Why the universe loves a double helix, from the Sun to the stars
The Sun’s outer atmosphere, known as the solar corona, is a strange and violent place.
It is a million times hotter than the Sun’s surface...
How warped cosmic disks are changing our view of planet formation
For decades, scientists have imagined planet formation as a calm and orderly process.
The picture was simple: young stars surrounded by flat, pancake-like disks of...
What, exactly, is space-time?
Few ideas in modern science have reshaped our understanding of reality more profoundly than space-time—the interwoven fabric of space and time at the heart...
Scientists unlock a safer, stronger energy source for space travel
Scientists at the University at Albany have made a breakthrough that could change how rockets are fueled in the future.
A team of chemists, led...
Scientists crack the code of the Galaxy’s most mysterious steam worlds
For astrobiologists, the search for life beyond our Solar System could be likened to where one would look in a vast desert where there's...
Mars’s rocky interior preserves the chaos of its violent birth, study finds
When we picture the inside of planets like Earth and Mars, we often imagine neat layers stacked one on top of another: a solid...
Habitable planet potential increases in the outer galaxy
What can the Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ), which is a galaxy’s region where complex life is hypothesized to be able to evolve, teach scientists...
Earth-size stars and alien oceans: An astronomer explains the case for life around white...
The sun will someday die. This will happen when it runs out of hydrogen fuel in its core and can no longer produce energy...
No collision, no life: How a cosmic crash may have made Earth habitable
Earth is the only known planet that supports life. It has liquid water, a breathable atmosphere, and the right conditions for plants, animals, and...
White dwarf stars could create surprisingly common long lived habitable zones
A new study by Manuel Barrientos and colleagues from the University of Oklahoma reveals that between 0.6% and 2.5% of white dwarfs in our...