More from Charlie Wood

Aliens where are they Fermi paradox new answer
Science

Where are all the aliens? Struggling and hustling, just like us.

By Charlie Wood

An artistic image inspired by a black hole-neutron star merger event, with lots of blue and red hues.
Black Holes

Black holes can gobble up neutron stars whole

By Charlie Wood

A side by side comparison of the star Betelgeuse in January and December of 2019. The star is was dimmer in December 2019.
Physics

We finally know why the Betelgeuse star dimmed—and it’s not what you think

By Charlie Wood

A mockup of the DAVINCI+ which will release a metal probe to fall through Venus’s atmosphere and measure its makeup.
Science

NASA is finally going back to Venus. Here’s what its twin missions hope to uncover.

By Charlie Wood

An artist's rendering of Saturn's moon Enceladus
Moons

Is something burping methane on Saturn’s ocean moon?

By Charlie Wood

The Milky Way Galaxy
Science

The ‘double-disk’ shape of the Milky Way could be common across galaxies

By Charlie Wood

The Starburst Galaxy M82
Science

Tiny galaxies may have brought the cosmos out of the dark ages

By Charlie Wood

A model of the next Interstellar Probe.
Deep Space

This new space probe will go farther and faster than any before, gathering data for generations

By Charlie Wood

An illustration of the Mars Perseverance rover in the background and the Ingenuity helicopter in flight in the foreground.
Aviation

Ingenuity flew on Mars. Now NASA will push it to the brink of destruction.

By Charlie Wood

Oblique view of the Earth from space, showing its atmosphere
Deep Space

Astronomers cooked up alien atmospheres in an oven

By Charlie Wood

A plume of smoke following a volcanic eruption.
Climate Change

Is blocking out the sun a good solution to the climate crisis?

By Charlie Wood

Simulation of a black hole.
Black Holes

Astronomers may have found the surprisingly elusive medium-sized black hole

By Charlie Wood

Shadow of a black hole
Black Holes

Something sent one of the universe’s heaviest black holes flying

By Charlie Wood

The first-ever image of the magnetic fields of a black hole.
Black Holes

Astronomers used telescopic ‘sunglasses’ to photograph a black hole’s magnetic field

By Charlie Wood

Perseverance rover SHERLOC
Mars

Was there ever life on Mars? Perseverance’s SHERLOC laser sniffs for microscopic clues

By Charlie Wood

PXLR, Perseverance Mars rover camera instrument
Biology

Perseverance’s giant ‘hand lens’ will scour Mars for signs of ancient life

By Charlie Wood

The MOXIE instrument before it was lowered into NASA's Perseverance Rover, which is currently settled on the surface of Mars.
Biology

With MOXIE, Perseverance will try to make oxygen on Mars

By Charlie Wood

An artist's interpretation of Perseverance, NASA's newest Mars rover, parachuting down from orbit.
Biology

Watch the Perseverance rover complete its dramatic landing on Mars

By Charlie Wood

The Jezero Crater as captured from orbit.
Biology

Your ancestors might have been Martians

By Charlie Wood

An overhead view of Mars featuring peculiar dark streaks.
Biology

Mars’s mascara-like streaks may be caused by slush and landslides

By Charlie Wood

Masha Krasnova-Shavaeva illustration
Engineering

How NASA kept its Mars rovers alive long past their expiration dates

By Charlie Wood

TOI-178 features six planets circling their host star in a tightly choreographed dance, which makes their disorderly arrangement all the more mysterious.
Deep Space

These 6 exoplanets somehow orbit their star in perfect rhythm

By Charlie Wood

Blue Origin’s New Shephard rocket lifts off.
Private Space Flight

SpaceX won’t be the only company launching commercial rockets in 2021

By Charlie Wood

This image was taken by Voyager 2, and features its Great Dark Spot and a bright moving spot colloquially called Scooter.
Science

Neptune’s bumpy childhood could reveal our solar system’s missing planets

By Charlie Wood

An illustrated diagram of the solar system, sun, eight planets, Pluto, and various asteroid belts
Science

A guide to the solar system’s biggest secrets

By Charlie Wood

A reconstruction of the sunspot captured by the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope on January 28th, 2020. The original image was taken in the wavelength of 530 nanometers - in the greenish-yellow part of the visible spectrum–. Researchers modified it to show up red and orange to the naked eye
Science

The best space stories of 2020

By Charlie Wood

The moon’s surface is a chaotic mess of craters of all sizes. Now algorithms are smart enough and kind enough to sort through that mess for us.
AI

Astronomers made a poor bot count 100,000 moon craters

By Charlie Wood

The Kepler supernova was spotted in 1604. Four centuries later, material from the explosion is still expanding outward at more than 20 million miles per hour.
NASA

Stars are dying all across the galaxy—why don’t we see them?

By Charlie Wood

Tim Enthoven illustration
Science

Aliens could be talking to us right now. This scientist is listening.

By Charlie Wood

SpaceX’s Starship flies, belly flops, and bursts into flames
Private Space Flight

SpaceX’s Starship flies, belly flops, and bursts into flames

By Charlie Wood

Arecibo’s disk suffered damage in November, before the suspended receiver collapsed completely in December.
NASA

The Arecibo Observatory collapsed this week. What now?

