All SPACE OUT Articles

Spoiler alert: It's an optical illusion.

Personally speaking, I feel like we’ve been focusing on Mars a little bit too much recently. Sure, the Red Planet is all sorts of awesome – so awesome it may have once been a home for life – but with more than half a dozen orbiters, landers, and rovers, it’s certainly got its due.

Keep reading, I'm serious... Yes, there is a certain kind of astronomical object called a “cow” and it’s actually pretty awesome.

Watch out, moon! On March 4 at precisely 7:25 am ET, a piece of rocket junk will slam into the moon.

Most people in the United States have lost access to the night sky. This may not be a surprise to you if you’re living in a major metropolitan area. Perhaps you can pick out some of the brightest stars or a few planets on a clear night, but that’s it. Participate in International Dark Sky Week, April 22–30; their mission is to reduce light pollution and bring better lighting to communities around the world so that all life can thrive.

The most distant spacecraft launched by humans, Voyager 1, is currently 155 times farther away from the Sun than the Earth is. That’s almost four times more distant than Pluto, and the Voyager 1 craft has been traveling at over 38,000 mph for over four decades.

Read on to learn about this rare opportunity to name a distant world observed by the James Webb Telescope.

Whether it’s less severe than other variants or not, we can all agree that the Omicron variant of the coronavirus is no fun at all. But despite its ominous name, “omicron” is just the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. In astronomy, the stars in any constellation are ordered from brightest to dimmest, with the brightest getting the name “alpha”, the second brightest “beta”, and so on. And believe it or not, there are some pretty cool omicrons out there.

In space, even the smallest explosions are insanely powerful. Take for instance the newly discovered “micronova,” which sounds cute and cuddly and not at all deadly…except for the fact that it’s the explosive equivalent of a nuclear bomb a million times bigger than Mount Everest.

First, some background. A huge collaboration of astronomers is currently busy spending some hard-won cash to build the world’s largest radio telescope array, called the Square Kilometre Array.

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics is being awarded to scientists to have dedicated their careers to the study of black holes.

Does the presence of a stinky gas mean there was once life on Venus?

All planets with evidence of life please take a step forward. Not so fast, Venus.

All Stars die. Some stars go out with a bang. Some stars go out with a big bang — a supernova. And some stars are capable of something so spectacular, so rare, we don't even have a name for it yet.

NASA's long-awaited Artemis 1 uncrewed moon mission and next generation of spacecraft has been delayed for a second time. The rocket was initially scheduled to launch on Aug. 29, 2022, at 8:33 AM ET, but was delayed due to an issue with the engine bleed. Watch Space Launch Live: Artemis-1 on Science Channel to see the moment of liftoff. (Launch Date Pending) (Updated Sept 7, 11:00AM)