The following infographic shows how the Antimatter-Hunting Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer works. It was sent to the International Space Station in the STS-134 mission by the Space Shuttle Endeavour on May 16th 2011. The shuttle landed back on Earth on June … Continue reading
Astronomers say they have found a previously inconceivable phenomenon: planets that do not appear to be anchored to a host star but instead wander the heavens unbound. In a two-year scan of the cosmos, 10 planets with roughly the mass of Jupiter, have been found… Continue reading
In fifty years of spaceflight, only 285 piloted spaceships were launched, carrying 1,154 travellers. Since some of them flew more than once, only 515 human beings have flown in space. And only two dozen Americans ventured beyond Earth orbit, up to the Moon, twelve of them having walked on it. Continue reading
Rocky planets a few times heavier than Earth that were thought might be life-friendly may lack a protective magnetic field that originates from an iron core that is at least partly molten. A simulation of super-Earths between a few times and 10 times Earth’s mass suggests that high pressures will keep the core solid… Continue reading
This is a fairly old picture of the Sun since it has been taken on September 14, 1997 by the space-based SOHO observatory. It represents a massive solar eruption. Such a phenomenon occurs when magnetic fields arching from the solar … Continue reading
A pulsar is probably the deadliest object in the Universe. Despite their beauty, you wouldn’t want to get close to one of them! They are a type of neutron star that emits a highly focused beam of electromagnetic radiation from … Continue reading