Carl Sagan wrote that "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” We wish to know our home, so back we go, to the Big Bang, and step by step to today.
Are we alone or do we share our solar system and galaxy with other forms of life? And how widespread are advanced civilizations with whom we could communicate? Right now we don’t have answers to these profound questions. But scientists are in hot pursuit...
In this essay, I argue in support of teaching the Earth & space sciences together, so that students can attain a more holistic understanding of their planetary environment, how it came to be, and where it is headed. Such teaching (and teachers) should receive the same priority as in the teaching of physics, chemistry, and biology.
There has always been a lot of conflict and contention between religion and science, arguably since the beginning of human abstract thought. Everyone has an opinion on how the two interact, intermingle, or completely repel against each other. The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew is simply one man’s opinion written into a book.
Andrew Taylor “Andy” Weir is an American novelist born on June 16, 1972 in Davis, California, USA. He is best known for his science fiction novel, The Martian, which was written and self-published in 2011. Three years later, Crown Publishing purchased the rights and re-released it.
Earth sits right in the Goldilocks zone. Venus, only a little closer to the sun, has a surface hot enough to melt lead, and Mars is cold enough to have dry ice -- C02 -- at its poles. What can the atmospheres of these three planets tell us about the future of our climate?
I have no doubt that we will become an interplanetary species,
within two decades and that we will likely find the existence of life, or past life, on another
planetary body, within the next decade.
Perhaps because of their tremendous popularity, Hollywood’s sci-fi films have exerted a powerful influence on our psyches – piquing our curiosity and igniting our imagination regarding life beyond Earth.
Galactic ecosystems encompass the varied complexes of inter-relating stellar, nebular, and other matter that are actively forming new stars. These include molecular clouds, cloud cores, protostellar and protoplanetary systems, HII regions and starbursts.
It is not hyperbole to state that galactic ecosystems have spawned pretty much everything that we hold dear – including ourselves. These nebular nurseries have incubated all the stars, planetary systems, and many of the complex molecules known to humanity.
More than fifty years ago, Apollo 15 photographed something unusual on the far side of the Moon. In a panoramic photograph taken from lunar orbit, two bright, sharply defined objects stood out from the otherwise subdued landscape on the floor of a crater called Paracelsus C.
Today we can take a much closer look.
Perhaps because of their tremendous popularity, Hollywood’s sci-fi films have exerted a powerful influence on our psyches – piquing our curiosity and igniting our imagination regarding life beyond Earth.
This year, our eyes were once again redirected to our own Solar System for a just a few fleeting
minutes -- from the myriad wonders of our “seeable” Universe to a small space probe called New
Horizons that at 7:49 AM (EST) on July 14 th 2015 passed within 7,750 miles of little Pluto at a
record-breaking speed of 30,800 miles per hour (49,600 kilometers per hour).
It is tempting to say that any well-educated person should know what it takes to be scientifically literate. But what does scientific literacy really involve? Given that scientific literacy is a key goal of most science education standards and frameworks, considerable ink has been dedicated to utilizing the term in pedagogical papers.
