The four fundamental forces of nature (Image Credit: Space.com) The four fundamental forces act upon us every day, whether we realize it or not. From playing basketball, to launching a rocket into space, to sticking a magnet on your refrigerator – all the forces that all of us experience every day can […]

Observed from Earth, the night sky appears two-dimensional. But it’s anything but. However, it took astronomers thousands of years to figure out how to measure distances of stars from our planet and create actual three-dimensional maps reflecting the distribution of stars and galaxies in the universe. One of the key methods they use is […]

Terrestrial planets are Earth-like planets made up of rocks or metals with a hard surface. Terrestrial planets also have a molten heavy-metal core, few moons and topological features such as valleys, volcanoes and craters.  In our solar system, there are four terrestrial planets, which also happen to be the four closest to the sun: Mercury, […]

The history of the universe: Big Bang to now in 10 easy steps (Image Credit: Space.com) The history of the universe and how it evolved is broadly accepted as the Big Bang model, which states that the universe began as an incredibly hot, dense point roughly 13.7 billion years ago. So, how […]

Sinkholes as big as a skyscraper and as wide as a city street open up in the Arctic seafloor (Image Credit: Space.com) Repeated surveys with MBARI’s mapping AUVs revealed dramatic changes to seafloor bathymetry from the Arctic shelf edge in the Canadian Beaufort Sea. This sinkhole developed in just nine years. (Image […]

What is gravity? (Image Credit: Space.com) Gravity is one of the universe’s fundamental forces and dominates every moment of our conscious experience. It keeps us close to the ground, drags baseballs and basketballs out of the air and gives our muscles something to struggle against. Cosmically, gravity is just as consequential.  From […]