During the Age of Sail, ships circled the globe on voyages of discovery and trade. That era ended in the 1800s, when coal-fired steam engines began to replace wind power. Now we may be entering a new age of sail—but this time in space. Reversing history, engines and fuel could be replaced by sails on … Read more
This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish. C/2023 A3, also known as Tsuchinshan–ATLAS and considered “the comet of the century,” will appear in all its splendor in our sky during September and October 2024. Due to its characteristics, astronomers believe it will be exceptionally bright, similar to Halley’s … Read more
Illustration: Blue Origin The White House announced earlier this year it would implement a unified time standard for the Moon by 2027, an essential measure as NASA aims to establish a permanent presence on the lunar surface. Two Colorado-based researchers proposed a solution in a recently published scientific paper involving clocks floating in space to … Read more
This story originally appeared on WIRED en Español and has been translated from Spanish. August has delivered many spectacular sights in the night sky: a supermoon, meteor showers, and supercharged auroras. Mars and Jupiter also currently appear unusually close together in the night sky, in what’s known as a conjunction. They appeared closest during the … Read more
NASA is considering keeping two astronauts on the International Space Station until February, after their Starliner spaceship encountered issues mid-flight. The agency said it is still evaluating options to bring NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to Earth safely, and no plan has been made yet. But officials acknowledged they may decide to … Read more
Get ready to see a double meteor shower featuring one of the biggest and brightest meteor showers of the year, the Perseids! In addition to the Perseids, the Southern Delta Aquariids continue to be active in August while the Perseids peak, creating a double meteor shower that those in the northern hemisphere will be able … Read more
Theres a famous star that I’m sure you’ve seen in the sky. Its name is Betelgeuse, and you can find it in the Orion constellation, where it marks Orion’s right shoulder. If you want to call it “Beetlejuice,” I’m fine with that so long as you don’t say it three times. But something is going … Read more
Robert Brandenberger, a physicist at McGill University who was not involved with the study, said the new paper “sets a new standard of rigor for the analysis” of the mathematics of the beginning of time. In some cases, what appears at first to be a singularity—a point in space-time where mathematical descriptions lose their meaning—may … Read more
(NewsNation) — The summer solstice, falling on June 20, 2024, will be the earliest solstice in more than 200 years, thanks to a quirk in the Gregorian calendar. The solstice will be the earliest since George Washington was president, the French Revolution was in full swing and Jane Austen began writing “Pride and Prejudice.” What … Read more
The aurora borealis is usually visible only way up north, but two weeks ago the night sky was filled with shimmering curtains of pink and green light that could be seen all the way down into the southern US. People in Texas and Hawaii got out of their cars to stare and take pictures. The … Read more
