Flowers are beautiful, fragrant, and draw pollinators insects to pollinate them, serving also to disseminate seeds across their environment. Pollen grains that land on the stigmas of other flowers of the same species germinate to form a tube that descends through style and into ovary where male reproductive cells, known as gametes, unite with female…
Voyager spacecraft are our greatest ambassadors into space. Now exploring beyond our solar system’s boundaries, both probes have enough fuel left over to continue transmitting scientific information until 2025. The Voyagers were designed to take advantage of an unlikely alignment among outer planets that enabled them to study two, four and eventually all their unique…
The Apollo program began as a geopolitical prestige project to protect America in the Cold War space race; however, it quickly ran into difficulty. After the Apollo 1 fire of 1967 and Vietnam War escalation, NASA funding was reduced, forcing NASA to mothball equipment intended for final three Apollo missions that was scheduled to fly….
Animal kingdom is full of amazing creatures who will surely amaze and amuse. From koala fingerprints that resemble human ones to how polar bear hair is transparent, discover more about these remarkable animals and their world. Did you know a group of cats is known as a “clowder”, while fleas can jump 40 to 100…
As sunlight enters Earth’s atmosphere, its light is scattered by oxygen and nitrogen molecules present. Shorter blue wavelengths tend to be scattered more than longer red ones resulting in the sky taking on its signature hue. At dawn and dusk, sunlight must travel further before reaching our eyes; more blue wavelengths scatter into the atmosphere…
Sky color is determined by gas molecules in our atmosphere, predominantly nitrogen and oxygen molecules, that scatter light in all directions, with blue wavelengths being dispersed more strongly than red ones. Rayleigh scattering is the name given to this process of light dispersion through atmospheric diffusion, making sunlight appear redder nearer the horizon (for example…
Galileo, named after Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, taught us much about Jupiter and its moons. Launching into space with a Titan IV rocket, its speed increased when passing Venus and Earth; eventually reaching Jupiter in 1995. Galileo made numerous remarkable discoveries during its two years orbiting Jupiter, including lava flows on Io and evidence for…
NASA began exploring the Moon long before Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot there, sending unmanned spacecraft missions that provided invaluable data about landing techniques and helped scientists understand its environment. These missions gave NASA vital knowledge about landing techniques while providing scientific understanding of what life might look like on the…
On March 7 and 8, morning twilight will bring with it a thin crescent moon floating near bright Venus and dim Mars as morning twilight arrives – binoculars may help you spot these two planets low in the east about one hour before sunrise. Mercury is our closest planet — on average — as its…
