Space & Future

Scientists discover a new way to spot alien life by looking for hidden patterns

For many years, scientists searching for life beyond Earth have focused on one main question: what kinds of molecules should they look for on...

Ancient galactic crash may have reshaped the Milky Way 11 billion years ago

The Milky Way may have gone through a violent cosmic collision billions of years ago that dramatically changed the structure of our galaxy, according...

Scientists discover exploding star material hidden in Antarctic Ice

Scientists studying ancient Antarctic ice have discovered new evidence that Earth is currently traveling through a cloud of material left behind by long-dead stars. An...

Scientists discover strange “toothpaste-like” space effect deep in Mars’s atmosphere

Scientists studying Mars have discovered a surprising atmospheric phenomenon that was previously only known to exist around Earth. The discovery could change how researchers understand...

Iron and ice: Earth’s passage through the interstellar cloud

Iron-60 is a radioactive isotope of iron that's found in Antarctic ice and in deep-sea crusts. It's only source is nucleosynthesis in the cataclysmic explosive...

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede may still be building its heart of metal

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is already famous for being the largest moon in the solar system. At more than 3,200 miles wide, it is even...

Scientists find a new way to listen to the “ringing” of black holes

When two black holes crash into each other, the event is one of the most violent and powerful collisions in the universe. The two objects...

Astrophysicists use ‘space archaeology’ to trace the history of a spiral galaxy

Billions of years ago, a young spiral galaxy began to grow in a crowded part of the universe. It pulled in gas and small companion...

Scientists solve a cosmic mystery hidden inside the Perseus galaxy cluster

An international team of scientists has uncovered new clues about how stars lived and died billions of years ago by studying one of the...

Scientists may have detected signs of dark matter in black hole collisions

Dark matter is one of the biggest mysteries in modern science. Astronomers believe it makes up most of the matter in the universe, yet nobody...

Ancient Martian mega-flood carved a valley as long as Italy

A massive valley on Mars may hold some of the strongest evidence yet that enormous floods once rushed across the red planet billions of...

Astronomers finally capture how turbulent space warps light across the galaxy

Astronomers have directly observed how turbulent gas and charged particles floating between stars can bend and distort light traveling across the galaxy. The discovery gives...

Deep Space

Scientists find way to measure spin of supermassive black hole for the first time

Astronomers at MIT, NASA, and other institutions have discovered a new way to measure the spin of supermassive black holes by observing the wobbly...

Scientists capture stunning image of a distant black hole jet

In a major breakthrough for astronomy, scientists have captured an incredibly detailed image of a powerful jet shooting out from a distant black hole. This...

Curiosity finds ancient wave ripples on Mars

NASA’s Curiosity Rover has been exploring Mars since 2012 and, more recently has found evidence of ice-free ancient ponds and lakes on the surface. The...

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...

Black holes are tearing stars apart all around us

Galaxy NGC3799 lies around 16 million light years from Earth. Any event observed today within that galaxy took place 16 million years ago. One such...