More from Tom Hawking (Page 2)

An illustration of a potential NASA lunar base for the Artemis missions.

Scientists want to turn moon dust into solar panels

The Lyrid Meteor Shower is visible with competition from the bright light of the full Pink Moon in Joshua Tree National Park on April 25, 2024. The Lyrids are produced by dust particles left by comet C/1861 G1 Thatcher, and there are roughly 20 meteors per hour during its peak.

April skygazing: A pink micromoon, the Lyrid meteor shower, and more

a full moon with a red hue

How to see the upcoming ‘blood moon’ total lunar eclipse

a lunar lander on the surface of the moon

New evidence for water lurking under the moon’s poles

a 'blood moon' with a reddish color

March skygazing: A ‘celestial smiley face,’ a blood moon, and more

digitally generated computer graphic illustration image of a human brain with a modeling clay texture.

Subtle differences identified in brains of people with schizophrenia

Macaques show signs of grasping the abstract notions of language in a lab setting.

Macaques appear to associate spoken words with pictures

Illustration: View from inside a detector building block of detection units. Clearly visible the yellow buoy of a near by detection unit.

Particle Physics

Scientists announce the highest-energy neutrino ever detected

Chronic stress affects the way mice perceive loudness

A long awaited astronomical event dubbed as the planet parade or planetary alignment. Four planets are visible to the naked eye in the evening sky. Saturn and Venus are moving along the solar system's disc, as seen from Sparta, North Carolina on January 25, 2025.

February stargazing: ‘Planet parade’ continues and Venus shines

A top-down view of the OSIRIS-REx Touch-and-Go-Sample-Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM) head with the lid removed, revealing the remainder of the asteroid sample inside. The picture was taken using manual high-resolution precision photography and a semi-automated focus stacking procedure. The result is an image that can be zoomed in on to show extreme detail of the sample. The remaining sample material includes dust and rocks up to about 0.4 inch in size.

Scientists find traces of life’s building blocks in historic asteroid samples

Unlike a tail, octopus arms are boneless.

Why every arm of an octopus moves with a mind of its own

Certain medications can interfere with with normal sleep architecture.

Why your brain flushes itself of waste during sleep

SLIM landed upside down.

10 chaotic space-related mishaps of 2024

This photo taken on Oct. 11, 2024 shows the northern lights over Fujin City, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. Northern lights were observed at different places across Heilongjiang.

The 7 coolest space phenomena we saw from Earth in 2024

flying with cellphone airplane mode

Ask Us Anything

Why do we still have to use airplane mode?

The first brown dwarfs outside the Milky Way.

Space Telescope

Swirling galaxy arms, a cosmic sombrero, and a dead supernova: Our favorite JWST images from 2024

'The role of the fungal communities residing in the upper airways … is practically unknown.'

People with allergies have different nasal fungi

Past experiences strongly affect empathy in mice

A composite image galaxy cluster collisions known as the Abell 2744 system, known as the Pandora's Cluster. In blue is a map showing the total mass concentration (mostly dark matter) based on data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Very Large Telescope (VLT), and the Subaru telescope.

Space Telescope

‘Funny dark matter:’ Something is wrong about our theory of the expanding universe

A new study suggests that great apes (specifically gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans) seem to track events in the way that we do.

Great apes may have cognitive foundations for language

‘Unidentified product’ in tap water identified after 40 years

Astrocytes; neuroglial cells, 250X at 35mm.

‘Swiss army knife’ of the brain: How star-shaped cells reshape our understanding of memory

a man on a walkie talkie as runners go by

Meet the ham radio enthusiasts who help keep the New York Marathon running smoothly

Tardigrades were exposed to heavy doses of gamma rays—high-energy photons that are one form of ionizing radiation—and researchers then studied how their systems responded.

Researchers start to unravel the secrets of tardigrade radiation resilience

'Electro-agriculture' prototype.

‘Electro-agriculture’ may help plants grow in the dark

Could Ozempic and similar drugs be used to treat substance use disorders?

An iron meteorite from the core of a melted planetesimal (left) and a chondrite meteorite, derived from a ‘primitive’, unmelted planetesimal (right).

