Just six months after the Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn, its cameras caught something spectacular. It was Jan. 16, 2005, and Cassini was zipping past Enceladus, a bright, tiny moon just 313 miles in diameter. Cassini saw a fuzzy peak, like a tuft of hair standing up. It was a vapor plume, and it meant […]
After weeks of anticipation — and writing about it! — the total solar eclipse finally arrived in the U.S. FiveThirtyEight staff were fanned out across the country, hoping to bask in totality. Here are their dispatches from beneath the corona. LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska in the minutes before totality felt like the prelude to a […]
Anyone who’s seen an eclipse like the one coming to the U.S. on Monday is likely to tell you that they’re special because of their strangeness, ethereal beauty and awesome power. But they’re also special because they require such a specific alignment of objects and events. That we can even see a total solar eclipse […]