MS-ESS1-3
Analyze and interpret data to determine scale properties of objects in the solar system.
- Planets
Planets like Star Wars’ Tatooine could be fit for life
Like Luke Skywalker’s home, planets orbiting two stars may be plentiful. A new computer model suggests that many of those worlds could sustain life.
- Space
Spacecraft traveling through a wormhole could send messages home
A probe going through a wormhole should be able to send messages home before such a tunnel forever closes, a new computer model finds.
- Planets
Saturn’s moon Enceladus wears a thick blanket of snow
Pits on the frosty moon reveal the snow’s surprising depth, up to 700 meters (2,300 feet) in some places.
- Planets
The dwarf planet Quaoar hosts an impossible ring
Quaoar’s ring lies outside the Roche limit. That’s an imaginary line beyond which rings aren’t thought to be stable.
- Physics
Let’s learn about the quantum realm
On the smallest scales, the universe behaves in some pretty strange ways.
- Space
NASA is readying to send humans back to the moon
The launch of NASA's Artemis I is a huge step toward sending humans back to the moon and beyond.
- Planets
Mars might still be volcanically active, quakes there suggest
Seismic rumblings picked up by NASA’s InSight lander hint at molten rock moving deep below the planet’s fractured surface.
- Space
Jets may have sculpted rings of Cat’s Eye nebula
The Cat’s Eye nebula is one of the most complex of its kind. A 3-D model now reveals the source of that complexity.
- Planets
Check out the first direct look at Neptune’s rings since the ’80s
The Voyager 2 spacecraft took the first pics of Neptune’s rings 33 years ago. Now, NASA’s James Webb telescope is providing a more detailed view of them.
- Physics
Mysteries about the universe abound, from its beginning to its end
Scientists have a good understanding of the laws that make our universe tick. But they still don’t quite know how it began — or will end.
- Physics
It all started with the Big Bang — and then what happened?
Scientists explain what really puzzles them about how our universe became what it is today — and what its future may hold.
- Space
NASA’s DART spacecraft successfully bumped an asteroid onto a new path
The spacecraft’s intentional crash into an asteroid changed the space rock’s orbit by more than 30 minutes — far more than expected.
