Space & Future
The long-lived Chicxulub hydrothermal system lasted 8 million years
When a massive, ten-kilometer asteroid slammed into Earth about 66 million years ago, it created a massive crater.
The impact triggered a megatsunami and a...
Did gravitational tides cause Earth’s extinctions?
Life on Earth took a long evolutionary journey that eventually created us, the purportedly intelligent species that dominates the planet.
But there was no grand...
Scientists discover magnetic fields guiding the birth of stars
How do stars form?
Scientists know that stars are born when huge clouds of cold gas in space collapse under their own gravity.
But one mystery...
Scientists Warn Some Earth Pathogens May Survive a Journey to Mars
Could microbes from Earth survive on other worlds? New research suggests that the answer may be yes.
Ph.D. candidate Tommaso Zaccaria studied whether tiny organisms...
Iconic cosmic collision challenges long-held ideas about dark matter
The Bullet Cluster is one of the most famous objects in astronomy.
For years, many scientists have considered it one of the strongest pieces of...
Scientists find a new way to search for ancient life on Mars using ‘mirror’...
Billions of years ago, Mars looked very different from the cold, dry world we see today. Scientists believe the Red Planet once had a...
Mysterious cosmic rays are challenging what scientists thought they knew about the universe
Millions of years ago, a massive star exploded somewhere far away in our galaxy.
During this violent event, called a supernova, the dying star blasted...
The universe’s famous ‘pink planet’ has salty clouds in its sky
Astronomers have discovered an unexpected surprise on the famous “Pink Planet,” a strange world known as GJ504b.
Using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST),...
New Mars rock discovery could reveal secrets of the red planet’s ancient past
Scientists have discovered a completely new type of rock from Mars and, for the first time, identified the mineral garnet in a Martian sample.
The...
More than 30 giant dust devils spotted twisting through ancient Martian canyons
The European Space Agency (ESA) has captured remarkable new images of dozens of giant dust devils swirling across an ancient canyon system on Mars.
The...
Ancient black holes may be triggering exploding stars across the universe, study finds
Scientists are exploring a fascinating idea: some of the brilliant stellar explosions seen across the universe may have been triggered by tiny black holes...
Lava planet has hydrogen-rich, active atmosphere
It’s 2158, and you’re chugging away on your PhD in Planetary Volcanology from the University of Utopia Planitia on Mars. Graduate students still get...
Deep Space
A cosmic duo: discovering the tiniest star yet
In the vast expanse of the universe, astronomers are constantly uncovering new wonders. Recently, an international team of astronomers made a groundbreaking discovery that...
Scientists may have just solved the universe’s biggest headache
For years, scientists have puzzled over a strange mismatch in how fast the universe seems to be expanding.
Depending on whether they looked at the...
New picture reveals the death of hypergiant stars
Astronomers have created a detailed, three-dimensional image of a dying hypergiant star.
The team traced the distribution, directions, and velocities of a variety of molecules...
Tiny dwarf galaxies help solve a 40-year dark matter debate
For decades, scientists have puzzled over why galaxies spin faster than expected.
The stars in their outer regions move so quickly that, by the laws...
New technique could sift out the universe’s first gravitational waves
In the moments immediately following the Big Bang, the very first gravitational waves rang out.
The product of quantum fluctuations in the new soup of...