The winter solstice is the shortest day of the year – the shortest gap between sunrise and sunset. After the solstice, the days gradually get longer, all the way until summer solstice, in June. But the weather doesn’t begin to warm up right after the solstice. On average, in fact, the coldest […]

Winter will spring on the northern hemisphere in the wee hours of tomorrow morning – the winter solstice. That makes today and tomorrow the shortest days of the year – the shortest interval from sunrise to sunset. That makes the nights the longest of the year. Over the centuries, many cultures […]

Space agencies have been sending missions to the Moon for more than six decades. More than a hundred of them have succeeded. And each success has told us a little bit more about our satellite world. One of the more recent lessons came from a Chinese mission. Chang’e 5 landed in the Ocean of […]

If you were camping on Mars right now, you’d see a couple of bright lights low in the west at nightfall. The brighter and higher of the two is Venus. Just as it does for those of us on Earth, it shines as Mars’s brilliant Evening Star. It’s the brightest object in the planet’s night sky […]

It’s generally a good idea to make sure your potatoes are dirt-free before you dig in. If you’re on Mars or the Moon, though, it might be good to mix them with dirt. The combination might make an especially strong form of concrete. Scientists and engineers have spent years thinking about ways […]