Scientists discover a gateway for comets to visit our inner Solar System
A recent study may fundamentally alter our understanding of how comets arrive from the outskirts of the solar system and are funneled to the...
Scientists capture six galaxies undergoing sudden, dramatic transitions
Galaxies come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and brightnesses, ranging from humdrum ordinary galaxies to luminous active galaxies.
While an ordinary galaxy is...
Dust from a giant asteroid crash caused an ancient ice age before dinosaurs
About 466 million years ago, long before the age of the dinosaurs, the Earth froze.
The seas began to ice over at the Earth's poles,...
New study helps explain the dimming of the most mysterious star in the universe
For years, astronomers have looked up at the sky and speculated about the strange dimming behavior of Tabby's Star.
First identified more than a century...
Scientists detect a black hole ringing like a bell for the first time
'Ringing' black hole validates Einstein's general relativity 10 years ahead of schedule.
For the first time, astrophysicists have heard a black hole ringing like a...
Scientists hear first overtones in the ringing of a black hole
By listening for specific tones in the gravitational waves of black hole mergers, researchers are putting Albert Einstein's theories to new tests.
When two black...
Black hole at the center of our galaxy is getting hungrier
The enormous black hole at the center of our galaxy is having an unusually large meal of interstellar gas and dust, and researchers don't...
Rocks at asteroid impact site record first day of dinosaur extinction
When the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs slammed into the planet, the impact set wildfires, triggered tsunamis and blasted so much sulfur into...
Explosive nitrogen created craters that pock Saturn moon Titan
Lakes of liquid methane on the surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, were likely formed by explosive, pressurized nitrogen just under the moon's surface,...
Afterglow of GW170817 sheds light on the origin of neutron star collisions
The final chapter of the historic detection of the powerful merger of two neutron stars in 2017 officially has been written.
After the extremely bright...