Space & Future
Astronomers get to the heart of Mira A’s latest outburst
Just a few hundred light-years from Earth, the famous variable star Mira A is huffing and puffing its outer layers to space. Its most...
The moon is still shrinking: New study reveals recent tectonic activity
For a long time, people imagined the moon as a quiet, frozen world where nothing much happens anymore.
But new research shows that the moon...
A cosmic jellyfish from the early universe surprises astronomers
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered the most distant “jellyfish galaxy” ever seen, offering a rare glimpse into how galaxies changed...
Utah’s “soda pop” geysers may hold clues to life on distant ocean worlds
In the dry desert of eastern Utah, strange geysers shoot cold, fizzy water into the air.
Instead of boiling like the famous hot geysers in...
If aliens already called, why didn’t we hear?
For more than 60 years, scientists have been scanning the skies for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth.
Using powerful telescopes, they have searched for...
Scientists make a game-changing find in the Bennu asteroid
In 2023, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission delivered samples of the 4.6-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu to Earth.
Upon examining them, scientists discovered that the asteroid - which existed...
James Webb Telescope detects rotten-egg gas on alien worlds for the first time
Astronomers have detected a smelly gas best known for the odor of rotten eggs—hydrogen sulfide—in the atmospheres of four giant planets far beyond our...
How a rare element could fuel the next generation of space missions
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are taking a fresh look at neptunium, a rare radioactive metal that...
Scientists finally solve the mystery of how the most common planets form
Astronomers have finally figured out how the most common types of planets in our galaxy are formed—by watching a set of baby planets grow...
Astronomers spot one of the earliest galaxy clusters ever discovered
Astronomers using two of NASA’s most powerful space telescopes have discovered a massive cluster of galaxies forming much earlier in the universe than scientists...
Did two moons crash to create Titan? New study uncovers dramatic origin story
Saturn’s giant moon Titan and the planet’s famous rings may share a dramatic origin story.
A new study suggests that Titan could have formed when...
Astronomers find new way to detect supermassive black hole pairs
Scientists believe that when galaxies collide and merge, the supermassive black holes at their centers should eventually pair up and orbit each other.
These enormous...
Deep Space
Space travel can make the gut leaky
Bacteria, fungi, and viruses can enter our gut through the food we eat.
Fortunately, the epithelial cells that line our intestines serve as a robust...
Spinning water tornado in a tank sheds light on how planets are born
Scientists in Germany have created a simple but powerful experiment that uses a swirling water tornado in a tank to mimic how planets form...
Look at how much the sun has changed in just two years
The solar cycle has been reasonably well understood since 1843 when Samuel Schwabe spent 17 years observing the variation of sunspots.
Since then, we have...
Astronomers find first signs of a third object behind merging black holes
Black holes are already some of the strangest objects in the universe, but a new discovery suggests that when two of them collide, there...
Scientists spot vast hidden cloud floating near our solar system
Astronomers have discovered a massive, previously unseen cloud of gas and dust near our solar system—and it might change how we understand the space...