Few astronomical discoveries have produced a nickname as irresistible as the “diamond planet.” About 41 light-years away in the constellation Cancer, 55 Cancri e is a super-Earth nearly twice Earth's diameter and about eight times its mass....
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In the Chihuahuan Desert of northern Mexico, where Durango, Chihuahua and Coahuila approach one another across an immense dry basin, a patch of landscape has acquired one of the strangest re...
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On October 30, 1961, a Soviet Tu-95 bomber crossed the frozen landscape of Novaya Zemlya carrying an object so large that the aircraft had been specially modified to accommodate it. The bomb...
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From the ground, Earth is almost too large to understand. Nations fill maps. Mountain ranges divide regions. Oceans separate continents. Political borders seem concrete because they organize...
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Listen to some of NASA's most famous recordings from the outer Solar System and space does not sound silent at all. Jupiter whistles, crackles and roars. Saturn produces eerie rising tones....
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The first message sent across the network that would become a crucial ancestor of the modern Internet was not profound, poetic or even complete. It consisted of two lowercase letters: lo.Tha...
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A “Skynwalker” isn’t just a typo of "Skywalker"—though don’t tell that to Star Wars fans. The term actually comes from Skinwalker Ranch, a real place in Utah that has become a hotbed for par...
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You’d think Napoleon Bonaparte, the man who conquered most of Europe, couldn’t possibly lose a battle to a bunch of fluffy bunnies. But history has a wicked sense of humor. In 1807, to ce...
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Why Do We See Colors the Way We Do? Why is the sky blue, grass green, or a ripe apple red? These may sound like simple questions, but they open the door to a much deeper mystery: how and...
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