Space & Future
Webb Telescope peers into Uranus’s mysterious upper atmosphere
For the first time, scientists have created a detailed map of the upper atmosphere of Uranus, revealing how temperature and electrically charged particles change...
Why so many space rocks look like snowmen
Far beyond Neptune, at the cold edge of our solar system, millions of icy objects drift quietly in a region called the Kuiper Belt.
These...
NASA’s Hubble finds a ghost galaxy made almost entirely of dark matter
Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered an extremely faint galaxy that may be made almost entirely of dark matter, the mysterious substance...
Astronomers get to the heart of Mira A’s latest outburst
Just a few hundred light-years from Earth, the famous variable star Mira A is huffing and puffing its outer layers to space. Its most...
The moon is still shrinking: New study reveals recent tectonic activity
For a long time, people imagined the moon as a quiet, frozen world where nothing much happens anymore.
But new research shows that the moon...
A cosmic jellyfish from the early universe surprises astronomers
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered the most distant “jellyfish galaxy” ever seen, offering a rare glimpse into how galaxies changed...
Utah’s “soda pop” geysers may hold clues to life on distant ocean worlds
In the dry desert of eastern Utah, strange geysers shoot cold, fizzy water into the air.
Instead of boiling like the famous hot geysers in...
If aliens already called, why didn’t we hear?
For more than 60 years, scientists have been scanning the skies for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth.
Using powerful telescopes, they have searched for...
Scientists make a game-changing find in the Bennu asteroid
In 2023, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission delivered samples of the 4.6-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu to Earth.
Upon examining them, scientists discovered that the asteroid - which existed...
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...
How a rare element could fuel the next generation of space missions
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are taking a fresh look at neptunium, a rare radioactive metal that...
Scientists finally solve the mystery of how the most common planets form
Astronomers have finally figured out how the most common types of planets in our galaxy are formed—by watching a set of baby planets grow...
Deep Space
Space junk: Houston, we have a problem
Humans have left an absolute mess in space but no one wants to clean it up.
When we think of space, we think big and...
The most spectacular celestial vision you’ll never see
Contrary to previous thought, a gigantic planet in wild orbit does not preclude the presence of an Earth-like planet in the same solar system—or...
What do the Webb Space Telescope images reveal?
NASA set off a frenzy within the astronomy community last week with its much-anticipated release of the first images taken by the James Webb...
Mars could once have had an ozone shield like Earth, study finds
Scientists studying the harsh winter at Mars’s north pole have uncovered surprising conditions inside the planet’s polar vortex—an enormous, swirling current of air that...
China’s lunar spacecraft digs 40 meters into the far side of the moon
A little over a year after landing, China's spacecraft Chang'E-4 is continuing to unveil secrets from the far side of the Moon.
The latest study,...