Rae Paoletta

Who ever thought crashing into space rocks could be so useful to science — and to the defense of humanity?

Ocean worlds are planets, moons and rocky bodies in our solar system where there are large amounts of water. Many of Saturn and Jupiter’s moons — including Enceladus and Europa, respectively — have long been suspected of having oceans concealed beneath their surfaces. But there are other worlds at edges of our solar system that may hold secret oceans of their own, like Neptune’s moon Triton. Currently, Earth is the only ocean world we know of with absolute certainty. But other potential oc

It goes without saying the most Earth-like planet we know of is Earth. Barring a scenario where many Earths exist within a hypothetical multiverse, this is the only one we’ve got. The qualities that make our planet Earth-like — its rockiness and mass among others — are important to researchers searching for other worlds like ours. Other galaxies could be full of sibling Earths: In fact, evidence suggests there may be as many as one Earth-like planet for every five Sun-like stars in the Milky Way

A 25-ton rocket the size of a blue whale was hurtling toward Earth, and no one really knew what was going to happen next.

Have you ever been so viscerally frustrated with something you wanted to hurl it straight into the final frontier? Apparently, this is what some star systems do when they’re angry, bored, or both. An astronomer explains the phenomenon to Inverse.

The Milky Way is Hiding a Mind-Blowing Number of Black Holes in its Center We all know there’s a super hungry black hole at the center of our galaxy called Sagittarius A*. But a physicist tells Inverse his new research suggests there could be tens of thousands of black holes in the heart of the Milky Way. “There has been a multi-decades long prediction that there ought to be some huge number like 10,000 to 20,000 black holes at the center of the galaxy…but there hasn’t been any solid evidence,

Over the last three months, Inverse spoke to Joshua Richards, a current applicant with Mars One, two executives at Mars One, three former applicants, representatives from SpaceX and Lockheed Martin, and a former head NASA scientist on human research. These conversations, in concert with Mars One financial data obtained by Inverse, suggest without a modicum of doubt that the company’s chief officers appear to be recklessly piloting a company in serious financial and strategic crisis. At best, they are willfully ignorant about the company’s rapidly depleting resources, which are filled by astronaut hopefuls, donations, and a pool of investors. At worst, the project’s leaders are intentionally disregarding the chaos of their organization and taking participants along for a wild ride — but not one that’s going to Mars.

In a crushing blow to his ego, Michael “Mad Mike” Hughes has once again failed to launch his rocket for flat Earth “research.”

In the spring of 2013, Kate Gallagher Leong called Anthony William. She was desperate for help. Forty-eight days later, her son, Gavin, was dead.

Space has a funny way of making us feel both incredibly small yet infinitely lucky for being part of such a vast cosmic sorority. Of course, humans have barely scratched the surface of the final frontier—we’ve never even sent people beyond the Moon. While many uncrewed spacecraft have done an incredible job of revealing our solar neighborhood to us, honestly, none did it better than NASA’s Cassini probe.

Saturn’s rings are easy to love. They’re hauntingly beautiful reminders of how insignificant we are in the scope of the universe. But they also unfairly outshine the rest of the gas giants’ ring systems. Uranus, for example, is a wonderland encompassed by at least 13 rings. Jupiter’s got its own ghostly rings, too. But perhaps the biggest underdog in the pack are the rings of Neptune—and that’s gotta change.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—It’s 7pm, and the Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University, which was packed with investors, aerospace tycoons, and scientists just hours ago, has dwindled to a dedicated few. It’s a very different crowd than the folks who came earlier in the day to watch Buzz Aldrin and other space veterans speak—for one thing, a group of Girl Scouts has crowded the front row. For the first time all day, two women have taken the stage at the Humans to Mars summit in Washington, D.C. And that’s part of the problem.

Scientists just stumbled upon a major intergalactic mystery. On Monday, September 26, NASA announced it may have spotted water plumes on Jupiter's icy moon, Europa. A team monitoring the Hubble Space Telescope spotted the plumes three times over the course of 15 months.

Humans haven't been quite the stewards of our environment we'd hope to be. We don't have the best track record of being nice to the Earth, or each other, for that matter. But good news: Scientists at MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research have found a new exoplanet that's roughly the size of Earth 39 light-years away from us. Believe it or not, that's actually pretty close -- according to the Kavli Institute, it's the "closest exoplanet to Earth ever discovered."

Grab your blankets and favorite generic energy drink, because tonight (into tomorrow), the galactic extravaganza known as the Leonid Meteor shower is expected to be in full force -- right in front of our unworthy mortal eyeballs.

NASA’s About To Plunge A Spacecraft Through Spray From The ‘Underground Ocean’ Of Saturn’s Moon How do I even begin to explain this amazing, absolutely bananas space f--kery? On Wednesday, NASA will send an unmanned spacecraft through the icy spray of Saturn's moon, Enceladus. Why does Saturn's moon have an icy spray, you might ask? Oh, NBD, but Saturn has an "underground ocean" made of liquid water, Discovery reports.

We know that bananas are full of potassium and sugary goodness, but what scientific mysteries do they hold? New research from an international team comprised of 26 scientists confirms that bananas are more than just a healthy treat.

Recently, Earthlings have been buzzing about Mars and the moon. In September, NASA announced that liquid water had been found on the Red Planet, reinvigorating an ongoing curiosity about the planet's inhabitability.

Hey, so super casual, but two space titans -- NASA and the European Space Agency -- have joined forces to make sure asteroids don't destroy the planet.