“As a wave of light travels through the universe, does it lose energy? For example, what is the wavelength of 450 nm (blue) light after traveling a trillion (1,000,000,000,000) km in the universe? Thank you very much.”It does! This loss of energy is usually officially termed a cosmological redshift, and it’s an interesting combination of the way that light moves through space, and the nature of our Universe’s expansion. Light behaves both…Read the full article at…

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“Because large objects in space have an effect on light, can smaller objects do the same thing? Can something the size of the Earth also influence light and make it bend?”Every object in the universe with mass has the potential to bend light a little; the harder part is being able to measure that change.This behavior of light, taking apparently curved paths around very massive…Read the full article at Forbes!Have your own question? Feel free to ask! Or…

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“Does the Moon get closer to the Sun than the Earth?”In order to tackle this question, we have to understand a bit about the geometry of the solar system, and how both the planets and the moons which orbit those planets behave.Most of the planets in the solar system circle the Sun in a very thin plane, meaning…Read the full article on Forbes!Have your own question? Feel free to ask! Or submit your questions via the sidebar, Facebook,…

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“Have we taken any sort of video, or still pictures of the dark side of the moon?”We absolutely have, and they are super fun! A first point of clarification, though - there’s no “dark side” of the Moon.There’s a far side which is never visible from our perspective on the Earth, but with the exception of during a full moon, the far side of the moon is…Read the full article on Forbes!Have your own question? Feel free…

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“Why don’t space suits inflate like a Michelin Man when on the Moon or outside the Space Station?”They very easily could! If you had a poorly designed space suit or an overly pressurized suit, an astronaut could very easily find themselves immobilized, unable to contort their suit into a useful position. With the inside of a suit set to normal sea level pressure…Read the full article on Forbes!Have your own question? Feel free to ask! Or submit…

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“Can Earth’s center of gravity be located? And if so, to what precision?”Earth’s center of gravity can be located! We talked a few months ago about measuring the force of gravity surrounding the Moon, and that the way we do this measurement is by having twin satellites, and calculating the difference in gravitational pull…Read the full article at Forbes!Have your own question? Feel free to ask! Or submit your questions via the sidebar, Facebook, or twitter.Sign up for…

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There is! Water’s existence on the Moon is not an easy thing to arrange, because water evaporates very easily. On our relatively balmy Earth, our evaporating water is mostly caught and suspended in the atmosphere, which in turn is protected…Read the full article on Forbes!Have your own question? Feel free to ask! Or submit your questions via the sidebar, Facebook, or twitter.Sign up for the mailing list for updates & news straight to your inbox!

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“Could a synthetic magnetic bubble, like a mini-magnetosphere, protect a crewed mission to Mars from cosmic radiation, and would the energy cost be prohibitively high?”As much as some folks are keen on sending people to Mars as soon as possible, it’s become obvious that protecting any astronauts from an unsafe level of radiation…Read the full article on Forbes!Have your own question? Feel free to ask! Or submit your questions via the sidebar, Facebook, or twitter.Sign up for the…

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