By Charlie Wood

We still don’t really know what’s inside the sun—but that could change very soon
NASA

We still don’t really know what’s inside the sun—but that could change very soon

By Charlie Wood

The Crew-1 crew. From left to right, NASA astronauts Shannon Walker, Victor Glover, and Mike Hopkins, and JAXA astronaut Soichi Noguchi.
NASA

SpaceX and NASA officially flew people into space. What’s next?

By Charlie Wood

Jezero Crater, the destination of the Perseverance rover, is one of many sites on Mars where ancient water flowed, suggesting that the planet once had a thicker atmosphere.
Biology

Mars died billions of years ago, and its guts are still spilling into space

By Charlie Wood

The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), pictured here, helped pin down the mysterious signals.
Black Holes

Astronomers have traced mysterious radio waves to a source in our own galaxy

By Charlie Wood

This image of the Moon was created with images taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Biology

The moon is (slightly) wet, NASA confirms. Now what?

By Charlie Wood

The moon is in line to get LTE.
Internet

The moon will soon have cell service

By Charlie Wood

A SpaceX rocket seen launching from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
Military

The military wants one-hour global delivery. SpaceX thinks it can pull it off.

By Charlie Wood

Artist's conception of NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collecting a sample from the asteroid Bennu.
Biology

Local asteroid Bennu used to be filled with tiny rivers

By Charlie Wood

Lava flows extend for hundreds of kilometers across the fractured plains shown in the foreground, to the base of Maat Mons on Venus.
Science

Three ways scientists could search for life on Venus

By Charlie Wood

Two super-Earth exoplanets orbit Gliese 887, 11 light years from Earth.
Deep Space

Astronomers find a pair of ‘super Earths’ in a nearby star system

By Charlie Wood

An illustration of what an Earthlike exoplanet might look like.
Deep Space

There should be billions of Earths out there. Why can’t we find them?

By Charlie Wood

Tales from the Field illustration
Physics

What did the universe look like just after the big bang?

By Charlie Wood

A radio tower set against a night sky.
Deep Space

The Milky Way could have dozens of alien civilizations capable of contacting us

By Charlie Wood

An artists interpretation of a telescope receiving radio bursts from deep space.
Deep Space

Astronomers spot repeating radio burst patterns from deep space

By Charlie Wood

Neutron stars
Particle Physics

Why are big neutron stars like Tootsie Pops?

By Charlie Wood

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule sits atop its Falcon rocket, ready to launch.
NASA

NASA and SpaceX pulled off their first rocket launch. Watch every second of it here.

By Charlie Wood

An aerial view of a Martian volcano.
Mars

Mud volcanoes on Mars hint at ancient water reservoirs

By Charlie Wood

An artist's interpretation of what a ninth planet could look like.
Black Holes

Planet Nine might not be a planet at all

By Charlie Wood

Two starts orbiting a black hole, as portrayed by an illustrator
Black Holes

Astronomers just found the closest black hole to Earth

By Charlie Wood

An X-ray and optical composite image of a detonating star.
Moons

Ancient supernovas may have pierced moon rocks with star shrapnel

By Charlie Wood

Hubble zooms in for an up-close look at star assembly in one of the galaxies orbiting the Milky Way.
Deep Space

The Hubble Space Telescope just turned 30, and it’s working better than ever

By Charlie Wood

Artist's impression of 'Oumuamua.
Deep Space

A new ’Oumuamua theory could mean many more interstellar visitors are headed our way

By Charlie Wood

Uranus partially illuminated
Science

Did Uranus get smacked so hard it spun sideways?

By Charlie Wood

Voyager 2's image of Uranus.
Deep Space

Uranus blasted a gas bubble 22,000 times bigger than Earth

By Charlie Wood

A rendering of the light streaming around a black hole.
Black Holes

Last year, we finally photographed a black hole. Now what?

By Charlie Wood

Starlink satellites streak across telescope images of the stars.
Black Holes

Elon Musk insists his satellite swarm won’t interfere with science. This model disagrees.

By Charlie Wood

The robotic scoop-arm pins “the mole” against the side of its hole in an attempt to get it moving.
Mars

At long last, NASA’s probe finally digs in on Mars

By Charlie Wood

Artist's interpretation of the teardrop star and its partner.
Deep Space

First of its kind ‘teardrop’ star pulses with its own rhythm

By Charlie Wood

An image from the new Cosmos series, premiering March 9 on National Geographic.
Black Holes

How the writers of Cosmos bring science to life

By Charlie Wood

A methane and ethane lake on Titan's surface.
Moons

If life exists on Titan, it’s even weirder than we thought

By Charlie Wood

moon over the earth
Moons

Earth has a new mini-moon, but don’t get too attached

By Charlie Wood

a lander on mars illustration
Mars

NASA has officially detected ‘marsquakes’ on the Red Planet

By Charlie Wood

a mock up of what commercial space travel may look like
Private Space Flight

Here are all the ways to visit space this decade (if you’re extremely rich)

By Charlie Wood