May 02 Black Hole Rips Star To Shreds, Then Swallows It Computer simulation shows a star being shredded by the gravity of a massive black hole and ejecting the debris at high speeds.The blue dot pinpoints the black hole's location. Credit: NASA, S. Gezari. This video simulates the murder of a… Continue reading
Apr 18 Space Tornadoes, Baby Stars, and Ancient Galaxies By Rebecca Jacobson, Inside Energy After a thousand days in space, the Infrared Array Camera on the Spitzer Space Telescope has sent back thousands of images of stars being born, space "tornadoes" and galaxies at the edge of the universe. To commemorate its voyage, the… Continue reading
Dec 07 Watch A Possible Second Home for Humanity Found, but the Commute’s Brutal Scientists have discovered a so-called "Goldilocks" planet with a temperature that is not too hot, not too cold, but maybe just right to support life. Correspondent Spencer Michels reports. Continue watching
Dec 06 Watch Newly Discovered Massive Black Holes Dwarf Previous Record Holders Astronomers recently discovered two massive black holes more than 300 million light years away. Nothing, not even light, can escape the pull of these black holes, which are each 10 billion times the mass of the sun. University of California,… Continue watching
Sep 07 Watch Supernova Burns Bright in a Galaxy Not So Far Away Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists recently discovered a supernova about 21 million light years away in the Pinwheel Galaxy. Jeffrey Brown and Peter Nugent, who found the brightest and closest supernova in decades, discuss how the dying star could prove… Continue watching
Mar 16 Watch First Rock From the Sun: NASA Set to Explore Mercury’s Extreme Atmosphere Imagine traveling to a planet where the sun is 11 times stronger than on Earth, the temperature can swing 1,100 degrees and you have to maintain contact with headquarters back on Earth. Science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports on NASA's tricky… Continue watching
Feb 15 Astronomers Discover Solar System That Might Mimic Our Own By PBS News Hour A global team of professional and amateur astronomers has found a solar system thousands of light years away that looks like a scaled-down version of our own. Continue reading
Jan 19 Spirit, Opportunity Test New Software Capabilities By PBS News Hour The NASA rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which began their fourth year on Mars this month, are testing new software as they continue to investigate the planet's hills and craters. Continue reading
Aug 24 Pluto Demoted to ‘Dwarf Planet’ Status By PBS News Hour After years of debate over Pluto's planetary status, the International Astronomical Union voted Thursday to classify the celestial object as a "dwarf planet," thereby shrinking the number of major planets in the solar system to eight. Continue reading