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By now you've probably heard about Comet 2011/W3 (more commonly known as Lovejoy) — the audaciously bold comet that, to the surprise of many, recently survived an exceptionally close encounter with our Sun. More »
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Many of you have probably heard about asteroid 2005 YU55, the massive rocky body that tomorrow night will collide with Earth in a ball of flames pass the planet safely, albeit closer than any asteroid in the last 35 years. More »
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Last night was the debut of io9 pal Phil "bad astronomer" Plait's new Discovery show, Bad Universe. It was an explodey investigation of what would happen if Earth were hit with an asteroid, and how we could prevent it. More »
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Check out this galaxy's weird curved shape, almost like an arrow-head. That's because it's hurtling through the Fornax cluster 600 km per second. Picture it screaming in fear and exhilaration as it roars towards a galactic collision. More »
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The Hubble Space Telescope's newly installed Wide Field Camera 3 took the deepest image of the universe ever in infrared light. The reddest and faintest galaxies date from just 600 million years after the Big Bang. More »
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Comic-Con's 2009 panel "Mad Science" gives us a sneak peek at Caprica, a discussion on the symbiotic relationship between scientists and screenwriters, robotic reincarnation — and the inevitability of transporter accidents. More »
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At the awesome panel called "The Science Behind Science Fiction," Phil "Bad Astronomer" Plait was joined by Kevin Grazier, a rocket scientist and science adviser for Battlestar Galactica and Eureka. Grazier said that sometimes the actors on the shows are as rabid about getting the science right as he is: James "Baltar" Callas and Joe "Henry Deacon" Morton often do independent research to verify that the science on their respective shows is correct. Apparently Callas was particularly fascinated by whether "black body radiation" was represented accurately. Grazier also confessed to the greatest science blooper of his career — in BSG episode two, called "Water." More »
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