Astronomy

September 28, 2022

NASA Just Made History by Successfully Crashing a Spacecraft Into an Asteroid

Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid hurtled into Earth. The impact of the enormous chunk of rock created a gigantic crater under what is now known as the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The asteroid sent debris flying, which clouded the skies around the globe. Tidal waves bombarded shorelines. The age of the dinosaurs came to a devastating end in a mass extinction event. Could this happen again?

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September 23, 2022

JWST Captures Square-Shaped Ripple Rings Around a Star, Perplexing Astronomers

“Nope, I don’t know what this is…” admitted citizen scientist Judy Schmidt when she shared a perplexing image on Twitter of a start with square-shaped ripple rings. Schmidt works with unprocessed scientific data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that has not been presented publicly to create incredible images. This glimpse of the star WR 140 is especially interesting. The Mid-Infrared (MIRI)

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August 31, 2022

Astronomers Discover an Ocean-Covered “Super-Earth” Exoplanet

Science-fiction writers have long dreamed of waterworlds—planets covered in endless ocean. Scientists, too, have postulated that these planets exist. Finding and verifying candidates, however, is elusive. The nearby exoplanet named TOI-1452 b may be the most promising of possibilities discovered. In The Astronomical Journal, scientists say its mass indicates that the surface of the exoplanet may be covered in a layer of liquid ocean.

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August 26, 2022

10 Fascinating Facts About the Moon, Earth’s Nearest Neighbor

As the celestial object closest to us, the Moon has always been a source of fascination. Filled with mystique, the Moon is often seen to hold powers that do everything from increase fertility to make us go a little crazy. As the only celestial body—other than Earth—where man has stepped foot, the Moon somehow seems accessible, yet there's still a lot we have to learn about this satellite orbiting our planet.

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My Modern Met

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