The term “planet” is defined very strictly by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). An astronomical body is officially a planet if it orbits the Sun, has enough mass to be spherical, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit, according … Read More
About 41,000 years ago, something remarkable happened: Earth’s magnetic field flipped and, for a temporary period, magnetic north was south and magnetic south was north. Palaeomagnetists refer to this as a geomagnetic excursion. This event, which is different to a complete … Read More
Phobos, it seems, will not live long in the Universe — at least not on a large cosmic timescale. Astronomers have long suspected that Phobos, the larger and closer of Mars’ two moons, is slowly spiraling inward to eventual destruction. … Read More
The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), which is currently pointing at the skies from its home in the Nicholas U. Mayall Telescope at Arizona’s Kitt Peak National Observatory, is tasked with charting the expansion of space, investigating dark energy, and … Read More
The Earth seems to inhale and exhale in a new animation that shows how carbon is taken up and released as the seasons change. During the summer, the animated continents appear to deflate, indicating times and locations where vegetation is … Read More
The image above may look like a fairly normal picture of the night sky, but what you’re looking at is a lot more special than just glittering stars. Each of those white dots is an active supermassive black hole. And … Read More