The solar nebula that birthed the Sun and its stellar siblings likely resembled the Orion Nebula. Credit: NASA,ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team Approximately 4.5 billion years ago, a cold cloud of gas and dust buried deep in one of the Milky Way galaxy’s spiral…

James H. Newman (right) and Jerry L. Ross (lower left) work on the recently-connected Russian-built FGB Module (Zarya) and the United States-built Unity Module in 1998. The photograph was taken out the window of the Earth-orbiting Space Shuttle Endeavour. Credit: NASA. Baikonur awoke to a cool dawn on Nov. 20, 1998, the ubiquitous murk of…

Artist’s impression of the “pale orange dot” – what early Earth would have looked like. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Francis Reddy We’re inching closer and closer to reliably detecting biosignatures on distant planets. Much of the focus is on determining which chemicals indicate life’s presence. But life can also create free energy in a system,…

Expedition 61 crew members NASA astronaut Christina H. Koch, left, Aleksandr A. Skvortsov of Roscosmos, NASA astronaut Jessica U. Meir, Oleg I. Skripochka of Roscosmos, NASA astronaut Andrew R. Morgan, and Luca S. Parmitano of the European Space Agency celebrate Thanksgiving together on the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA) Astronauts aboard the International Space Station…

Mars will disappear from the sky over Earth on Saturday (Nov. 18) when the Red Planet is apparently swallowed by the sun.  Don’t panic, this disappearance may look dramatic but it is actually the result of Mars passing to the opposite side of the sun to Earth during an event that astronomers call solar conjunction. …

This composite shows five Leonid meteors during the 2020 meteor shower, including a bright trail that lasted some 20 minutes. Credit: Jim Vajda (Flickr) Friday, November 17The Leonid meteor shower, which brings remnants of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle streaking through our skies, peaks overnight tonight and early tomorrow morning. Shower meteors appear to originate from a point…

On any given night, far from bright city lights, there’s a chance that you’ll see a beautiful streak shoot across the sky as a meteor flies overhead. But on special dates scattered throughout the year, skywatchers can catch a multitude of flares as meteor showers burst in the darkness. The next event is the Leonids,…

Earlier this year, it was reported that the Earth was hit by the brightest gamma-ray bursts seen since the dawn of civilization. Now, a team of astronomers has assigned a value to the energy contained in those blasts and it’s staggering to say the least. The gamma-ray burst (GRB) reported in April of this year…