The Shifting Politics of NASA's Astronaut Program
Ever since President George W. Bush's decision to retire the space shuttles in the aftermath 2003's Columbia disaster, NASA's human spaceflight program has been adrift.
"space"
Tricksy Mars may be Obscuring Signs of Organic Matter
Picture a hot volcanic spring. Mineral-laden acidic water flows through sulfur-rich rocks. A foul odor hangs in the air. For us it’s a nasty environment, best enjoyed through the lens of a tourist’s camera...
Titan Loses its Speckles
Some of the most stunning images of Saturn’s moon Titan are made using a synthetic aperture radar to penetrate the thick atmosphere to see the frigid surface.
The Great Martian Storm of ’71
On November 14th 1971 NASA’s Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to successfully orbit another planet...
MESSENGER’s Mercurial Swan Song and Other Interplanetary Smashups
On April 30, if all goes well, after running out of fuel to fight off orbital decay NASA’s long-running MESSENGER spacecraft will end its mission to Mercury by crashing into the planet’s surface at nearly 4 kilometers per second...
Quantum Shorts 2014 Winners [Video]
The word "quantum" describes something very small but interest in the topic looms large for many of us at Scientific American. So we were pleased this year to partner again with the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore on the Quantum Shorts 2014 Contest...
Rosetta Captures Stunning New Images of Comet’s Surface and Activity
What happens when you make a low-level flyby of a cometary nucleus? You get jaw-dropping images. The above 2-shot mosaic of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was taken by ESA’s Rosetta orbiter at an effective altitude of just 19.9 kilometers...
#Dysonfest: Origin of life, climate change (denial), number theory and nuclear weapons
In 1985 Freeman Dyson delivered the Gifford Lectures in Aberdeen, Scotland. The lectures were later turned into a book titled “Infinite in All Directions”.
Steve Fuller and the Value of Intellectual Provocation
Philosopher Daniel Dennett once asked: Would you rather be remembered for being right about something, or for being “original and provocative”?
A Paper Puppet Homage to Microbes
The amazing power duo of Flora Lichtman and Sharon Shattuck (Sweet Fern Productions) has come out with a new animated short on the discovery of microbes.
Are Scientists on the Cusp of Knowing How Weird We Are?
I’m writing this post for two reasons. One is to recommend a new book by Columbia astrobiologist Caleb Scharf (who also writes a terrific Scientific American blog, “Life, Unbounded“), and the other is to defend an old book of mine...
The Human Cost of Science: Stephen Hawking and The Theory of Everything
This week’s video is a preview for the movie ‘The Theory of Everything’, which premiered last week to North American audiences.
Generation Open: Sneak Peek Into Science’s Future at OpenCon 2014
“What is your generation going to do? You don’t have a choice. You will make a mark. Will it be the mark of apathy? Or will you make the internet what it could be?” Michael Carroll is a Professor of Law and one of the founders of the Creative Commons...
That Comet? That's You, 4.5 Billion Years Ago
As the European Space Agency’s Philae lander bounced and settled onto the surface of comet 67P/C-G’s crumbly nucleus it wasn’t just space exploration, it was time travel...
The Black Hole in Interstellar Looks Amazingly Realistic
Wired has a fun piece about physicist and black-hole guru Kip Thorne's work on the film Interstellar, which comes out November 7. We've known the premise of the film for a long time: Earth is a disaster, the human race is on the verge of extinction, and mankind must find a new home...
Culture Dish: Promoting Diversity in Science Writing
The most persistent — and infuriating — question about diversity in science writing has to be: "Why do we need diversity?" Sometimes that question is followed by this: "Isn't science color-blind?" To answer that second question first — no, science is most definitely not color-blind, any more than history or politics or literature is color-blind...
Total Lunar Eclipse Visible Across North America Wednesday Morning
Here in North America, we are in the midst of a tetrad of lunar eclipses, the second one visible Wednesday morning. A tetrad of lunar eclipses means that there are four total lunar eclipses in a row...
Planet Hunters Bet Big on a Small Telescope to See Alien Earths
In 1990, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft briefly looked back from its journey out of the solar system, capturing a view of the faraway Earth. Carl Sagan called it the "pale blue dot." From more than 6 billion kilometers away, beyond the orbit of Pluto, it seemed remarkable that our planet was even visible...
Obama Asks Astronaut for Instagrams from Space During State of the Union
President Obama made a rare shout-out to space in Tuesday's State of the Union Address, referencing NASA's recent Orion capsule launch and addressing astronaut Scott Kelly in the audience at the Capitol...
NASA's Dawn Mission Captures New Image of Dwarf Planet Ceres
NASA’s Dawn mission, having performed remarkably at the asteroid Vesta, is homing in on Ceres. The spacecraft’s ion engines will bring it to a capture orbit around this 590 mile diameter dwarf planet on March 6th, 2015 – at a distance some 2.5 times further from the Sun than the Earth...
