Earth-Size, Habitable Zone Planet Found Hidden in Early NASA Kepler Data
A team of transatlantic scientists, using reanalyzed data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, has discovered an Earth-size exoplanet orbiting in its star’s habitable zone, the area around a star where…
The Blue Marble: The View From Apollo 17
Fifty years ago, on April 22, 1970, people around the globe marked the first Earth Day. On this Earth Day, as we physically separate ourselves by necessity, we can still…
Piercing the Dark Birthplaces of Massive Stars with Webb
High-mass stars, which are eight or more times the mass of our Sun, live hard and die young. They often end their short lives in violent explosions called supernovas, but…
Nine Reasons We’re Grateful to Live on Earth
Earth can sometimes feel like the last place you’d want to be. Indeed, a number of explorers have devised inventive ways to move civilization off this planet. It’s no surprise:…
A Tale of Two Telescopes: WFIRST and Hubble
NASA’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), planned for launch in the mid-2020s, will create enormous cosmic panoramas. Using them, astronomers will explore everything from our solar system to the…