11-mile thick diamond layer on Mercury
The planet Mercury, known for its dull gray surface due to its excess of carbon, may hide a brilliant surprise in its depths. Recent research suggests the existence of a layer of diamonds…
Syntrichia caninervis: Could this moss help terraform Mars?
Mosses, small and apparently simple, are considered to be the Earth’s great terraformers. They have the ability to transform barren rock into fertile soil, playing a crucial role in creating habitats that allow…
Could people turn Mars into another Earth?
Sven Bilén, Penn State Is it possible that one day we could make Mars like Earth? – Tyla, age 16, Mississippi When I was in middle school, my biology teacher showed our class…
NASA’s Curiosity rover finds pure sulfur in Martian rocks
NASA’s Curiosity rover has made a remarkable discovery on Mars by finding pure sulfur in a rock, surprising scientists. Although the rover has detected sulfur before, it has always found it mixed with…
Planet turning into hot Jupiter discovered.
Jennifer Chu | MIT News Hot Jupiters are some of the most extreme planets in the galaxy. These scorching worlds are as massive as Jupiter, and they swing wildly close to their star, whirling around…
Underground tunnel on the Moon
On July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the lunar surface after landing softly in the Apollo 11 Eagle module on the famous…
Sighting of red sprites from the International Space Station
Over the years, the International Space Station (ISS) has provided a unique vantage point for observing a variety of mysterious and intriguing phenomena in Earth’s upper atmosphere and beyond. From UFOs to strange…
Meteorites from Mars help us understand the planet’s interior
James Day, University of California, San Diego Of the more than 74,000 known meteorites – rocks that fall to Earth from asteroids or planets colliding together – only 385 or so stones came…
Hubble discovers massive black hole closest to Earth
An international team of astronomers has used more than 500 images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, taken over two decades, to detect seven fast-moving stars in the innermost region of Omega Centauri,…
Nearby exoplanet smells like rotten eggs
ROBERTO MOLAR CANDANOSA/JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY The atmosphere of HD 189733 b, a gas giant the size of Jupiter, has traces of hydrogen sulphide, a molecule that not only gives off a bad smell,…