Katalyst Space Launched a Bid to Save NASA’s Falling Swift Telescope
NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is now being targeted for an orbital rescue after Katalyst Space’s LINK spacecraft launched on…
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The Best Place to Watch the 2026 Solar Eclipse Is Inside the Path of Totality
The best place to watch the August 12, 2026 total solar eclipse is anywhere inside the narrow path of totality,…
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The Milky Way Has a Thin Disk, a Thick Disk, and a Huge Halo
The Milky Way’s thin disk is about 700 light-years high, its thick disk is about 3,000 light-years high, and its…
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Ethyl Formate Gave the Milky Way Its Raspberries-and-rum Reputation
The Milky Way gets the “raspberries and rum” line because astronomers detected ethyl formate in a dust cloud near the…
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Direct Collapse Forms Massive Black Hole Seeds From Pristine Gas
Direct collapse to a black hole is a formation pathway in which a pristine gas cloud avoids breaking into normal…
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Earth Would Start Freezing Within Days If the Sun Vanished, but the Oceans Would Take Far Longer
Earth would go dark after about 8 minutes 20 seconds, and the surface would fall below freezing within days, not…
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What Is the Famous Photo of a Single Atom and How Was It Taken?
A photograph of a single atom is really a long-exposure image of light emitted by that atom while it is…
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Why the Milky Way Smells Like Raspberries and Rum
Space does not literally taste or smell like raspberries and rum to human noses, but astronomers have found a molecule…
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Galactic Plane Measurements Put the Milky Way Disk at 1,000 Light-Years Thick
The Milky Way’s thin disk is about 700 to 1,000 light-years thick, while its thick disk is about 3,000 light-years…
