May 2, 2024 · As a rather frail young man, the exceptionally talented Kepler turned to mathematics and the study of the heavens early on. When he was six, his mother pointed out a comet visible in the night sky.

Jan 29, 2025 · The ocean is warming. Rising greenhouse gas concentrations not only warm the air, but the ocean, too. Research shows that around 90 percent of the excess heat from global warming is being absorbed by the ocean. Ocean heat has steadily risen since measurements began in 1955, breaking records in 2023.All this added heat has led to more frequent and …

Jun 26, 2008 · Planetary Physics: Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion. Kepler’s three laws describe how planetary bodies orbit the Sun. They describe how (1) planets move in elliptical orbits with the Sun as a focus, (2) a planet covers the same area of space in the same amount of time no matter where it is in its orbit, and (3) a planet’s orbital period is proportional to the size of its orbit (its …

Jan 22, 2025 · While Earth is only the fifth largest planet in the solar system, it is the only world in our solar system with liquid water on the surface. Just slightly larger than nearby Venus, Earth is the biggest of the four planets closest to the Sun, all of which are made of rock and metal.

Oct 23, 2024 · Global climate change is not a future problem. Changes to Earth’s climate driven by increased human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are already having widespread effects on the environment: glaciers and ice sheets are shrinking, river and lake ice is breaking up earlier, plant and animal geographic ranges are shifting, and plants and trees are blooming …

Oct 22, 2024 · The Universe’s History. The origin, evolution, and nature of the universe have fascinated and confounded humankind for centuries. New ideas and major discoveries made during the 20th century transformed cosmology – the term for the way we conceptualize and study the universe – although much remains unknown.

Jan 17, 2025 · Moons. Our solar system has hundreds of moons orbiting planets, dwarf planets, and asteroids. Of the eight planets, Mercury and Venus are the only ones with no moons, although Venus does have a quasi-satellite that has officially been named Zoozve.. The giant planets Jupiter and Saturn lead our solar system’s moon counts.

Oct 21, 2024 · Climate change is a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global climates. These changes have a broad range of observed effects that are synonymous with the term.

Nov 8, 2017 · Like early explorers mapping the continents of our globe, astronomers are busy charting the spiral structure of our galaxy, the Milky Way. Using infrared images from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have discovered that the Milky Way’s elegant spiral structure is dominated by just two arms wrapping off the ends of a central bar of stars.

Jan 24, 2025 · Monitoring Webb’s Mirrors for Optimal Optics. Webb's Blog offers an insider's point of view covering a variety of topics that include on going operations as well as exciting Webb science images/spectra that are not yet peer reviewed and therefore not released as NASA feature articles ( IE the above official Webb News Feed).