While none of the interplanetary missions have found traces of life on Mars, both the Viking and China’s Zhurong rovers have discovered astonishing features of the Red Planet that could provide insight into its history and evolution. When Zhurong, China’s first-ever Mars landing mission, orbited the Red Planet for a year, it saw something surreal … Read more
There is no sight in the universe as dazzling as the moon, but medieval lore says that the radiant beauty also possessed mystical powers. In European mythology, people believed in a myth that a full moon could turn people into werewolves. The Greek philosopher Aristotle and the Roman historian Pliny the Elder suggested that the … Read more
Unlike “black holes,” which pull in and swallow surrounding cosmic matter, a “gravity hole” pushes surrounding material away due to the lack of gravity. When formed in an ocean, a gravity hole pushes water away and creates air pockets where water should have been, causing sea levels to drop. Take the example of the world’s … Read more
NASA’s Viking was the first American spacecraft to land on Mars, sending back images of craters, massive volcanoes and giant canyons from its surface. In the 1970s, NASA launched two identical robots — Viking 1 and Viking 2, each equipped with landers and orbiters — to the Red Planet. After the mission, NASA reported that … Read more
The closer you look at the universe, the more mysterious it seems. NASA’s Global-scale Observations of the Limb and Disk (GOLD) mission recently revealed bizarre C- and X-shaped structures floating in the electrified layer of the ionosphere. “Who knew Earth’s upper atmosphere was like alphabet soup?” NASA wrote about the sighting on its website. The … Read more