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NASA: Earth Safe From Asteroid Apophis for at Least 100 Years
The Earth is safe for at least 100 years from the asteroid known as Apophis, which had earlier been identified as one of the most hazardous asteroids that could impact the planet, according to a NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory analysis released Friday.
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New ‘Mini-Moon' Orbiting Earth — for Now, Astronomers Say
A visiting mini-moon is circling Earth, according to astronomers who discovered the cosmic squatter in our planet’s orbit.
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Hawaii or Spain? Telescope Experts Say It May Not Matter
When starlight from billions of years ago zips across the universe and finally comes into focus on Earth, astronomers want their telescopes to be in the best locations possible to see what’s out there. Despite years of legal battles and months of protests by Native Hawaiian opponents, the international coalition that wants to build the world’s largest telescope in Hawaii...
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Protests Continue at Hawaii Telescope Site After 33 Arrested
The governor of Hawaii has issued an emergency proclamation that will allow state officials to remove protestors who oppose the telescope’s construction on sacred Hawaiian grounds.
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Pi Day: 3.14 Things to Know About Pi
Thursday is Pi Day, a national celebration of the mathematical concept, which is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter and equals 3.14…
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Pluto Explorer New Horizons Ushering in New Year at More Distant World
The spacecraft team that brought us close-ups of Pluto will ring in the new year by exploring an even more distant and mysterious world. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will zip past the scrawny, icy object nicknamed Ultima Thule (pronounced TOO-lee) soon after the stroke of midnight. One billion miles beyond Pluto and an astounding 4 billion miles from Earth (1.6...
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The Center of the Milky Way Is Teeming With Black Holes: Study
The center of our galaxy is teeming with black holes, sort of like a Times Square for strange super gravity objects, astronomers discovered. For decades, scientists theorized that circling in the center of galaxies, including ours, were lots of stellar black holes, collapsed giant stars where the gravity is so strong even light doesn’t get out. But they hadn’t seen...
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Hundreds Line Cambridge Streets to Honor Stephen Hawking
Hundreds of people lined the streets of the English city of Cambridge on Saturday, breaking into applause as the hearse carrying the remains of famed British scientist Stephen Hawking arrived at the church. Some 500 guests had been invited to the private funeral at St. Mary the Great church for the service honoring Hawking, who died on March 14 at...
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Astronomers Baffled by Distant Galaxy Void of Dark Matter
It’s a double cosmic conundrum: Lots of stuff that was already invisible has gone missing. Astronomers have found a distant galaxy where there is no dark matter. Dark matter is called “dark” because it can’t be seen. It is the mysterious and invisible skeleton of the universe that scientists figure makes up about 27 percent of the cosmos. Scientists only...
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Lack of Evidence Put Hawking's Nobel Hopes in Black Hole
Stephen Hawking won accolades from his peers for having one of the most brilliant minds in science, but he never got a Nobel Prize because no one has yet proven his ideas. The Nobel committee looks for proof, not big ideas. Hawking was a deep thinker — a theorist — and his musings about black holes and cosmology have yet...
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Pi Day Spotlights One of Math's Most Seductive Numbers
It may seem irrational to some, but we celebrate the number pi (π) every year on March 14, since 3/14 represent the first three digits of pi’s decimal expansion. NBC News reports that pi is more than just a good excuse to eat pie in the middle of March. It characterizes the perfect circle in a Platonic world, because it...
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Astronomers Glimpse Cosmic Dawn, When the Stars Switched On
For the first time, astronomers have glimpsed the dawn of the universe 13.6 billion years ago when the earliest stars were just beginning to glow after the Big Bang. And if that’s not enough, they may have detected mysterious dark matter at work, too....
The glimpse consisted of a faint radio signal from deep space, picked up by an antenna that... -
Rare: Only Supermoon of 2017 Over Southern California Sunday
A rare supermoon will be shining over Southern California this weekend. Here’s a look back at another night in November 2016 when the moon was as close as it had been to Earth in 69 years.
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Charred Human Remains Found Near Mount Wilson Fire
A charred body was found near the site of a brush fire earlier this week in the mountains northeast of Los Angeles. The remains were recovered by search and rescue personnel in the Mount Wilson area, where a brush fire burned early Tuesday.
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Lego Unveils ‘Women of NASA' Set With Astronauts, Scientists
Lego has unveiled a set of figures celebrating the women of NASA. The 231-piece set features Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut, and Mae Jemison, the first black woman to travel in space.
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Galloping Giraffes, Confused Rhinos: Things Got a Little Strange at This Zoo's Eclipse Party
The giraffes ran in circles. The flamingos huddled together. And the rhinos just looked confused.
At the Nashville Zoo, visitors watched and recorded how the animals behaved when the sky turned dark during Monday’s total solar eclipse. And there was plenty to see when the moon slipped in front of the sun. -
Crowds Gather in Balboa Park to View Solar Eclipse
San Diegans got together Monday at the Fleet Science Center in Balboa Park to learn more about the Great American Solar Eclipse.
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Voyager at 40: What's on the Records Aboard the Twin Spacecraft?
Forty years after blasting off, Earth’s most distant ambassadors — the twin Voyager spacecraft — are carrying sounds and music of our planet ever deeper into the cosmos. Each twin spacecraft carries a 12-inch, gold-plated copper phonograph record containing messages from Earth, such as Beethoven’s Fifth, chirping crickets, a baby’s cry, a kiss and the sounds of wind and...
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Fleet Science Center Plans Events Leading up to First American Solar Eclipse in Decades
Don’t miss the first total American solar eclipse in 38 years!
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Another Nearby Planet Found That May Be Just Right for Life
Astronomers have found yet another planet that seems to have just the right Goldilocks combination for life: Not so hot and not so cold. It’s not so far away, either. This new, big, dense planet is rocky, like Earth, and has the right temperatures for water, putting it in the habitable zone for life, according to a study published Wednesday...