Space & Future

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...

Astronomers Witness a Giant Star’s Final Moments from The Very First Flash of Its...

Astronomers have captured one of the rarest events in the universe—the very first moments of a massive star exploding. The discovery has given scientists an...

Venus May Still Be Alive with Active Volcanoes, Surprising Study Finds

For many years, scientists believed Venus was a dead world with little or no geological activity. Although it is Earth's closest planetary neighbor, Venus...

Scientists Detect Possible Signs That Pluto’s Atmosphere Is Freezing Out

Scientists may have detected the first signs that Pluto's thin atmosphere is beginning to collapse as the dwarf planet slowly travels farther from the...

Young Stars Reshape Galaxies Long Before They Explode, Astronomers Discover

Young stars do much more than simply light up the night sky. According to new research, they begin changing the future of their entire galaxies...

Hidden black hole blast revealed years later by a powerful radio glow

Astronomers have uncovered remarkable new evidence of a rare "missing-link" black hole after detecting a powerful burst of radio waves that continued growing brighter...

Can pumping groundwater really flip Earth’s poles

Recently, a government minister in the Northern Territory, pitching a plan to make Darwin "the data center capital of the globe," suggested it might...

Astronomers Uncover the Magnetic Signature Of the Universe’s Most Powerful Explosions

Astronomers have achieved a major breakthrough by detecting a hidden magnetic signal from one of the most powerful explosions in the universe. Using the U.S....

Deep Space

Scientists reveal the hot Jupiter’s dark side for the first time

The planet’s night side likely hosts iron clouds, titanium rain, and winds that dwarf Earth’s jetstream. MIT astronomers have obtained the clearest view yet of...

Astronomers find a cataclysmic pair of stars with the shortest orbit yet

Nearly half the stars in our galaxy are solitary like the sun. The other half comprises stars that circle other stars, in pairs and multiples,...

Ancient zircon minerals from Mars reveal the elusive internal structure of the red planet

The uranium-bearing mineral zircon is an abundant constituent of Earth's continental crust. It provides information about the age and origin of the continents and large...

Stinky exoplanet smells like rotten eggs

An exoplanet known for its deadly weather has another surprising feature—it smells like rotten eggs! Scientists using data from the James Webb Space Telescope discovered...

Get ready for more strange, icy interstellar objects

Gregory Laughlin and Malena Rice weren’t exactly surprised a few weeks ago when they learned that a second interstellar object had made its way...