Space & Future
Mars Express captures dozens of dust devils in Mars valley
Dust devils are a regular feature on Mars.
Just like those found on Earth, these mini whirlwinds form when parts of Mars are warmed by...
Scientists discover two giant planets fluffier than cotton candy
Astronomers have discovered two of the fluffiest planets ever found.
These giant worlds are so light and airy that they are actually less dense than...
NASA’s Hubble discovers ancient galaxy that helped clear the universe’s primordial fog
Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have made an unexpected discovery that sheds new light on one of the universe’s greatest transformations.
They detected ultraviolet...
Mysterious ‘dark force’ may actually slow the growth of cosmic structures
Dark matter is one of the biggest mysteries in science. It cannot be seen directly because it does not emit, absorb, or reflect light.
Yet...
Astronomers discover giant ‘bow and arrow’ galaxy stretching 1.8 million light-years across
Astronomers have discovered a strange and spectacular galaxy that looks like a giant bow and arrow stretching across space.
The unusual object, named RAD-BAARG (Bow-And-Arrow...
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...
Deep Space
A lack of alien signals actually tells us a lot
Earth has not received a technoemission simply because Earth could be in a “void space”, meaning the area of space that Earth resides in has been devoid of technoemissions.
Scientists have a cool way to catch interstellar visitors
In 2017, a telescope in Hawaii detected our first celestial visitor from another solar system — a big deal, since we haven’t quite figured...
Neptune is cooler than we thought, shows study
A new study from the University of Leicester has revealed how temperatures in Neptune’s atmosphere have unexpectedly fluctuated over the past two decades.
The study...
Two surprising findings about water on Mars
A new analysis of seismic data from the InSight mission to Mars has revealed some surprises.
The first: the top 300 meters of the subsurface beneath...
Supercharged light could pulverize asteroids, study finds
The majority of stars in the universe will become luminous enough to blast surrounding asteroids into successively smaller fragments using their light alone, according...