SciShow
The Future of the Search for Life
Astronomers have found more than 5,000 planets in the last three decades, but that’s not nearly as exciting as potentially coming across the first extraterrestrial creatures. And we may finally be in a position to make that discovery.
SciShow
How Distant Stars Let Us See the Solar System Up Close
Occultations may sound spooky, but in actuality they can inform us of some of the most unknown parts of the universe.
SciShow
The Mystery of the Star That Wasn't There
In the 1970s, astronomers discovered a mysterious source of gamma rays that, 50 years later, still hasn’t revealed all of its secrets.
SciShow
Where Did Mercury’s Spots Come From?
The Sun isn’t the only celestial body in the solar system to boast spots of its own. Mercury, too, has its fair share, and they’re worth wondering about.
SciShow
How Do You Date a Star?
Figuring out the age of a blinking speck in the sky is a difficult feat, especially if considering how many types of stars there are. This is where a Hertzsprung-Russell meets a gyrochronologist.
SciShow
Life on an 8-Hour Planet
Even if we find an earth-sized exoplanet, how can we be so sure that we're looking at earth 2.0? It might come down to how fast it's spinning.
SciShow
Earth’s other moons
You're familiar with the Moon, but it's not only our moon, depending on your point of view.
SciShow
Space Superlatives of 2022
As we wrap up 2022, we'd like to celebrate a few of the cosmic “winners” discovered this year, at least while they still hold their titles.
SciShow
Is Our Solar System Missing Moons?
You might be pretty confident that when a moon is there it’s there to stay, but that’s not always the case. Moons may have a history of disappearing.
SciShow
This Toxic Liquid Telescope from the 1850s Is Finally Useful
Sometimes looking into a pool of a toxic liquid holds the secrets of the universe–or maybe just this one time.
SciShow
The Biggest Star In The Universe Is Too Small
R136a1 is the most massive star that astronomers have ever discovered. It's so massive you might think the laws of physics wouldn't allow it. But it turns out that its current mass estimate is actually so low that it threatens our...
SciShow
This is How We’ll “See” the Universe’s First Second
In June 2023, scientists around the world announced the first official detection of the gravitational wave background — a cacophonous symphony of gravitational waves coming from every direction in space. Buried within that cosmic noise,...
SciShow
The Only Moons That Trade Places
Saturn's moons Janus and Epimetheus were once thought to be the same moon. It turns out they're dance partners.
SciShow
This Planet is Only Half Covered in Lava
There are a lot of weird exoplanets out there, like 55 Cancri e (aka Janssen), which is probably half covered in lava. But the half that's covered in lava might not be quite the half you're thinking of.
SciShow
The Particle So Extreme Scientists Called it OMG
In 1991, a subatomic particle smashed into Earth's atmosphere traveling faster than anything humans can replicate. It's the most energetic particle detected to date, and maybe even the fastest (except light itself). Astronomers call it...
SciShow
The Spiders That Turn Stars into Planets
Neutron stars, are some of the most extreme phenomenon in the universe. It's doubly so for a subset known as pulsars. Some are spinning so fast, and are so massive, that astronomers aren't entirely sure how they got to be that way. One...
PBS
How We Know The Universe is Ancient
The universe is precisely 13.8 billion year old - or so our best scientific methods tell us. But how do you learn the age of the universe when there’s no trace left of its beginnings?
PBS
Science of the James Webb Telescope Explained!
You’ve probably heard about the James Webb Space Telescope and seen some cool pictures. But why should astronomers have all the fun? How do we get to use this new toy ourselves?
PBS
How An Extreme New Star Could Change All Cosmology
A new white dwarf has been discovered (poetically named: ZTF J1901+1458) that’s doing some stuff that no white dwarf should ever be able to do. In fact, it has multiple properties that are so extreme that it almost certainly did NOT form...
PBS
The Crisis in Cosmology
The search for a single number: the hubble constant, which is the rate of expansion of our universe, has consumed astronomers for generations. Finally, two powerful and independent methods have refined its measurement to unprecedented...
SciShow
What Are These Weird Rings In Space?
Over the past few years, astronomers have discovered their own kind of UFO called Odd Radio Circles, aka ORCs. They're a little too round, and a little too invisible at non-radio wavelengths, to immediately know what they are and what's...
SciShow
Why Aliens Might Love Their Frozen Home
In the hunt for life beyond Earth, scientists shouldn't skip over frozen planets. In some cases, ice might actually help life evolve!
SciShow
Our Solar System Might Have TWO Hidden Planets
After Pluto's demotion to dwarf planet in 2006, our solar system went from having nine planets to eight. But about a decade later, some astronomers proposed there was another planet, larger than Earth, hiding in the Kuiper Belt. And in...
SciShow
When Athletes Dope ... & Einstein FTW
This week's SciShow news has Hank bringing us a primer on the science behind various illegal and illicit ways in which athletes "improve" their bodies, proof of general relativity that we can actually see, and a new way to measure how...