for a new set of experiments. Last time, they did the almost-impossible and found the Higgs Boson. This time, they might find something even more exciting.
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Yesterday's solar eclipse was one of the most spectacular in recent memory. So it's a shame that thousands of people were duped into thinking this image — supposedly taken from the International Space Station — was the real deal. It's obviously not, and here's why.
The Monkey Roars! NASA just released this beautiful mosaic image of part of the Monkey Head Nebula, showing a cloud made up of ultraviolet light hitting cooler hydrogen gas. This image is partly visible light and partly infrared, which shows interstellar dust particles heated by radiation from the stars in the middle.
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Being buried alive in a snow avalanche is a terrifying end to a lovely day of enjoying the slopes. When an avalanche hit a group of skiers in the Alps, the disaster was caught on video. After watching it, you'll either never want to go back-country again or be motivated to finally take that avalanche safety course.
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Do you live inside the swath of red depicted in this map? If so, you're one of the few people on Earth able to directly witness Friday's total solar eclipse. For everyone else, your best bet is to watch online. Head over to Slooh.com to watch live, beginning at 1:30 AM PDT/4:30 AM EDT/8:30 UTC.
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I feel like a parent that was just told their child is ugly. As an engineer, I look at the ISS and think "of course it looks that way, why would it look different?"
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When you leave the bounds of Earth behind, you're also saying goodbye to gravity. So just what is it like to return from space and get gravity back all of sudden? Today, Astronaut Butch Wilmore, who until last week was stationed up on the International Space Station, stopped by to tell us all about it.
And how much energy would it actually need?
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Beginning April 13, you'll have a chance to try Ninkasi Brewing Company's "Ground Control," an imperial stout brewed with yeast that, last year, traveled to space.
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Scientists speculate that massive underground cavities may exist under the lunar surface. And it turns out these so-called "lava tubes" should also be safe enough for a future moon base, according researchers presenting at this week's 46th Lunary and Planetary Conference in Texas.
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Ron Guyatt started his Solar System travel posters project a few years ago with locations on Mars, and he has since branched out to create a master work highlighting the best our Solar System has to offer.
Last week, Astronaut Butch Wilmore was on the International Space Station. This afternoon, he's right here answering your questions. He and Niki Werkheiser, head of NASA's 3D printing project, can talk about 3D printers in space, life aboard the ISS, and anything else you want to know!
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While you were looking for an aurora on Earth last night, NASA scientists were preparing to unveil something far more unusual: an aurora on Mars, unlike any seen on the red planet before.
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Taking a spacecraft to the surface of an alien planet is hard enough, but it can be even more difficult to reach the exact landing spot. Now, new NASA technologies could enable landers to adapt in real-time to what they see before them.
This is an image of a 'classical nova'. Sounds boring, right? Not when you describe it as "an outburst produced by a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of a white dwarf star", it's not.
