Space & Future

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...

Astronomers discover violent past hidden inside a “calm” galaxy cluster

A giant galaxy cluster once thought to be one of the calmest places in the universe is now revealing signs of a violent past. Astronomers...

Stardust trapped in Antarctic ice reveals tens of thousands of years of solar system’s...

When you think of outer space, you're likely picturing stars, planets and moons. But much of space is filled with clouds of gas, plasma...

How one tiny star change can transform an entire galaxy

A galaxy may look calm and stable from far away, but new research suggests it can actually behave in surprisingly chaotic ways. Scientists at Leiden...

Deep Space

What did we learn from the asteroid-smashing DART mission?

On Sept. 26, 2022, at precisely 6:14 p.m. ET, a box-shaped spacecraft no bigger than a loveseat smashed directly into an asteroid wider than...

Latest discoveries in deep space exploration

The universe is vast and full of mysteries, and recent advancements in astronomy are helping us uncover secrets about deep space like never before. Thanks...

Why is the sun’s atmosphere hotter than its surface?

A phenomenon first detected in the solar wind may help solve a long-standing mystery about the sun: why the solar atmosphere is millions of...

Scientists discover new type of pulsating star

A star that pulsates on just one side has been discovered in the Milky Way about 1500 light years from Earth. It is the first...

Machine learning reveals how black holes grow

As different as they may seem, black holes and Las Vegas have one thing in common: What happens there stays there – much to the...