What Exactly Is an Asteroid? An asteroid is a tiny lump of solid minerals that circles the Sun and is commonly referred to as a minor planet. When the circling object is larger, it is referred to as a planetoid. They’re primarily made of the same materials as the rocky worlds of the inner Solar…
Fresh eyes can transform the world, and a world beset by pandemics, climate change, and unfairness is primed for change like none we’ve ever seen. That’s why, after a five-year hiatus, Popular Science is reintroducing the Brilliant 10: an annual list of early-career scientists and engineers who are coming up with novel solutions to issues…
Wade into the gently lapping waves late at night Wade into the gently lapping surf at Boca Chica Beach, a pristine stretch of beach about 20 miles east of Brownsville, Texas, and you’ll see nothing but Gulf seas meeting sky—endless, dark but for the stars and lazy whitecaps. A contemplative, antique vista that makes you…
Expended rockets are falling to Earth as more frequent rocket launches make space more accessible. In May, a 23-ton Chinese rocket landed in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, ending days of speculation over where it would land. In March, the four-ton top stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket broke apart above the Pacific…
Will international space science and exploration in the twenty-first century be defined by collaboration or competition? The answer may depend on how two space giants, the United States, and China, choose to interact in the next years. By most measures, the United States remains the world leader in space, but China is steadily pursuing its…
It seems like billionaire-backed space enterprises are launching spacecraft all the time these days. So, why does Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin appear to be in jeopardy? Despite a successful summer, recent competition and several controversial tweets — including some false infographics — have left many in the space business critical of Jeff Bezos and his…
Our solar system, with its itty-bitty rocky planets on the inside and gaseous giants on the outer, is looking more and more like an oddball as astronomers continue to uncover scores of exoplanets. Astronomers rarely find Venuses or Earth when they look closely at stars in faraway solar systems. Rather, the common inner planet appears…
If time travelers could travel back to the early Earth, say three billion years before the present, they should bring life support with them. They’d swiftly suffocate because there was so little oxygen on the globe at the time. Without breathing oxygen, the time explorers would perish before witnessing another feature of early Earth: the…
What does Harvard theoretical physicist Avi Loeb have to do with co-founding a $1.755 million scholarly initiative to seek UFOs? Loeb announced the Galileo Project yesterday. It intends to create a network of telescopes powered by artificial intelligence that can look for evidence of technological alien civilizations on or near Earth. Outside scholars have mixed…
This morning, a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket launched from the flat Texas desert. Blue Origin launched the New Shepard model for the 16th time, and the third time this specific rocket and capsule had risen to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere. However, it was the vehicle’s first time transporting passengers, including a paying…