Space & Future
How stardust really travels: A new study rewrites the story of life’s building blocks
The atoms that make up life on Earth—carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and more—were forged inside stars long before our planet existed.
For decades, astronomers believed they...
The solar system loses an ocean world
Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, may not have a subsurface ocean after all.
That’s according to a re-examination of data captured by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which...
Why the same galaxy can grow or decline—It depends on its neighbor
Galaxies may look serene from afar, but their lives are shaped by powerful internal structures and by the neighbors they keep.
A new study led...
Scientists crack 1.4-billion-year-old salt crystals to reveal Earth’s ancient air
More than a billion years before dinosaurs—and long before plants and animals—Earth looked very different.
In what is now northern Ontario, a shallow, salty lake...
Webb spots the ‘smoke’ from crashing exocomets around a nearby star
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was involved in yet another first discovery recently available in pre-print form on arXiv from Cicero Lu at...
Scientists solve a big bang theory puzzle that could point to dark matter
For years, one of the most intriguing mysteries in physics has been dark matter—an invisible substance thought to make up most of the matter...
Astronomers discover the violent origin of mysterious blue cosmic explosions
For years, astronomers have been puzzled by rare and dramatic flashes of blue and ultraviolet light that suddenly appear in distant galaxies and then...
Astronomers find the first compelling evidence of monster stars in the early universe
One of the greatest mysteries the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was developed to investigate was the birth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs).
For more...
A year that mattered: Caltech’s scientific journey in 2025
Caltech is a place unlike any other, an Institute that is truly "small but mighty."
Its small size and the expertise of its community enable...
The Milky Way had a wild past, and Webb is finally revealing it
How did the Milky Way become the calm, spiral galaxy we see today?
New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) suggest that our...
Gaia space telescope spots possible planets forming around baby stars
How do planets like Earth and Jupiter come into existence?
Astronomers are beginning to answer that question thanks to new observations from the European Space...
NASA’s Perseverance Rover is ready for many more miles—and new discoveries on Mars
After nearly five years on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover is proving it was built to last.
Since landing in February 2021, the six-wheeled robot has...
Deep Space
James Webb’s big year for cosmology
The James Webb Space Telescope was designed and built to study the early universe, and hopefully revolutionary our understanding of cosmology.
Two years after its...
NASA’s Hubble detects ultra-speedy jet blasting from star crash
Astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have made a unique measurement that indicates a jet, plowing through space at speeds greater than 99.97% the...
Could life exist below Mars’ ice? New study explores the possibility
A new NASA study suggests that life might be able to survive beneath the frozen ice on Mars.
While no direct evidence of life on...
Two surprising findings about water on Mars
A new analysis of seismic data from the InSight mission to Mars has revealed some surprises.
The first: the top 300 meters of the subsurface beneath...
This bizarre, ghostly galaxy has no dark matter
Galaxies and dark matter go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Rarely is one without the other, but a recently discovered galaxy called NGC 1052-DF2...