Image: NASA. 2016. ELaNa IX STMSat ISS Deployment. 2016. The Center for Astrophysics and the Libre Space Foundation have been awarded funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to develop and prototype an open metadata schema to link data, software, and hardware from small satellite missions. The project will help…

Highlights… The world said good-bye to Mar’s rover Opportunity last month when NASA declared mission end on February 13, 2019; Could the multiple universes of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse be real? Fermilab dives into the science!; The Space Telescope Science Institute shows how the Webb Space Telescopes’ integral field unit…

Happy New Year! Highlights… Emily Lakdawalla from the Planetary Society takes us on a tour of the spacecraft currently exploring our solar system; Revisiting the seven planets of TRAPPIST-1 that were discovered nearly two years ago; Take a look at the complexity and precision that goes into building the James…

The first issue of optics is sight. What do you see? How clear is the image? Is it accurate? For astronomers and telescope makers, these questions define the limits of observation, analysis, and conclusion. Through the history of Harvard College Observatory (HCO), the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), and the Harvard…

After an unexpected four month hiatus, we’re back! Highlights… NASA bids a fond farewell to Kepler, the telescope that proved over it’s nine year mission that there are more planets than stars in the universe; SciShow Space explains how stellar occultations can be used to hunt for exoplanet rings; Late…

The women whose assistance, administration, and computing supported astronomy are now great subjects in the history of science. Far from serving an auxiliary role, these computers standardized the skies, and laid the foundation for modern astrophysics. While we know big names who pioneered new theories through their calculations, many of these…

Highlights… This month’s Physics Crash Course video looks at resistors, batteries, and circuits; James Christy and Robert Harrington talk about how they discovered Charon, 40 years ago; A global dust storm swirling across Mars is threatening the Opportunity rover, will it survive?; As scientists noticed that ‘Oumuamua gained an extra…

Highlights… New magnetic events discovered in the near-Earth environment by using an innovative technique to squeeze extra information out of the data; Is it a pulsar? Is it a magnatar? Do dense stars evolve from one state to another over time?; Learn how TESS searches the skies for exoplanets over…

Highlights… This month’s Physics Crash Course video looks at electric charge and electric fields; Watch TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, launch successfully from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida; In preparation for sending the first people into space, NASA learned a lot about the ear’s role in motion…

October 4, 2017 marked the 60th anniversary of the launch of Earth’s first artificial satellite “Sputnik,” in 1957. The world was astonished by the news that the Soviet Union had successfully put a satellite into Earth’s orbit for the first time in history. Sputnik had a profound impact on international…