Facts by NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (35)
A Hurricane In Brazil?
Hurricanes are terrifying. They rip trees right out of the ground, hurl cars into the air, and flatten houses.…
A River of Sand
Next time you're at the beach or in the desert, climb a sand dune in bare feet on a windy day. Stand still in…
A Shear Mystery
Everyone has had problems with a ketchup bottle at one time or another. After struggling and only getting a…
An Old Science Experiment On The Moon
The most famous thing Neil Armstrong left on the moon 35 years ago is a footprint, a boot-shaped depression in…
Ancient Planet
Long before our Sun and Earth ever existed, a Jupiter-sized planet formed around a sun-like star. Now, almost…
Bizarre Boiling
The next time you're watching a pot of water boil, perhaps for coffee or a cup of soup, pause for a moment and…
Black Hole Sound Waves
Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have found, for the first time, sound waves from a…
Catch A Shooting Star
A meteor, sometimes called a 'shooting star,' can be the brightest object in the night sky, yet meteoroids are…
Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
So, what, exactly, is the watch on your wrist, Big Ben in London, or the national atomic clock in Boulder,…
Does The Sun Go A Bit Wobbly?
Our Sun may seem an enduring, unwavering beacon in the sky, but in truth it has a 'heartbeat' of sorts--a…
Liquid Crystal Communication
The Information Age rides on beams of carefully controlled light. Because lasers form the arteries of modern…
Magnitude of an Astronomical Object
'Visual magnitude' is a scale used by astronomers to measure the brightness of a star. The term 'visual' means…
Mixed Up In Space
Imagine waking up in space. Groggy from sleep, you wonder ... which way is up? And where are my arms and legs?…
Mount Olympus
Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system, towers a breathtaking 25 km above the surrounding…
Near-Earth Supernovas
Supernovas near Earth are rare today, but during the Pliocene era of Australopithecus supernovas happened more…
Not Quite A Planet
Astronomers have dubbed it 'Quaoar' (pronounced kwa-whar) after a Native American god. It lies a billion…
Right Ascension & Declination
Right Ascension (abbreviated R.A.) and Declination (abbreviated Dec) are a system of coordinates used by…
Solar Spitwads
Take a piece of paper. Make a little wad. If you're a kid, spit on it. Put it in a straw and blow hard. If…
Sundials, Ancient Clocks
The earliest and simplest form of sundial is the shadow stick. The time of day is judged by the length and…
The Antennae
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has discovered rich deposits of neon, magnesium, and silicon in a pair of…
The Brave and Cold Ulysses
Deep space is cold. Very cold. That's a problem--especially if you're flying in an old spaceship. And your…
The Constellations
The random arrangement of the stars visible to the naked eye has remained essentially unchanged since the time…
The Equivalence Principle
Four hundred years ago--or so the story goes--Galileo Galilei started dropping things off the Leaning Tower of…
The First Starlight
Imagine being able to see our Universe 14 billion years ago when it was just a baby. If we had a time machine,…
The Fourth State of Matter
There are three classic states of matter: solid, liquid, and gas; however, plasma is considered by some…
The Physics of Sandcastles
Give a plastic bucket and a shovel to a child, then turn her loose on a beach full of sand. She'll happily…
The Real Lord of the Rings
Why is Saturn the only planet with bright, easily seen rings? Saturn is not the only planet in our solar…
The Right Stuff for Super Spaceships
Revolutions in technology - like the Industrial Revolution that replaced horses with cars - can make what…
The Strange Spires of Callisto
When NASA's adventurous Galileo spacecraft skimmed a mere 138 km, (123 miles) above the surface of Jupiter's…
Tick-Tock Atomic Clock
Modern navigators rely on atomic clocks. Instead of old-style springs or pendulums, the natural resonances of…
Ultraviolet Light
Ultraviolet light is a form of radiation which is not visible to the human eye. It's in an invisible part of…
Uncharted Meteors
In 1967, NASA's Mariner 4 spacecraft was cruising through the solar system, not far from Earth, when something…
Wernher Von Braun
Wernher Von Braun was one of the world's first and foremost rocket engineers and a leading authority on space…
What Is Polarimetry?
Polarimetry is the technique of measuring the 'polarization' of light. Most of the light we encounter every…
You Can Learn A Lot From A Microbe.
You can learn a lot from a microbe. Right now, a tiny critter from the Dead Sea is teaching scientists new…