Science

For the first time in history, a private citizen has left the confines of a spaceship while flying through space — an exercise that before now was only performed by trained astronauts.  The unprecedented commercial spacewalk was part of SpaceX‘s Polaris Dawn mission, which sent four civilians into orbit to test the company’s new spacesuits....

Jay Buckey flew to space as a NASA astronaut in 1998. Decades later, he watched one of his experiments leave Earth on a SpaceX rocket. The space company’s Polaris Dawn endeavor — a private venture funded by billionaire Jared Isaacman — is a five-day mission around Earth featuring an ambitious attempt at a spacewalk. The...

SpaceX‘s Polaris Dawn mission finally launched on Tuesday, after a series of delays pushed back its commencement date. Now the crew of the private spaceflight are scheduled to take the first ever commercial spacewalk — and the entire thing will be livestreamed so we can watch it here from Earth. Launched via a Falcon 9...

Like an enormous lava lamp, the sun roils with hot bubbles that rise from its belly to the surface, then cool and sink back down into its interior.  This process occurs through convection, distributing heavier elements like carbon and nitrogen throughout the sun. It’s also thought to be a driving force behind solar winds —...

Nearly a quarter century ago, four identical spacecraft launched into space. Now, they’re coming home. The European Space Agency sent a plane to capture footage of the first of four Cluster mission satellites reentering Earth’s atmosphere on Sept. 8. “The first recorded observation of a satellite reentry from a high-speed orbit, taken from a plane...

Following NASA‘s tense decision to pull its astronauts off Boeing’s spaceship for their ride home, lots of eyes will be on Starliner this evening to see how it performs a landing uncrewed. The capsule, which launched in June, took test pilots Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams to the International Space Station for its...

A robotic orbiter just took its first closeup pictures of Mercury’s poles, passing about 100 miles above the planet in space as the probe harnessed the small world’s gravity.   Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, is perhaps the most overlooked of the rocky worlds in the solar system. Hot and harder to reach than...

Did the cosmos just hand us a meme that encapsulates our feelings about the universe and our place within it?  At times it seems as though astronomers will forever find enigmas about space without ever providing satisfying answers. But in this case, the James Webb Space Telescope has found a riddle in the sky, and scientists...

Dropping one of Apple‘s GPS AirTags into the trash may seem like a major error, but it could be key to unlocking the false, climate-forward promises of city leaders and corporations. Earlier this year, Brandy Deason, a Texas resident and climate justice coordinator for Air Alliance Houston, began dropping the small devices into every bag...