From roughly 60 miles above the Earth's surface to farther than light has traveled during the entire age of the universe, space has captured human imagination for millennia. Explore the final frontier with the best resources curated from across the internet.
Hours of research by our editors, distilled into minutes of clarity.
Decades in the making, JWST is designed to study the universe in infrared light, allowing it to see through cosmic dust and observe ancient galaxies, star formation, and potentially life-supporting exoplanets. The Webb will orbit the sun at a stable point 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
The supermassive black hole is 18 billion light-years away and emits radiation with the brightness of 100 trillion stars. It is so massive that light would take an entire week to travel from its edge to its center.
A network of interconnected, airtight bubbles would require several orders of magnitude fewer materials than those required to re-establish the entire planet's atmosphere to resemble Earth. However, the whole network would be compromised by a single micrometeor impact that destroys the air seal.
Physicists suggest that quantum fluctuations in the early universe could have given rise to these universes. Ancient Greek philosophers like Chrysippus proposed a version of the multiverse over 2,000 years ago—millennia before its adoption into various theoretical frameworks today.
By studying extreme environments in Earth's hadal zone—the deepest part of the ocean —NASA tests technologies, probes life under crushing pressure, and gathers clues about potential oceans and possible life on worlds like Europa and Enceladus.
Unlike older rockets left to sink in the ocean, the first stage was designed to steer itself back for a controlled landing on a sea-based barge. Refurbishment of these components are half the cost of building new.
Earth's colorless, lifeless moon is often portrayed as devoid of an atmosphere. However, this fascinating article describes the very thin layer of gases floating above the surface of our celestial neighbor, a layer so thin it's technically known as...
While NASA states that no known asteroid currently threatens Earth, past impacts demonstrate that the risk is real. The agency has tested deflection technology to alter an asteroid's path, as this visualization imagines a worst-case collision scenario.
Created by Congress under the National Aeronautics and Space Act, NASA officially began in 1958, building on earlier aviation research and positioning the US to compete in the Space Race and lead global space exploration.
Could aliens destroy us from light-years away? The team at Kurzgesagt imagines the impact of a highly sophisticated alien civilization setting out to crush humanity and considers the real-world logistics for warfare conducted across the Universe.