What's new

Have you ever wanted to measure something truly ridiculous? With a lamp and a piece of paper, you can answer a silly sounding question: How bright is the Sun?

To boldly go out of the airlock, astronauts need to look the part. Donning a spacesuit protects astronauts from the dangerous conditions just beyond our atmosphere. The outer layer of NASA’s Extravehicular Mobility Unit spacesuit is built tough from a blend of three fabrics. One fabric is the same stuff used in bulletproof vests. It…

Written by Sarah Kellett On Saturn’s largest moon, the hills are named after hobbits and elves, and the lakes after lakes on Earth. Titan is, in many ways, the most Earth-like world we’ve ever found.

Written by Sarah Kellett Our Sun has a neighbour, and it’s as cold as the North Pole. An invisible brown dwarf has been found a mere 7.2 light years away, by space telescopes searching in the infrared.

Written by Matthew Dunn Illustrated by Alex Hallatt From absolute zero to the surface of the Sun, there’s a whole range of temperatures in our Universe. Let’s learn more!

Written by Neha Karl When your car runs out of fuel, it stops. But when a massive star runs out of fuel – it doesn’t just stop – it explodes! An exploding star is called a supernova. The big blast can leave behind a pulsar, which is a kind of neutron star.

Written by Neha Karl Can you imagine a force so powerful that it can pull in light? It may seem unreal, but this force exists in our Universe as a black hole, and nothing can escape its pull!

On a dark night, far from the Equator, you might be lucky enough to spot an aurora: a shimmering, colourful glow in the sky. This natural light show has captivated people for thousands of years. While it is mostly associated with cold, dark nights near the poles, auroras have a much brighter, warmer origin: the…

Written by Sarah Kellett Bottles of champagne may send corks sky high, but spacecraft take cork as far as Mars. Their success depends on it. Cork reached new heights as part of the protective aeroshell that insulated the Mars rovers Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity from the intense heat of entering the Martian atmosphere.

The idea there are living organisms, as yet undiscovered by humans, living on other planets, has fascinated people for years. The search for alien life is not just a science fiction topic – it’s part of a scientific field called astrobiology.