Mental Floss

SPACE

NASA

The Newest Frontier in Final Resting Places: The Moon

Only 12 people have walked on the moon, but you can spend all of eternity there.

Göran Strand via Twitter

Eiffel Tower Shape on the Sun Spotted by Photographer

It was large enough to incinerate Paris—and the rest of Earth.

Wikimedia Commons

Uranus Used To Be Called the Schoolyard-Friendly Name George

Planet George wouldn't be the butt of nearly as many jokes as Uranus.

Wikimedia Commons // Public Domain

6EQUJ5: The Wow! Signal

It looks like a license plate or a random jumble of letters and numbers put together by a preschooler. But “6EQUJ5” is the most tantalizing lead we have so far towards one day answering one of the most profound questions we can ask: is there intelligent l

Derek Gertsmann via Flickr // CC BY-NC 2.0

Company Patents 12-Mile-High Inflatable Space Elevator

It's the great space elevator.

Twitter user, @StationCDRKelly

See the Northern Lights From Outer Space

You have to travel to especially high latitudes to get even an earth-bound view of the Aurora Borealis. But this latest look at the Northern Lights comes from an even more remote location: On board the International Space Station.

NASA

NASA Tests Rocket Engine That Will One Day Head to Mars

Yesterday, NASA tested a rocket engine that will one day send astronauts to Mars.

Chs87 via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 4.0

The Names of 32 Planets Will Be Decided by the Internet

Vote for your favorite!

NASA

The Underwater Cemetery Where Spaceships Go to Die

161 retired spacecraft use this spot as their watery grave.

iStock

Sorry, But the Universe Is Slowly Dying

The current energy output across more than 200,000 galaxies is only about half as strong as it was 2 billion years ago.

Kartik Ramanathan, Flickr // CC BY-NC-NC 2.0

The Best Meteor Shower of the Year Starts Wednesday Night

Some 100 meteors an hour will blaze across the sky tomorrow night. It's going to be the best show in five years.

The First Space-Grown Vegetables Are Ready

European Southern Observatory

Gaze at the Spectacular Beauty of a Dying Star

The Southern Owl Nebula offers a preview of what's to come for our own sun.

Watch the Moon Pass in Front of the Earth from A Million Miles Away

That's the North Pole in the upper-left corner.

NASA/Eugene Cernan

5 Plans to Colonize the Moon

Want to live on the moon? These space programs are way ahead of you.

Watch a Meteor Explode (Beautifully) in Mid-Air

Marc Donahue was shooting time-lapse video in southern California when a "huge bright flash" lit up the sky.

NASA

NASA's Kepler Mission Finds Earth's Distant Cousin

We can think of Kepler-452b as an older, bigger cousin to Earth.

NASA

How to Take Trash Out On The Moon

Before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin could set foot on the moon, they had to toss their trash.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/LANL/IRAP/U. Nantes/IAS/MSSS

Rover Discovers 'Earth-Like' Crust on Mars

A recent study published in Nature Geoscience details the presence of a potential “continental crust” on Mars.

Josh Worth

What the Solar System Looks Like When the Moon Is 1 Pixel

Today’s reminder that the universe is almost incomprehensibly vast.

NASA-JHUAPL-SWRI

What Scientists Have Discovered About Pluto (So Far)

Some initial conclusions about Pluto and Charon, its largest moon.

NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

The Lighter Side of the Pluto Flyby

The Lighter Side of the Pluto Flyby

NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

7 Scientific Instruments 'New Horizons' Uses to Study Pluto

The closest encounter in the historic flyby just happened a few minutes ago. Here are the instruments New Horizons used to capture scientific data.

NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

We Reach Pluto Tomorrow! 10 Fast Facts About 'New Horizons'

We're witnessing history tomorrow as the 'New Horizons' probe reaches Pluto.