Curious Kids^[1] is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.^[2]. Why do some planets have moons and some don’t? – Siddharth, age 6, Texas On Earth, you can look up at night and see the Moon shining bright from hundreds of thousands of

Conventional wisdom holds that the island of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, once had a large population that crashed after living beyond its means and stripping the island of resources. A new research study^[1] my colleagues and I conducted has struck another blow to this notion by using artificial intelligence to analyze satellite...

The space environment is harsh and full of extreme radiation^[1]. Scientists designing spacecraft and satellites need materials that can withstand these conditions.

In a paper published in January 2024^[2], my team^[3] of materials researchers demonstrated that a next-generation semiconductor material^[4] called metal-halide perovskite^[5] can actually ...