Space & Future

Astronomers discover promising super Earth that could support life

A nearby planet that could potentially support life may be more Earth-like than scientists first believed. New observations suggest the planet, called GJ 3378b, is...

Astronomers characterize improbable system shaped by brown dwarf

While studying planets beyond our Solar System (6,316 confirmed exoplanets and counting), scientists have discovered some very interesting systems. Consider TOI-201, a compact system populated...

Nearby super Earth could host life after all

In 2024, astronomers detected a rocky exoplanet, GJ 3378b, orbiting a red dwarf sun just 25 light-years from Earth in the direction of the...

Scientists warn 1.7 million satellites could destroy our view of the night sky

The number of satellites orbiting Earth is growing at an incredible speed, and scientists say it could soon change the night sky forever. A new...

Astronomers spot an extremely rare galaxy mega-merger

Scale in the universe is hard to understand from a purely human perspective. Many times the math just doesn’t sit well with our brains that...

Mysterious black hole has been blasting powerful radio waves for over eight years

Astronomers have discovered a remarkable black hole that has been sending out powerful radio waves for more than eight years, something never seen before. The...

An extended barrage of asteroid impacts made Earth too hot to form continents

The formation of continents was an important step in Earth's history. Continents and plate tectonics are connected to the planet's habitability, and the same is...

How A Giant Planet Escaped Its Star’s Death and Lived to Tell the Story

A giant planet that orbits a dead star has surprised scientists once again. New observations from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) suggest the planet...

Mars dust storms could create dangerous electric sparks, new study finds

Mars is famous for its huge dust storms, but scientists now believe these storms may do more than block sunlight and reduce visibility. A new...

Scientists ‘listened’ to a fireball to trace its path across Alaska

When a bright fireball raced across the sky over Alaska last spring, scientists expected cameras and satellites to reveal exactly where it came from...

Tiny red galaxies may be the hidden source of mysterious cosmic neutrinos

A newly discovered group of tiny red galaxies may help solve one of astronomy's biggest mysteries: where the universe's highest-energy neutrinos come from. Using the...

A star’s death throes involves a lot of kicking

Imagine being nudged again and again by thousands of tiny shoves, each one barely perceptible alone, until they add up to a steady drift...

Deep Space

Axions — if they exist — could tell us about first seconds after Big...

Finding the hypothetical particle axion could mean finding out for the first time what happened in the Universe a second after the Big Bang,...

These are the most concerning pieces of space debris

Tens of thousands of pieces of space debris are hurtling around Earth right now. These defunct satellites, spent rocket stages, collision fragments and even a...

Saturn’s rings might be really old after all

Saturn’s rings are among the most glorious, stunning, and well-studied features in the Solar System. However, their age has been difficult to ascertain. Did they form...

Could humans colonize mars in the next 100 years?

Mars has captured human imagination for centuries, with its reddish glow in the night sky and its status as Earth’s closest planetary neighbor. But...

Is it worth going back to the Moon?

It is true that crewed missions to the Moon are expensive, difficult, and dangerous. And we now have a long history going back decades of...