Space & Future
When a black hole ate a super-sized star: Inside the violent “whippet” explosion
Astronomers have witnessed an extraordinary cosmic catastrophe: a black hole tearing apart a massive star and devouring it piece by piece.
The dramatic event, nicknamed...
Why the carbon in your body and the oxygen you breathe came from ancient...
Where did the carbon in our bodies and the oxygen we breathe come from?
Astronomers have been asking this question for decades, and a new...
What Jupiter’s swirls and Saturn’s hexagon reveal about the planets’ hidden interiors
For years, spacecraft images have shown that the poles of Jupiter and Saturn are anything but calm. Each planet hosts giant atmospheric whirlpools called...
Astronomers discover a ‘dead’ galaxy that was choked by its own black hole
Astronomers have discovered one of the oldest “dead” galaxies ever seen—and its story is not one of sudden destruction, but of slow starvation.
Using the...
Enceladus plumes may hold a clear clue to ocean habitability
How can scientists estimate the pH level of Enceladus’ subsurface ocean without landing on its surface?
This is what a recently submitted study hopes to...
Astronomers solve the mystery of the universe’s “little red dots”
Ever since the James Webb Space Telescope began sending back its first breathtaking images in late 2021, astronomers have been fascinated—and confused—by strange red...
Jupiter’s stormy clouds hide an oxygen-rich world below
Jupiter may look like a swirling ball of colorful clouds, but beneath that dramatic surface lies a world scientists have struggled to understand for...
Astronomers catch a black hole erupting after 100 million years
Astronomers have captured one of the clearest views yet of a supermassive black hole coming back to life after an extraordinarily long period of...
A new atlas of the Milky Way’s ghost particles
Right now, as you read this sentence, roughly a trillion neutrinos are passing straight through your body.
They slip through flesh and bone and even...
Scientists may have solved the mystery behind the universe’s gravitational waves
Scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder think they may have cracked a mystery that has puzzled astronomers since the first detection of the...
Your dog’s dinner could be warming the planet more than your own
Many dog owners carefully think about what they eat for the sake of the planet—but new research suggests they may want to pay just...
How ‘red geyser’ galaxies stay silent for billions of years
Some of the universe’s largest galaxies have gone strangely quiet.
They stopped forming new stars billions of years ago and have remained dormant ever since—even...
Deep Space
Pebbles, rocks, and gas: How a giant planet was forged in extreme heat
A distant planet known as WASP-121b has helped scientists uncover new clues about how giant planets form—and it turns out, tiny space pebbles and...
New view of galaxy helps pin down mass of the black hole at its...
Seen from Earth, the giant elliptical galaxy M87 is just a two-dimensional blob, though one that appears perfectly symmetrical and thus a favored target...
Giant cosmic cloud reveals supersonic web of gas in deep space
Astronomers have uncovered a surprisingly wild and tangled network of gas filaments inside a giant cloud far out in our Milky Way galaxy.
This discovery,...
Moonquakes tumble boulders, build lunar scarps
The Apollo Moon buggies weren’t the only things rolling over the Moon’s surface in the early 1970s.
New research has found that a strong moonquake...
How to plan the optimal path for spacecraft beyond the sun’s reach
Imagine living in a house with a special shield that protects you from harmful things outside. Our solar system has something quite similar called...