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The Ark Season 1 Episode 1

Life could exist in 'terminator zones' of tidally locked planets

Metal!

By Cassidy Ward 1 month ago

Artwork depicting a back hole eating the remnants of a star that wandered too close and was torn apart. Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Player

Small black holes near big black holes may tear apart and eat stars

Small black holes hook up with stars near big black holes. It doesn’t end well for the stars.

By Phil Plait 9 months ago

Phil Plait Bad Astronomy Cheops Art Wasp103b

CHEOPS reveals WASP-103b: An egg-shaped planet that's definitely hard boiled

WASP-103b is cooked and distorted by its host star.

By Phil Plait 1 year ago

Phil Plait Bad Astronomy Garlick Young Earth Moon Press

The newly formed Moon may have tidally heated the Earth

The Moon was so close it would've loomed huge in the sky.

By Phil Plait 1 year ago

Artwork depicting a back hole eating the remnants of a star that wandered too close and was torn apart. Credit: NASA, ESA, and D. Player

Watch a black hole tear half a dozen stars to shreds

Simulations show how stars can survive a black hole.

By Phil Plait 1 year ago

Phil Plait Bad Astronomy hst_sombrero

An ancient remnant of a galactic collision encircles the Sombrero Galaxy

By Phil Plait 1 year ago

A black hole tore a star apart and played with the debris

By Phil Plait 2 years ago

Artwork depicting a tidal disruption event, when a star is torn apart by a black hole. A stream of matter is puller off, forming a disk around the black hole and creating an outflow of high-speed material. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Astronomers get a front row seat to a star getting torn apart by a huge black hole

By Phil Plait 2 years ago

Phenomenal artwork depicting the Cassini spacecraft near Saturn and its huge moon Titan. Credits: Cassini Model: Brian Kumanchik, Christian Lopez, NASA/JPL-Caltech, and updated by Kevin M. Gill

Titan has had enough of Saturn, leaving the planet 100X faster than expected

By Phil Plait 2 years ago

Artwork depicting the aftermath of an asteroid, comet, or planet being disrupted by a star, creating countless numbers of elongated objects like the interstellar visitor ‘Oumuamua. Credit: YU Jingchuan, Beijing Planetarium

Is the interstellar visitor 'Oumuamua a fragment of a shattered alien world?

By Phil Plait 3 years ago