Space & Future
Did gravitational tides cause Earth’s extinctions?
Life on Earth took a long evolutionary journey that eventually created us, the purportedly intelligent species that dominates the planet.
But there was no grand...
Scientists discover magnetic fields guiding the birth of stars
How do stars form?
Scientists know that stars are born when huge clouds of cold gas in space collapse under their own gravity.
But one mystery...
Scientists Warn Some Earth Pathogens May Survive a Journey to Mars
Could microbes from Earth survive on other worlds? New research suggests that the answer may be yes.
Ph.D. candidate Tommaso Zaccaria studied whether tiny organisms...
Iconic cosmic collision challenges long-held ideas about dark matter
The Bullet Cluster is one of the most famous objects in astronomy.
For years, many scientists have considered it one of the strongest pieces of...
Scientists find a new way to search for ancient life on Mars using ‘mirror’...
Billions of years ago, Mars looked very different from the cold, dry world we see today. Scientists believe the Red Planet once had a...
Mysterious cosmic rays are challenging what scientists thought they knew about the universe
Millions of years ago, a massive star exploded somewhere far away in our galaxy.
During this violent event, called a supernova, the dying star blasted...
The universe’s famous ‘pink planet’ has salty clouds in its sky
Astronomers have discovered an unexpected surprise on the famous “Pink Planet,” a strange world known as GJ504b.
Using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST),...
New Mars rock discovery could reveal secrets of the red planet’s ancient past
Scientists have discovered a completely new type of rock from Mars and, for the first time, identified the mineral garnet in a Martian sample.
The...
More than 30 giant dust devils spotted twisting through ancient Martian canyons
The European Space Agency (ESA) has captured remarkable new images of dozens of giant dust devils swirling across an ancient canyon system on Mars.
The...
Ancient black holes may be triggering exploding stars across the universe, study finds
Scientists are exploring a fascinating idea: some of the brilliant stellar explosions seen across the universe may have been triggered by tiny black holes...
Lava planet has hydrogen-rich, active atmosphere
It’s 2158, and you’re chugging away on your PhD in Planetary Volcanology from the University of Utopia Planitia on Mars. Graduate students still get...
Astronomers detect the fuel for star formation in some of the universe’s earliest galaxies
Astronomers have made a major breakthrough by directly detecting the gas that fueled star formation in some of the universe’s earliest galaxies.
The discovery offers...
Deep Space
If neutron stars have mountains, they should generate gravitational waves
A neutron star is 2 solar masses compressed into a ball only 12 kilometers wide.
Its surface gravity is so immense it compresses atoms and...
How dangerous are Kilonovae?
When we look up at the sky on a particularly dark night, there is a sense of timelessness.
We might see the flash of a...
Rare visitor from another star system captured by Hawaiian Telescope
Astronomers have spotted a cosmic traveler passing through our Solar System — only the third of its kind ever discovered.
Using the powerful Gemini North...
How some massive stars become isolated in the universe
A pair of University of Michigan studies reveals how some massive stars--stars eight or more times the mass of our sun--become isolated in the...
Scientists find a ‘one-off gift’ from Martian meteorite
Scientists find the first evidence of high-intensity damage caused by asteroid impact from a Martian meteorite.
The new finding has implications for understanding when conditions...