Diligence, technological progress and a little luck have together solved a 20-year mystery of the cosmos. In the late 1990s, cosmologists made a prediction about how much ordinary matter there should be in the universe. About 5%, they estimated, should…
A blue and pink sequined dinosaur floats for the first time on board SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule after entering Earth orbit. The doll, chosen by the crew’s sons, served as the zero-g indicator. A stowaway aboard SpaceX’s first mission to…
On the upper left side of this image from May 29, 2020, from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory — shown here in the 171-angstrom wavelength, which is typically colorized in gold — one can see a spot of light hovering above…
This mouse-human chimera shows human cells (green) in a 17-day-old mouse embryo (blue) that are mostly red blood cells accumulated in the mouse’s liver. A newly-created mouse-human embryo contains up to 4% human cells — the most human cells yet…
SpaceX founder Elon Musk celebrates after the successful launch of the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on May 30, 2020. SpaceX founder Elon Musk was choked up with emotion after his company successfully launched…
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon craft atop a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Launch Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 3:22 p.m. EDT on May 30, 2020, carrying two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station. Amid an…
NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 crew members Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley wave to their families, friends and support team members as they prepare to depart for Launch Complex 39A on May 27, 2020. If all goes well, American astronauts will launch…
This SpaceX diagram shows the many steps it takes to get Crew Dragon to the International Space Station on the Demo-2 mission. If you’re frustrated that you now have to wait until Saturday (May 30) to see SpaceX’s first crewed…
Streams of gas fall to their dooms, plunging into black holes, locked away from the universe forever. In their final moments, these gassy shreds send out one last flare of light, some of the brightest emissions in the universe. These…
An animation illustrates the process that might have formed the hole at the galaxy’s center. Eleven billion years ago, a hot, active, galaxy that looked like an eye glared across space. Now, using data from the W.M. Keck Observatory in…
A mysterious blast in 1908, thought to have been caused by a meteor, flattened a Siberian taiga forest. This photo was taken in 1938, during an expedition by Russian mineralogist Leonid Kulik, investigating the event. A new explanation for a…