Space & Future
20 years of space images reveal the secrets of Mars dust devils
For decades, we’ve known that Mars is a dusty world.
Its red surface is constantly shaped by wind, storms, and whirlwinds that dance across its...
Far side of the moon may be colder than the side we see, study...
The moon has long puzzled scientists with its “two faces.”
The near side, which always faces Earth, looks very different from the mysterious far side...
Astronomers detect the smallest dark object ever seen through gravity’s lens
Astronomers have made an exciting breakthrough in the search for the universe’s most mysterious substance—dark matter.
They have discovered the lowest-mass dark object ever detected...
Webb Telescope reveals a hidden giant star before it exploded
For the first time, astronomers have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to get a clear look at a giant star right before...
The most metal-free star ever observed is found in our own backyard
The Big Bang essentially created two elements: hydrogen and helium.
It also produced tiny traces of lithium and a few other light isotopes, but in...
How black holes launch powerful jets across the universe
When astronomers released the first-ever image of a black hole in 2019, the world caught a glimpse of the monster at the center of...
Astronomers detect water in interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS
For millions of years, a frozen fragment of ice and dust wandered alone between the stars, like a sealed bottle drifting in a cosmic...
Solar sail probe could help detect space tornadoes before they hit Earth
Scientists are calling for a new generation of spacecraft to help spot dangerous space weather before it reaches Earth.
According to a new study from...
Moon rocks from 1972 reveal chemical secrets that don’t match Earth
When astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt returned from NASA’s Apollo 17 mission in 1972, they carried with them a treasure trove of lunar...
Black holes have no hair, but they do have comb overs
Making a black hole is easy.
Just squeeze a bunch of stuff into a small enough volume. It doesn't even matter what you use.
You can...
Rogue planet found having massive growth spurt
Rogue planets, also known as free-floating planets (FFP) or isolated planetary-mass objects (iPMO), have become a major focus for astronomers.
The first such objects were...
A new telescope could help us find another Earth
Astronomers have already discovered nearly 6,000 planets outside our solar system, but none of them are true “Earth twins.”
Scientists are especially interested in finding...
Deep Space
Could we directly observe volcanoes on an exoplanet
After a few decades of simply finding exoplanets, humanity is starting to be able to do something more – peer into their atmospheres.
The James...
Scientists find rare Tatooine-like exoplanet
A rare exoplanet that orbits around two stars at once has been detected using a ground-based telescope by a team led by the University...
Why UFOs should be tracked in the water as well as the skies
A much anticipated NASA report on UFOs calls for better tracking and scientific understanding of unexplained phenomena that captivate the public and have raised...
An ancestor of supermassive black holes, found at cosmic dawn
At the center of the more-massive galaxies in the Universe lie the intensely powerful and energetic phenomena known as supermassive black holes (SMBHs).
This includes...
NASA discovers new worlds in a river of young stars
Using observations from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), astronomers have discovered a trio of hot worlds larger than Earth orbiting a much younger...