Space & Future

Scientists discover hidden teenage galaxies at the edge of the universe

Astronomers have uncovered a mysterious group of distant galaxies that may fill an important gap in our understanding of how galaxies grow and change...

Webb Telescope peers into Uranus’s mysterious upper atmosphere

For the first time, scientists have created a detailed map of the upper atmosphere of Uranus, revealing how temperature and electrically charged particles change...

Why so many space rocks look like snowmen

Far beyond Neptune, at the cold edge of our solar system, millions of icy objects drift quietly in a region called the Kuiper Belt. These...

NASA’s Hubble finds a ghost galaxy made almost entirely of dark matter

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered an extremely faint galaxy that may be made almost entirely of dark matter, the mysterious substance...

Astronomers get to the heart of Mira A’s latest outburst

Just a few hundred light-years from Earth, the famous variable star Mira A is huffing and puffing its outer layers to space. Its most...

The moon is still shrinking: New study reveals recent tectonic activity

For a long time, people imagined the moon as a quiet, frozen world where nothing much happens anymore. But new research shows that the moon...

A cosmic jellyfish from the early universe surprises astronomers

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered the most distant “jellyfish galaxy” ever seen, offering a rare glimpse into how galaxies changed...

Utah’s “soda pop” geysers may hold clues to life on distant ocean worlds

In the dry desert of eastern Utah, strange geysers shoot cold, fizzy water into the air. Instead of boiling like the famous hot geysers in...

If aliens already called, why didn’t we hear?

For more than 60 years, scientists have been scanning the skies for signs of intelligent life beyond Earth. Using powerful telescopes, they have searched for...

Scientists make a game-changing find in the Bennu asteroid

In 2023, NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission delivered samples of the 4.6-billion-year-old asteroid Bennu to Earth. Upon examining them, scientists discovered that the asteroid - which existed...

James Webb Telescope detects rotten-egg gas on alien worlds for the first time

Astronomers have detected a smelly gas best known for the odor of rotten eggs—hydrogen sulfide—in the atmospheres of four giant planets far beyond our...

How a rare element could fuel the next generation of space missions

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are taking a fresh look at neptunium, a rare radioactive metal that...

Deep Space

The mineral-rich water on early Mars could have been habitable for life

Presently, Earth is the only known location where life exists in the Universe. This year the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to three astronomers...

Scientists finally solve the mysteries behind interstellar buckyballs

Scientists have long been puzzled by the existence of so-called "buckyballs" - complex carbon molecules with a soccer-ball-like structure - throughout interstellar space. Now, a...

Did supernovae cause mass extinctions on Earth? Scientists say yes

New research suggests that powerful star explosions, called supernovae, may have caused at least two mass extinctions in Earth's history. Scientists from Keele University believe...

Which stars are lethal to their planets

Many years ago, there was a viral YouTube video called “History of the entire world, i guess,” which has been an endless source of...

China probe returns with ‘treasure trove’ of moon rocks

The Chinese space agency announced Dec. 16 the return of a lunar probe bringing back the first fresh samples of rock and debris from...