Space & Future
A real-life Tatooine: Astronomers spot a rare planet orbiting two suns up close
Astronomers have captured a rare and cinematic sight: a distant planet orbiting not one, but two suns, much like the fictional world of Tatooine...
Scientists draw the first detailed map of the Sun’s “point of no return”
Astronomers have created the first continuous, two-dimensional maps of the outer edge of the Sun’s atmosphere, revealing a dynamic and changing boundary where solar...
Earth may be slowly feeding the moon with water and nitrogen, study finds
The Moon is often seen as a dry, lifeless world covered in dust.
But new research suggests its surface may hold more useful material than...
Scientists capture a rare cosmic dance caused by a rapidly rotating black hole
Astronomers have made an extraordinary discovery that brings one of Einstein’s lesser-known predictions to life.
For the first time, scientists have observed a swirling distortion...
Uranus and Neptune could be “rock giants,” not just ice worlds
For decades, scientists have believed that Uranus and Neptune are “ice giants,” planets made mostly of icy materials like water, ammonia and methane.
But a...
How Mars controls Earth’s climate
Earth's climate has swung between ice ages and warmer periods for millions of years, driven by subtle changes in our planet's orbit and axial...
Most normal matter in the universe isn’t found in planets, stars or galaxies –where...
If you look across space with a telescope, you’ll see countless galaxies, most of which host large central black holes, billions of stars and...
Scientists map the largest structures in the universe
clusters of galaxies.
These gigantic structures, which contain hundreds or even thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity, offer important clues about how the universe...
Astronomers discover a surprisingly mature spiral galaxy from the early universe
Astronomers have discovered a beautiful, well-formed spiral galaxy from a time when the universe was still very young—only 1.5 billion years after the Big...
Astronomers discover giant spinning thread of galaxies 140 million light-years away
Astronomers have discovered one of the largest rotating structures ever seen in the universe: a razor-thin line of galaxies inside a massive, spinning cosmic...
Scientists capture the first high-detail “real-time” images of stars exploding
Astronomers have captured the most detailed close-up images ever taken of stars exploding, known as novae.
These pictures were taken within days of the eruptions...
Did asteroids invent gum billions of years ago?
What is “gum”? Most people have probably never considered this question, and might answer something like a chewy material you can put in your...
Deep Space
MIT students create lunar habitats
MIT students are stepping into the future with a unique challenge: designing homes and workplaces for humans on the moon.
This spring, a special course...
Scientists find potential source of shock-darkened meteorites
Planetary scientists have identified a potential source of shock-darkened meteorites.
When the Chelyabinsk fireball exploded across Russian skies in 2013, it littered Earth with a...
This is the largest planet-forming disk ever seen
Roughly 1,000 light-years from Earth, there is a cosmic structure known as IRAS 23077+6707 (IRAS 23077) that resembles a giant butterfly.
Ciprian T. Berghea, an...
Moon’s surface is still changing, says new study
Scientists have analyzed an archive of more than two million images of the lunar surface and have created the first global map of rockfalls...
Scientists find how two suns collect matter in a binary system
Most stars in the universe come in the form of pairs – binaries – or even multiple star systems.
Now, the formation of such a...