Space & Future

Astronomers Catch a Dying Star Recycling Its Material Back into Space

Astronomers have captured a remarkable view of a dying star's remains being broken apart and mixed into the space between stars. The discovery offers a...

A Blazar 1.5 Billion Light-Years Away Is Challenging What Astronomers Thought They Knew

About 1.5 billion light-years from Earth, a galaxy called PKS 2155-304 is giving astronomers more questions than answers. After studying nearly two decades of observations,...

Astronomers Release the Largest 2D Map of the Universe Ever Made

Astronomers have released the largest two-dimensional color map of the universe ever created, containing an extraordinary 5.6 trillion pixels and nearly 4 billion stars,...

Rare Mars Meteorite Fills a 2-Billion-Year Gap in the Red Planet’s History

A rare meteorite from Mars is giving scientists a new look at a mysterious period in the Red Planet’s history. Researchers at Boston College have...

Super-Earths May Be Surprisingly Solid Deep Inside, Scientists Find

Massive rocky planets known as super-Earths may be much more solid deep inside than scientists previously understood, according to new research into how minerals...

Uranus’s Magnetic Shield “Breathes” as the Planet Spins

Uranus is one of the strangest planets in our solar system, and new research shows that its unusual orientation causes the planet’s magnetic environment...

Trillion-Mile Gas Stream May Explain a Bizarre Triple-Star System

Astronomers have discovered an enormous stream of gas flowing toward a young system of three stars, potentially explaining why its planet-forming disks are strangely...

20 Years of Watching a Blazar Reveals Something Stranger Than Expected

After nearly two decades of observations, astronomers have discovered that a distant blazar behaves in ways that leading theories struggle to explain. Instead of solving...

Mysterious Magnetic Star May Have Revealed a 90-Year-Old Quantum Secret

Scientists may have found the strongest evidence yet for one of the strangest predictions in quantum physics—a theory first proposed nearly 90 years ago. By...

A Simple Heat Treatment Could Make 3D-Printed Metal Parts Tougher for Rockets and Electric...

Scientists have found a way to improve the performance of 3D-printed aluminum bronze, a metal that could be useful for cooling powerful electronic components...

Mysterious ‘Little Red Dots’ May Be Giant Stars That Gave Birth to the Universe’s...

One of the biggest mysteries revealed by the James Webb Space Telescope may finally have a promising explanation. Astronomers believe that the strange objects known...

Pluto’s Frozen Heart May Still Be Alive with Flowing Liquid Nitrogen

Pluto may be far colder than any place on Earth, but scientists have discovered evidence that something surprising may still be moving beneath its...

Deep Space

Scientists find new way of planet formation

In the last 25 years, scientists have discovered over 4000 planets outside our solar system. From relatively small rock and water worlds to blisteringly hot...

Solar wind creates giant space waves that slowly strip away Mars’ atmosphere

Mars is slowly losing parts of its atmosphere to space, and scientists have discovered that the process may be driven by giant waves created...

Why galaxies die faster in crowded regions

Astronomers have long known that galaxies grow and change over billions of years, but new results from a major international project show that where...

Astronomers spot a giant ‘cosmic bat’ flying across the Milky Way

Just in time for Halloween, astronomers have discovered a giant, ghostly “bat” soaring across the Milky Way. Using the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at the...

Astronomers discover a two-faced white dwarf star

In a first for white dwarfs, the burnt-out cores of dead stars, astronomers have discovered that at least one member of this cosmic family...