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This is Defector, a new sports blog and media company. We made this place together, we own it together, we run it together. Without access, without favor, without discretion, and without interference.

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Defector

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2025 gift subs

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Barry Petchesky

The Phoenix Mercury logo and the planet Mercury.

Mercury Mercury

This Is So Stupid

The Phoenix Mercury’s New Logos Vs. The Planet Mercury: An Exhausting Showdown

IN SPACE - MAY 23: In this handout image provided by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, the International Space Station and the docked space shuttle Endeavour orbit Earth during Endeavour's final sortie on May 23, 2011 in Space. Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli captured the first-ever images of an orbiter docked to the International Space Station from the viewpoint of a departing vessel as he returned to Earth in a Soyuz capsule. (Photo by Paolo Nespoli - ESA/NASA via Getty Images)

Endeavour Orbits Earth Docked To International Space Station

Science

One Small Step For A Moss, One Giant Leap For Mosskind

<p>Becky Ferreira is a science reporter based in Ithaca, N.Y. She writes <a href="https://www.404media.co/author/becky/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.404media.co/author/becky/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740083778769000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3_mk31dNhas5lklZb38a6k">The Abstract</a>, a weekly science column for 404 Media. Her book <em>First Contact</em>, about the search for alien life, <a href="https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/becky-ferreira/first-contact/9781523527755/">is available now.</a></p>


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Becky Ferreira

National Astronomy Observatory, Socorro, New Mexico (Photo by: Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

National Astronomy Observatory, Socorro, New Mexico

A Brief History Of Martian Ruckuses

The Space Shuttle Discovery, aboard a specially modified NASA Boeing 747, flies over the Washington, DC, April 17, 2012, as seen from Arlington, Virginia. NASA is transferring the Shuttle, which completed 39 missions and spent 365 days in space, to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport. AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEB (Photo by Saul LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

US-SPACE-SHUTTLE DISCOVERY

Bills Week

The “Big Beautiful Bill” Is Trying To Steal A Space Shuttle

Sun over dying Earth. Illustration of the Sun, around 5 billion years in the future, heating a dying Earth. The oceans have evaporated, leaving salt-encrusted rocks. The Moon is seen passing in front of the massively swollen Sun. This stage of the Sun's life, known as its red giant stage, will begin when the Sun exhausts the hydrogen fuel in its core. It will then begin burning hydrogen in a shell surrounding the core, causing the Sun to expand. The expanding Sun will engulf the inner planets, and possibly the Earth. If the Earth survives this stage of the death of the Sun, it will freeze as the Sun collapses into a white dwarf star.

Red giant Sun, illustration

Are You Team Fiery Sun Death Or Team Lifeless Husk?

LHASA, CHINA - OCTOBER 23: Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) streaks across the sky on October 23, 2024 in Lhasa, Xizang Autonomous Region of China. (Photo by Jiang Feibo/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)

C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Streaks Across The Sky In China

A Comet From Another Solar System Is On Its Way


<p>charismatic megafauna (they/them)</p>


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Sabrina Imbler

Mamta Patel Nagaraja, a fired NASA associate chief scientist for exploration and research, giving a keynote at the Department of Transportation for a White House event

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Interviews

An Interview With A Fired NASA Associate Chief Scientist

UNITED KINGDOM - MAY 30: Saturn, by Jamie Cooper. This image showing Saturn with six of it's moons was taken on 26th January 2006 at 22:11 hrs UT using a webcam attached to a 14 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. The moons are from left to right: Titan, Mimas,Tethys, Rhea, Enceladus and Dione. (Photo by Jamie Cooper/SSPL/Getty Images)

Saturn, by Jamie Cooper.

Why Is This So Good?

I Implore You To Look At Saturn Through A Telescope

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Albert Burneko

Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket carrying astronauts Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyễn, Kerianne Flynn, Gayle King, Katy Perry, and Lauren Sánchez, lifts off from Launch Site One north of Van Horn, Texas on April 14, 2025.

blue origin

At What Point Has One Actually “Been To” Space?

<div>Paola Rosa-Aquino is a freelance journalist covering science, space and the environment. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, she now lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her canine co-worker Cece.</div>
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Paola Rosa-Aquino

Flames are seen after Starship's Super Heavy Booster splashed down for a water landing off the coast of, Texas, on its sixth flight test on November 19, 2024. SpaceX aborted an attempt to catch the first stage booster of its Starship megarocket in the "chopstick" arms of its launch tower, opting instead for an ocean splashdown, a live feed showed November 19. The hitch came as President-elect Donald Trump joined SpaceX chief Elon Musk at the company's Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas to watch the test flight, the latest sign of the budding bromance between the two billionaires. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP) (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)

US-SPACE-AEROSPACE-SPACEX-STARSHIP

We’re Littering The Earth With Space Trash

A giant of a moon appears before a giant of a planet undergoing seasonal changes in this natural color view of Titan and Saturn from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

A giant of a moon appears before a giant of a planet undergoing seasonal changes in this natural color view of Titan and Saturn from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.

Saturn Has 274 Moons Now; Jupiter Is Crying Itself To Sleep; It Literally Cannot Believe It

Space