Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.

— Inscription on Columbus' caravels

Astronomy

Trump Officials Keep Comparing the U.S.’s Vaccine Schedule to Denmark’s. They’re Missing the Point

Scientific American.com - 11 hours 28 min ago

The U.S.’s and Denmark’s health systems are starkly different, so it makes sense that their vaccination schedules would differ, too

Categories: Astronomy

Orion and the Ocean of Storms

APOD - 15 hours 28 min ago

On December 5, 2022,


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Northern Fox Fires

APOD - 15 hours 28 min ago

Northern Fox Fires


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Galaxies in the River

APOD - 15 hours 28 min ago

Large galaxies grow by eating small ones.


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

The Horsehead Nebula

APOD - 15 hours 28 min ago

Sculpted by stellar winds and radiation, this dusty interstellar


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

<p><a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod

APOD - 15 hours 28 min ago


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

<p><a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod

APOD - 15 hours 28 min ago

Many wonders are visible when flying over the Earth at night.


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

<p><a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod

APOD - 15 hours 28 min ago

What would it be like to fly over the


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Recent Surveys Reveal Dwarf Galaxies May Not Contain Supermassive Black Holes

Universe Today - Sat, 12/13/2025 - 6:12pm

A new study, analyzing over 1,600 galaxies observed with Chandra over two decades, suggests that smaller galaxies do not contain supermassive black holes nearly as often as larger galaxies do.

Categories: Astronomy

How Conifers and Christmas Trees Secretly Shaped U.S. History

Scientific American.com - Sat, 12/13/2025 - 8:00am

Christmas trees—and conifers in general—have made some surprising cameos throughout U.S. history, author Trent Preszler reveals in his book Evergreen

Categories: Astronomy

Is the Big Bang a Myth? Part 2: The Primaeval Atom

Universe Today - Sat, 12/13/2025 - 7:21am

In the early 20th century, after years of effort, Albert Einstein developed his general theory of relativity. This was a massive improvement in our understanding of gravity, giving us a sophisticated view into the inner workings of that fundamental force.

Categories: Astronomy

Why Humanoid Robots and Embodied AI Still Struggle in the Real World

Scientific American.com - Sat, 12/13/2025 - 7:00am

General-purpose robots remain rare not for a lack of hardware but because we still can’t give machines the physical intuition humans learn through experience

Categories: Astronomy

Why Old Moon Dust Looks So Different from the Fresh Stuff

Universe Today - Sat, 12/13/2025 - 6:18am

Tracking down resources on the Moon is a critical process if humanity decides to settle there permanently. However, some of our best resources to do that currently are orbiting satellites who use various wavelengths to scan the Moon and determine what the local environment is made out of. One potential confounding factor in those scans is “space weathering” - i.e. how the lunar surface might change based on bombardment from both the solar wind and micrometeroid impacts. A new paper from a researchers at the Southwest Research Institute adds further context to how to interpret ultra-violet data from one of the most prolific of the resource assessment satellites - the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) - and unfortunately, the conclusion they draw is that, for some resources such as titanium, their presence might be entirely obscured by the presence of “old” regolith.

Categories: Astronomy

Measuring Radio Leaks from 36,000 Kilometres Up

Universe Today - Sat, 12/13/2025 - 4:48am

Radio astronomers hunting for the faint whispers of the early universe face an unexpected threat from above: satellites designed to be silent are leaking radio noise into space. New research using the Murchison Widefield Array has set the first limits on unintended radio emissions from distant geostationary satellites, revealing that most remain mercifully quiet in the frequency range crucial for next-generation telescopes. The findings offer cautious hope that the Square Kilometre Array, set to become the world's most sensitive radio telescope, might avoid the radio pollution crisis now plaguing observations of low Earth orbit satellites.

Categories: Astronomy

<p><a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod

APOD - Sat, 12/13/2025 - 12:00am

It is still


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Apollo 17 at Shorty Crater

APOD - Sat, 12/13/2025 - 12:00am

Apollo 17 at Shorty Crater


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

New Cell Transplant Therapy Restores Insulin Production in Patient with Type 1 Diabetes

Scientific American.com - Fri, 12/12/2025 - 4:20pm

Scientists have successfully transplanted gene-edited insulin-producing cells into a man with type 1 diabetes—allowing him to make some of his own insulin without immunosuppressants.

Categories: Astronomy

Thank The JWST For Confirming The First Runaway Supermassive Black Hole

Universe Today - Fri, 12/12/2025 - 1:35pm

Astronomers have been observing the Cosmic Owl for years, wondering if what they were seeing was a long-predicted runaway black hole. Now, 50 years after scientists first predicted the phenomenon, the JWST has provided the clinching evidence.

Categories: Astronomy

What Is 'Spoofing'? How a U.S.-Seized Oil Tanker Reportedly Tried to Evade Detection

Scientific American.com - Fri, 12/12/2025 - 1:15pm

An oil tanker seized by the U.S. this week reportedly used a technique that scrambled its location, but new advanced visual tracking can help expose such ships’ true coordinates

Categories: Astronomy