Space & Future
Why so few planets can support life
Life needs more than water and the right temperature to exist.
New research suggests that only a small number of planets ever get the chemical...
Dead stars may be hiding the missing mass of galaxy clusters
Galaxy clusters, the largest structures held together by gravity in the universe, may be far heavier than scientists once believed.
New research suggests that much...
A giant star is changing before our eyes and astronomers are watching in real...
For decades, astronomers have been watching WOH G64, an enormous heavyweight star in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy visible with the naked eye...
Are there hidden dimensions to the universe
This is Part 1 of a series on large extra dimensions.
I always say that one of the things that separates real science from pseudoscience...
Astronomers discover a hidden factory of organic molecules in a dust-shrouded galaxy
rich mix of organic molecules deep inside a nearby galaxy, offering a new glimpse into how the basic ingredients of chemistry may form in...
A strange Martian dust storm offers new clues to how Mars lost its water
Mars today is a cold, dry desert, but its surface tells a very different story.
Ancient river channels, lake basins, and minerals formed in water...
This mysterious particle may be proof that black holes can explode
In 2023, physicists detected something that should not have existed: a single subatomic particle called a neutrino carrying an almost unimaginable amount of energy.
This...
Is there really a black hole at the Milky Way’s center—or something even stranger?
For decades, astronomers have believed that a supermassive black hole sits at the heart of our galaxy.
This object, known as Sagittarius A*, is thought...
Is there a link between primordial black holes, neutrinos, and dark matter
Humanity has worked itself into a position where we can detect a single high-energy particle from space and wonder where in Nature it came...
After 50 years, Jupiter’s true size is finally revealed
For more than half a century, scientists believed they had a solid grasp of Jupiter’s size and shape.
As the largest planet in the solar...
Webb Telescope spots rare five-galaxy merger just 800 million years after the big bang
Astronomers have spotted an unexpected and dramatic event in the early universe: a tightly packed collision involving at least five galaxies just 800 million...
Why planets with two suns almost never survive
Planets with two suns, like the famous desert world Tatooine from Star Wars, capture our imagination.
Yet in real life, these so-called circumbinary planets—planets that...
Deep Space
Scientists discover a new tiny exoplanet in a strange configuration
Earthlings have long daydreamed about faraway planets, but only recently have scientists been able to identify thousands of new exoplanets—and to learn more and...
New discovery of a short-period X-ray binary system
A New Look at a Mysterious Space Duo
Scientists are always exploring the sky. They use advanced tools to study stars and planets. One such...
Saturn’s moon Enceladus could have ocean currents below subsurface, shows study
Buried beneath 20 kilometers of ice, the subsurface ocean of Enceladus—one of Saturn's moons—appears to be churning with currents akin to those on Earth.
The...
Astronomers find the farthest galaxy. Its light took 13.4 billion years to reach us
Since time immemorial, philosophers and scholars have contemplated the beginning of time and even tried to determine when all things began.
It’s only been in...
Scientists discover star birth places are rare in our Milky Way galaxy
Astronomers using the Nobeyama Radio Obeservatory (NRO) 45-m telescope found that high-density gas, the material for stars, accounts for only 3% of the total...