Building blocks of life on Earth originate from a relatively small amount of source material

Spicy foods: The unlikely new frontier in placebo research

The ‘voices’ that people with schizophrenia hear could be echoes of their own vocalizations

3D rendering of all ~140k neurons in the fruit fly brain.

Scientists mapped every neuron of an adult animal’s brain for the first time

Study suggests that ambient dopamine levels in the brain do not influence the strength of the placebo effect.

Scientists reexamine dopamine’s role in the placebo effect

A possible painting of the dicynodont made by the San in the early 1800s.

The perplexing puzzle of a ‘Horned Serpent’ cave painting

Meteorite impacts and volcanic eruption producing glass beads on the Moon.

Volcanoes may have existed on the moon far more recently than we thought

This composite simulated image shows how M87* is seen by the Event Horizon Telescope at 86 GHz (red), 230 GHz (green), and 345 GHz (blue). The higher the frequency, the sharper the image becomes, revealing structure, size, and shape that was previously less discernible.

Better images of black holes are coming—maybe even movies

south pole of the moon

The moon was once covered in an ocean of magma: new data supports theory

The device, which is about the size of a stick of gum, can be implanted under the skin, where it monitors heart rate, breathing rate, and other vital signs. When it determines that an overdose has occurred, it rapidly pumps out a dose of naloxone.

First-of-its-kind implant detects and treats opioid overdoses

Odyssey’s THEMIS view the horizon of Mars.

Ultrasonic tools could one day track wind speeds on Mars

NASA's InSight Mars lander acquired this image of the area in front of the lander using its lander-mounted, Instrument Context Camera (ICC).

NASA data suggests there’s liquid water deep beneath Mars’ surface

moon in the 90s

Yes, the moon has an atmosphere—and it’s metal as hell

In the foreground to the left is a sphere half illuminated on the right side, almost filling the image vertically. The surface consists of several parallel, pale-coloured bands aligned horizontally. To the top right is a much smaller orange, circular light source, illuminating the large sphere in the foreground. The background is black with numerous tiny white dots.

Space Telescope

JWST detects a new exoplanet six times larger than Jupiter

NASA VIPER Rover

NASA’s VIPER rover won’t be going to the moon after all

A team of astronomers led by Penn State scientists have discovered a planet that has the most oblong orbit ever found among transiting planets. The exoplanet’s extreme circuit — which looks closer to a cucumber than a circle — follows one of the most drastically stretched-out orbits of all known exoplanets, planets that orbit stars outside our solar system. The planet, , named TIC 241249530, is also orbiting its star backwards, lending insight into the mystery of how close-in massive gas planets, known as hot Jupiters, form, stabilize and evolve over time.

Newly discovered exoplanet’s orbit is like a ‘cucumber’

How ants acts for the common good of the colony

The rim and floor of Gale Crater as seen from NASA’s Curiosity Rover.

Mars was icy and wet billions of years ago, new study suggests

Japan’s government is (finally) done with floppy disks

visual rabbit illusion

How does the visual rabbit illusion fool us so reliably?

Wave erosion may have shaped Titan’s coastlines

Haliskia peterseni

New species of flying dinosaur found in Australia

The good news about ‘giant viruses’ found in the Arctic Circle

Drinking alcohol on airplanes is bad for your body

Drinking alcohol on airplanes is bad for your body

JWST discovers earliest galaxy ever observed

Space Telescope

JWST discovers earliest galaxy ever observed

Chandler on 'Friends' is known for his sarcasm.

Neural network trained on ‘Friends’ can recognize sarcasm

Scotland suddenly has a lot of mosquitoes

Scotland suddenly has a lot of mosquitoes

Gene therapy breakthrough allows toddler born deaf to hear

Belugas may be jiggling their melons to communicate

Belugas may be jiggling their melons to communicate

Cheyenne is located at the NCAR's Supercomputing Center in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

For sale: government supercomputer, heavily used

The mystery of cats and their love of imaginary boxes

The mystery of cats and their love of imaginary boxes

When time slows down while you're looking at a clock

Why do clock hands seem to slow down?

colorful facial profiles of people saying BA BA BA and GA GA GA; illustration

Why what we see influences what we hear

close-up of face with rainbow-colored clouds of scent reaching for nose

Is there such a thing as a smell illusion?

multiple hands of various colors

Why our brains think fake hands are part of our bodies

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