Space & Future
How Jupiter May Have Helped Deliver the Building Blocks of Life to Earth
A new NASA-supported study suggests that Jupiter may have played a surprisingly important role in helping Earth acquire some of the key ingredients needed...
Astronomers Discover Missing Red Dwarf Stars in Ancient Star Cluster
Astronomers studying an ancient star cluster have discovered a strange gap where certain stars should exist but do not.
The finding provides new clues about...
Asteroid dirt is fluffier than we thought
The strength of gravity is different on every body in the solar system.
Whether it's the crushing weight of Jupiter or the miniscule pull of...
New laser-treated metal could help keep satellites cool in space
Keeping satellites cool in space is a major challenge. Unlike on Earth, where heat can escape into the surrounding air, space is a vacuum.
This...
Why lunar regolith could be the key to living on the Moon
The moon may look peaceful from Earth, but its surface is one of the harshest environments imaginable.
It is covered by a layer of fine...
Astronomers solve mystery of strange cosmic signals with rare two-star system
Astronomers have solved one of the biggest mysteries in radio astronomy by identifying the source of a strange type of cosmic signal that has...
How heavy can a neutron star get
The physics of neutron stars are almost too fantastic to believe. Something the weight of two Suns compacted to a sphere the size of...
Scientists get their best-ever look at distant planet’s surface
Astronomers have found thousands of worlds in faraway star systems, but one of the questions that’s been hardest to answer is the one that...
Is extracting oxygen from lunar soil the future of space exploration
A new race to the moon is emerging between the United States and China.
Unlike fifty years ago, the goal is no longer just about...
Everything we thought we knew about dark energy could be wrong
For nearly 30 years, scientists have believed that a mysterious force called dark energy is causing the universe to expand faster and faster.
But a...
The Sun is changing and we don’t know why
Put your ear to the ground in the right place and you can hear a train coming from miles away.
Long before it appears on...
How Giant Galaxies Burned Bright and Died Young In the Early Universe
One of the biggest mysteries in astronomy is why some of the largest galaxies in the early universe stopped making stars surprisingly early in...
Deep Space
Deep-sea sediments reveal solar system chaos
A day is the time for Earth to make one complete rotation on its axis, and a year is one revolution around the Sun...
An earth-sized exoplanet found orbiting a Jupiter-sized star
Red dwarf stars, also known as M-dwarfs, dominate the Milky Way’s stellar population.
They can last for 100 billion years or longer. Since these long-lived...
Scientists discover possible rogue planets hidden in old survey data
Scientists have found what appear to be rogue planets hidden in old survey data.
Astronomers estimate Titan’s largest sea is 1,000 feet deep
Far below the gaseous atmospheric shroud on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, lies Kraken Mare, a sea of liquid methane.
Cornell astronomers have estimated that sea...
Scientists find the third-nearest star with a planet—and it’s rocky like Earth
In the past two decades, scientists have discovered more and more planets orbiting distant stars—but in some sense, they’re still just dots on a...