What Is Project West Ford and How Did It Work?
Project West Ford was a U.S. Cold War experiment that released roughly 480 million copper needles into orbit to create…
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Is Earth Inside a Cosmic Void?
Probably not in the dramatic sense. Evidence suggests our region of the universe may be slightly underdense on very large…
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What Was the Nedelin Catastrophe and What Happened?
The Nedelin catastrophe was a 1960 launch pad explosion of an R‑16 intercontinental ballistic missile at the Soviet Baikonur test…
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How Quickly Can Astronauts Evacuate the ISS in an Emergency?
Astronauts can be strapped into their assigned return vehicle and ready to undock within minutes in a true emergency. Actual…
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Is Fomalhaut b a Real Exoplanet? How the ‘First Visible-Light Exoplanet’ Likely Vanished
Fomalhaut b is now considered not to be a real exoplanet. Follow-up Hubble observations showed the object fading and expanding…
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What Is Comet 3I/ATLAS and What Have We Learned?
Comet 3I/ATLAS is an interstellar comet on a hyperbolic path that passed through our solar system in 2025. NASA and…
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The Gigamoon reveals the Moon in astonishing detail
You think you know the Moon until a billion-plus pixels stare back. In Andrew McCarthy’s colossal 1.3-gigapixel mosaic, every wrinkle,…
