All About Everything

May's lunar eclipse and a wild-card meteor shower may offer double spectacle

May offers an unusual skywatching bounty: the possibility of two major celestial highlights occurring within the span of a single month. The first, a total lunar eclipse, is a certainty, but the second, a potentially strong meteor shower at month's end ...

Epic catch! Rocket Lab snags falling booster with helicopter after 34-satellite launch

It was a huge moment for Rocket Lab and its quest to make its Electron launch vehicle partially reusable. Rocket Lab just did something we've never seen before. Rocket Lab sent 34 satellites to orbit today (May 2) with its two-stage Electron launcher, ...

Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks this week! Here's how to watch the show.

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower may generate as many as 50 shooting stars an hour during its peak on Thursday (May 5), weather permitting. The meteor shower is of medium brightness, meaning that darker skies will produce more visible meteors.

Solar flares explode with huge energy thanks to a simple magnetic phenomenon

But on the sun, the result is much more dramatic: Twisted magnetic fields carrying streams of hot charged plasma become entwined, then snap and rapidly reorganize. That so-called fast magnetic reconnection releases huge quantities ...

Venus and Jupiter shine together over Rome (photo)

A new image captures two planets with ancient significance meeting up over the famous old city of Rome on Sunday (May 1). Venus and Jupiter shone together between the clouds in the image taken by Gianluca Masi, who runs astronomical livestreams for the ...

Don't miss Mercury shine with the crescent moon in tonight's sky!

The moon will point the way to the usually elusive Mercury tonight (May 2). You can catch the two celestial bodies to the west, about 45 minutes after sunset, according to NASA. Mercury will be a full 10 degrees from the horizon, representing one of ...

Astronomy Magazine

Sky This Month: May 2022

Astronomy Magazine

This stunning trick of perspective makes it look as if the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope is shouldering the weight of Earth's eclipsed satellite. A longer-than-usual total lunar eclipse will delight skywatchers this month.

Rocket Lab will try to catch a falling rocket with a helicopter today

The Verge

The Verge

Up until now, Electron — designed to launch batches of small satellites into low Earth orbit — has mostly been an expendable rocket. Most of these rockets fall back to Earth after each flight and are ultimately destroyed.

Nanotechnology enables visualization of RNA structures at near-atomic resolution

We live in a world made and run by RNA, the equally important sibling of the genetic molecule DNA. In fact, evolutionary biologists hypothesize that RNA existed and self-replicated even before the appearance of DNA and the proteins encoded by it.

China is building an asteroid deflection mission of its own, due for launch in 2025

There's an old joke that the dinosaurs are only extinct because they didn't develop a space agency. The implication, of course, is that unlike our reptilian ancestors, we humans might be able to save ourselves from an impending asteroid strike on Earth ...