Space & Future
Astronomers Find a Flaw in a Cosmic Yardstick Used for 50 Years
For more than half a century, astronomers have relied on a basic assumption when estimating the number of stars inside distant galaxies: stars of...
Dry Martian Meteorite Reveals Early Water in Mars’s Crust
Billions of years ago, Mars was hypothesized to have been a habitable world with flowing liquid water and the potential for life.
But directly studying...
Mysterious Gravitational Waves May Be Echoes of Ancient Dark Stars
A faint gravitational-wave signal spreading across the universe may contain clues about mysterious stars that existed more than 13 billion years ago, according to...
Hidden Stars Reveal Early Galaxies Were Far Bigger Than We Thought
Some of the earliest massive galaxies in the universe may be hiding enormous numbers of small, faint stars, suggesting they contain much more mass...
One Giant Asteroid Impact May Have Reshaped Mars’ Tiny Moon Deimos
A single asteroid impact may have dramatically reshaped Deimos, the smaller of Mars' two moons, creating both a huge depression near its south pole...
Dying Galaxies Reveal What Happens After Black Hole Jets Switch Off
Astronomers have discovered a group of faint "dying" radio galaxies that could change our understanding of what happens after supermassive black holes stop producing...
Mars Dust Could Threaten Astronauts’ Lungs, NASA Warns
Future astronauts exploring Mars will face a danger that may be much harder to avoid than extreme cold or radiation: dust.
NASA has released a...
Hubble Discovers a Lost Galaxy Swallowed by the Milky Way 11.8 Billion Years Ago
The Milky Way has not always been the enormous spiral galaxy we see today. Like many large galaxies, it grew partly by swallowing smaller...
Scientists Solve Key Mysteries Behind Supernovae and X-Ray Bursts
Scientists have made two important nuclear measurements that could help explain what happens inside some of the most powerful explosions in the universe.
In two...
Galactic archaeologists find stars in the Milky Way came from another galaxy 12 billion...
Look up on a dark night and the Milky Way appears as a calm band of stars across the sky. But our galaxy has...
Astronomers Discover a Mysterious New Object Called a ‘Black Hole Star’
Astronomers may have discovered an entirely new kind of object in the early universe: something that looks like an enormous star but is powered...
Giant Planets May Be Born in the Shadow of Supermassive Black Holes
Black holes are often imagined as cosmic vacuum cleaners that simply swallow everything nearby.
But new research suggests the environment around supermassive black holes may...
Deep Space
How stardust really travels: A new study rewrites the story of life’s building blocks
The atoms that make up life on Earth—carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and more—were forged inside stars long before our planet existed.
For decades, astronomers believed they...
How star pulsations help scientists hunt for dark matter
Imagine the universe as a giant puzzle. Most of its pieces are hidden in the form of dark matter, a mysterious substance that makes...
‘Planet confusion’ could slow Earth-like exoplanet exploration
When it comes to directly imaging Earth-like exoplanets orbiting faraway stars, seeing isn’t always believing.
A new Cornell study finds that next-generation telescopes used to...
Scientists unlock secrets of the sun’s history using Thallium decay
The sun, the powerhouse of life on Earth, generates its energy through nuclear fusion and constantly releases neutrinos—tiny particles that act as messengers of...
James Webb Telescope’s new Saturn image reveals stunning details
If you're a fan of the mysteries that lie in our solar system, get ready to be amazed!
The latest image from the James Webb...