All Stories by Lisa Grossman
- Planets
Space toilet may teach scientists how to scout for life on distant icy moons
Lessons learned from flushing space toilets may help plan life-hunting missions on distant icy moons.
- Physics
Trio wins physics Nobel for detecting gravity waves
The 2017 Nobel Prize in physics went to three physicists for helping figure out how to search for ripples in spacetime — which launched a new field of astronomy.
- Space
Cassini spacecraft takes its final bow
Twenty years after it left Earth, NASA’s Cassini mission is about to end — with a crash into Saturn.
- Physics
What scientists hope to learn from Great American Eclipse
A solar eclipse will travel across North America on August 21. Scientists will use that opportunity to learn more about our home star.
- Animals
What do animals do during a solar eclipse?
A citizen-science experiment used the Great American Eclipse of 2017 to gather the largest dataset ever of animal responses to a sun-block.
- Earth
Scientists probe how an eclipse affects Earth’s atmosphere
Parts of the electrically charged layer of Earth’s atmosphere lose that charge in an eclipse. Scientists are studying how it might affect everything from GPS accuracy to earthquake prediction.
- Planets
Early solar system may have slung giant mud balls
The first asteroids may have been great balls of mud. That could solve some puzzling traits of meteorites.
- Space
Newfound stars rank as farthest and one of the smallest
Astronomers have found two stars for the record books — the most distant ever observed and one of the tiniest now known.
- Space
Robot grippers imitate gecko feet to help nab space junk
NASA is testing robotic, gecko-inspired gripper hands that might one day help clean up space junk.
- Space
Early moon may have had metallic skies and gale-force winds
A glowing infant Earth could have heated the early moon’s metals to create an atmosphere.
- Planets
Small, distant worlds are either big Earths or little Neptunes
The Kepler space telescope data are in. They split Earth-like exoplanets into two groups and reveal 10 new rocky planets in the ‘Goldilocks’ zone.
- Planets
Jupiter may be the solar system’s oldest planet
Jupiter’s early existence may explain the odd arrangement of planets in the solar system, a new study suggests.
