When a black hole ate a super-sized star: Inside the violent “whippet” explosion
Astronomers have witnessed an extraordinary cosmic catastrophe: a black hole tearing apart a massive star and devouring it piece by piece.
The dramatic event, nicknamed...
Why the carbon in your body and the oxygen you breathe came from ancient...
Where did the carbon in our bodies and the oxygen we breathe come from?
Astronomers have been asking this question for decades, and a new...
What Jupiter’s swirls and Saturn’s hexagon reveal about the planets’ hidden interiors
For years, spacecraft images have shown that the poles of Jupiter and Saturn are anything but calm. Each planet hosts giant atmospheric whirlpools called...
Astronomers discover a ‘dead’ galaxy that was choked by its own black hole
Astronomers have discovered one of the oldest “dead” galaxies ever seen—and its story is not one of sudden destruction, but of slow starvation.
Using the...
Enceladus plumes may hold a clear clue to ocean habitability
How can scientists estimate the pH level of Enceladus’ subsurface ocean without landing on its surface?
This is what a recently submitted study hopes to...
Astronomers solve the mystery of the universe’s “little red dots”
Ever since the James Webb Space Telescope began sending back its first breathtaking images in late 2021, astronomers have been fascinated—and confused—by strange red...
Jupiter’s stormy clouds hide an oxygen-rich world below
Jupiter may look like a swirling ball of colorful clouds, but beneath that dramatic surface lies a world scientists have struggled to understand for...
Astronomers catch a black hole erupting after 100 million years
Astronomers have captured one of the clearest views yet of a supermassive black hole coming back to life after an extraordinarily long period of...
A new atlas of the Milky Way’s ghost particles
Right now, as you read this sentence, roughly a trillion neutrinos are passing straight through your body.
They slip through flesh and bone and even...
Scientists may have solved the mystery behind the universe’s gravitational waves
Scientists at the University of Colorado Boulder think they may have cracked a mystery that has puzzled astronomers since the first detection of the...