Aerospace

How the universe’s earliest galaxies struggled to form order

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has given astronomers their clearest look yet at what galaxies looked like when the universe was very young—and...

A Galaxy’s age determines what type of planets it can form

Metallicity is a fundamental part of the Universe. The Big Bang created mostly hydrogen, the simplest and lightest element, and a tiny bit of helium,...

How does a flaming piece of space junk end up on Earth

The mysterious object was on fire and lying in the middle of a remote dirt road in Western Australia's Pilbara region when mine workers...

Astronomers capture first-ever image of two black holes dancing around each other

For the first time, scientists have captured an image of two black holes orbiting one another. The pair sits at the heart of a bright,...

Two black holes observed circling each other for the first time

Astronomers with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) made history in 2019 by producing the first image of a black hole. The object in question was...

Dust devils race across Mars at 160 km/h, surprising scientists

Mars may look calm and quiet from far away, but the Red Planet is far more dynamic than we once thought. New research led by...

Hidden in the Sun’s glare, this asteroid is uncomfortably close to Earth

In the distant past, the Solar System was rife with impacts and collisions. Millions of rocky objects zoomed chaotically through the system, smashing into each...

Milky Way’s bright heart might be shining with dark matter energy

Astronomers have found new evidence that mysterious dark matter may be responsible for the unusual glow of high-energy gamma rays coming from the center...

Astronomers uncover the secret behind white dwarfs’ fiery comeback

White dwarfs—the dense, fading cores left behind after stars like our sun die—are usually calm, cool, and ancient. Over billions of years, they stop producing...

A greedy black hole eats through two giant cosmic spirals

Astronomers have discovered that a supermassive black hole at the heart of the Circinus galaxy is feeding through two enormous spiral arms of gas. This...