space
The asteroid population Asteroids, also known as minor planets, are rocky fragments ranging widely in size, which originated during the formation of our Solar System about 4.6 billion years ago. The first asteroid was discovered in 1801 by Father Giuseppe…
space
Lighting up the night brightly until it almost disappears is a great achievement in terms of progress and technology, but what are the real effects of the disappearance of darkness? When humans alter the levels of light naturally present in…
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Stephen Hawking was a great man of science. His scientific interests ranged from cosmology to physics, from mathematics to artificial intelligence. In recent times he even took an interest in space exploration with the Breakthrough Starshot project to send miniature…
space
On 20 July of 40 years ago, the Viking 1 lander touched down on Mars and made history as the first NASA space mission to perform a successful landing on the fourth planet of the solar system (all international missions…
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Who better than a goddess like Juno could have given its name to this space mission to study the largest planet of the Solar System? In Roman mythology, the god Jupiter was transformed into a cloud to hide his actions,…
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All the existing galaxies, and our Milky Way too, hide in their centres giant black holes, with masses estimated in 106 and 109 of the solar masses. In the centre of our galaxy, in a region hosting a radio source…
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We are made of star dust. The iron in our blood, the oxygen we breathe, the calcium in our bones, all the atoms of which we are made of were created within the stars billions of years ago, just like…
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When two galaxies start to approach, the tidal attraction forces deform their structures, creating sometimes particular forms, like filaments or tails. The merging between different galaxies does not bring their inner stars in a real collision, because of the enormous…
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Who, as a child, has not answered the question, “What do you want to be, when you grow up?” with “an astronaut!”? The idea of flying free like a bird and exploring space has fascinated mankind always, however behind the…