Ada Limón’s Poem for Europa, Jupiter’s Smallest Galilean Moon
U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón discusses her involvement in NASA’s Europa Clipper mission and the inspiration behind her poem, which will travel onboard the spacecraft.
Mysterious Moonquake Traced to Apollo 17 Lunar Lander Base
The Apollo 17 lunar lander base is creating small-scale moonquakes on a daily basis
Watch a Comet’s Tail Get Mangled by the Sun
Discovered only last month, Comet Nishimura is drawing attention before close approaches to the sun and Earth in the coming weeks
‘Man in the Moon’ Older Than Scientists Thought
Revisiting the precious lunar samples on Earth suggests that some areas of the moon’s surface might be older than scientists once thought
NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission Carries Special Cargo: A Poem
“If, by some chance, there’s another being out there that might connect to it, I wanted them to know that regardless of how it may seem sometimes, we love this Earth,” says poet Ada Limón about her poem
We Need to Widen the ‘Habitable Zones’ Seen around Alien Stars
When looking for life in space, we should broaden our horizons
Did Earth’s Water Come from Meteorites?
At least some of our planet’s water was carried here by hydrogen-rich space rocks, but it’s not yet clear how much
Pebbles from an Asteroid Are about to Be Delivered to Earth, and It’s Totally Awesome
The OSIRIS-REx mission will return samples from the asteroid Bennu that could rewrite our solar system’s history
Giant ‘Gravity Hole’ in the Ocean May Be the Ghost of an Ancient Sea
A vast expanse of the Indian Ocean is a staggering 100 meters lower than the global average sea level because of a major dip in Earth’s gravity. Scientists now think they know the cause
Rampant Groundwater Pumping Has Changed the Tilt of Earth’s Axis
Human depletion of groundwater has shifted the global distribution of water so much that the North Pole has drifted by more than four centimeters per year
Newfound ‘Quasi-Moon’ Has Been Earth’s Fellow Traveler for Thousands of Years
Astronomers recently identified asteroid 2023 FW13 as a quasi-moon, a space rock orbiting the sun nearly in tandem with Earth
We Live in the Rarest Type of Planetary System
New work suggests four distinct star system types—and finds our own in the rarest category