Recently in my physics lab, students were having trouble with the difference between mass and weight. I had ready answers---it’s a topic I’ve gone over hundreds of times. But after I explained that ...

Determining the size of an Earth-size exoplanet by the amount of starlight it blocks hundreds of light-years away once was the realm of science fiction. Measuring the mass of such a small planet based ...

In science, there are thousands of ways to measure the world around us that the average person may never encounter. For example: Pascals to measure pressure, Candles to measure light intensity, and ...

A team of MIT researchers has described a new method for finding the mass of exoplanets by studying the spectra of light passing through the planet's atmosphere. Because a planet's mass can tell us a ...

New spacecraft techniques propose using CubeSats, laser rangefinding, and precise Doppler measurements to determine the mass ...

What is mass? It seems like a synonym for weight, but that isn’t quite right. Weight is how we measure the pressure that gravity exerts upon things. But mass? Mass is the actual presence of an item — ...

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more! You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Want to add more newsletters? Breaking space news ...

Swarm Flyby Gravimetry is a concept to determine the mass of asteroid or comets during flyby using a collection of small, disposable tracking targets called probes. The probes are deployed from a ...

A bundle of magnets and glass had a slight but detectable gravitational pull, pushing scientists closer to the boundary between classical and quantum physics. Reading time 3 minutes Despite keeping us ...