You’ve probably heard all kinds of horror stories about how the solar flare that’s currently pummeling Earth means we should all be wearing tinfoil hats and cowering in our basements fighting off panic and anarchy. But really, it’s not that bad, and there’s one big reason why you should be excited that a solar flare is pointing our way: auroras.

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Why you should be excited for giant solar flares

The surface of Venus is not a pleasant place to live. It’s really freakin’ hot (900 degrees), the pressure is stifling (92 times Earth normal), and the clouds are made of sulfur dioxide. We’re pretty sure that nothing could survive down there, especially not some imaginary scorpions that a Russian scientist thinks he sees in old pictures of Venus’ surface.

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Russian scientist claims life on Venus, is (probably) crazy

It’s probably not a coincidence that spacecraft are raining down onto our heads from orbit left and right , and that the United States has just decided to play nice and cooperate with the European Union to draft an international space code of conduct.

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U.S. tired of ducking space trash, backs E.U. space conduct code

After six Apollo missions that delivered astronauts to the surface of the moon , the people of Earth have pretty much left the thing alone. Now, Russia’s national space agency, Roscosmos is talking with NASA and Europe’s ESA about establishing a permanent manned presence on the moon.

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Russia wants Europe and the U.S. to go in on a moon base

As we continue our search for exciting aliens ( see: living ones ), we should pause to appreciate the slightly more boring aliens that have already landed here on Earth: rocks from Mars.

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Mars rock found on Earth, more valuable than gold

Perhaps Chicken Little was right, because recently it has seemed like the sky really is falling. This time it’s the appropriately named Russian satellite Phobos-Grunt, which looks ready to crash to Earth this coming Sunday or Monday.

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More space junk expected to crash onto people’s heads this Sunday

Sometimes, you can’t go to Starbucks , so you buy their coffee beans and make it at home. You have Starbucks come to you. Well, scientists did the same thing, but with the planet Venus.

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Scientists recreating the atmosphere of Venus on Earth

The New York Times has an interesting read about Beth O’Leary, an anthropology professor at New Mexico State University, who along with her students has fought to have humanity’s (specifically America’s) presence on the moon protected. A “please don’t disturb the footprints” sign isn’t going to cut it.

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Should our moon be protected like America’s national parks?

The U.S. Naval Research Lab (NRL) has just won a grant from NASA to pursue creating Mars rovers powered by microbes. Researchers are hoping this would tackle the problem of providing a safer and more reasonably sized fuel cell to handle the long term needs of powering a rover and sending data all the way back to Earth.

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Tiny microbes could power armies of Mars rovers

Quasicrystals are a weird type of asymmetrical crystalline mineral that was only discovered a few decades ago, and it’s only ever been produced in a laboratory under very carefully controlled conditions. At least, that’s what we thought, until outer space chucked a meteor full of the stuff right at us.

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Quasicrystals from outer space shouldn’t exist, do anyway