Jupiter’s Great Red Spot Isn’t the Storm We Thought It Was
The storm Cassini saw in 1665 is gone. The Great Red Spot was born around 1831 — and after shrinking by half, it may not...
Journal
Journal
Carbon in the Atmosphere of a Super-Jupiter Rewrites the Planet Formation Story
JWST directly imaged CO₂ in a super-Jupiter 133 light-years away. Its carbon ratio reveals how it formed — and blurs the line between planet and...
The Planetary System That Cannot Hold Still
Image: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Orbital mechanics is supposed to be the steadiest thing in the universe. Planets settle into their paths over millions of...
They Watched the Earth Set From the Far Side of the Moon
Four astronauts. 252,756 miles. Ten days. The Artemis II crew returned to the Moon's vicinity for the first time in 54 years, and today they...
Saturn Is Losing Its Rings — And Nobody Can Stop It
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI. “The Day the Earth Smiled”: Saturn backlit by the Sun, captured by Cassini on July 19, 2013. Earth is the pale blue dot...
If the Moon Vanished Tonight, You'd Have Weeks to Live
Image: NASA/Apollo 8/Bill Anders. “Earthrise”: the first photograph of Earth rising above the lunar horizon, taken by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968. The...
What's Inside a Neutron Star Shouldn't Exist
Image: NASA/ESA/NRAO/AUI/NSF/G. Dubner (University of Buenos Aires). The Crab Nebula: the expanding remnant of a supernova witnessed in 1054 AD. At its heart spins a...
Light Is Slow — You Just Don't Live Long Enough to Notice
Image: NASA/ESA/S. Beckwith (STScI)/HUDF Team. The Hubble Ultra Deep Field: nearly 10,000 galaxies in a patch of sky smaller than a grain of sand held...
The Moon Isn't Grey — We've Been Seeing It Wrong for 500 Years
The moon looks grey from Earth. It is not. Its surface carries blue titanium seas, green olivine plains, and volcanic orange glass waiting to be...