MS-ESS1-3
Analyze and interpret data to determine scale properties of objects in the solar system.
- Space
Explainer: Calculating a star’s age
Scientists can figure out a star's mass or composition pretty easily. Determining how old that star is, however, is a lot harder.
- Planets
Pluto is no longer a planet — or is it?
In the 15 years since Pluto lost its status as a planet, some scientists continue to use whatever definition works best for them.
- Space
Here’s an easier new way to weigh a black hole
The timing of flickers in the gas and dust of a black hole’s accretion disk correlates to its mass, a new study finds.
- Earth
Let’s learn about meteor showers
Meteor showers happen when Earth’s orbit passes through trails of debris left behind by comets or asteroids.
- Planets
Jupiter’s intense auroras heat up its atmosphere
Jupiter’s hotter-than-expected upper atmosphere may be warmed by charged particles slamming into the air above the poles.
- Space
Let’s learn about dark matter
Dark matter is only detectable by the gravitational pull it exerts on visible objects, like stars and galaxies.
- Physics
Scientists Say: Plasma
In physics, plasma refers to one of the four states of matter. In medicine, plasma describes the part of blood that ferries cells, nutrients and more throughout the body.
- Space
This image may be the first look at exomoons in the making
These observations offer some of the best evidence yet that planets around other stars have moons, or exomoons.
- Space
Born in deep shadows? That could explain Jupiter’s strange makeup
Dust that blocked sunlight might have caused the gas giant to form in a deep freeze, a new study suggests.
- Space
Moon-sized white dwarf is the smallest ever found
This dead star is also spinning very fast and has an amazingly powerful magnetic field.
- Space
Spin in this Milky Way bar may show cosmic dark matter does exist
A method akin to studying a tree’s rings reveals the timeline of a slowdown in those stars at the heart of our Milky Way galaxy.
- Space
Huge arc of galaxies is surprising and puzzling cosmologists
The arc appears to violate a cosmic rule that on such large scales, matter will be evenly distributed.
