Space & Future

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...

The universe’s famous ‘pink planet’ has salty clouds in its sky

Astronomers have discovered an unexpected surprise on the famous “Pink Planet,” a strange world known as GJ504b. Using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST),...

New Mars rock discovery could reveal secrets of the red planet’s ancient past

Scientists have discovered a completely new type of rock from Mars and, for the first time, identified the mineral garnet in a Martian sample. The...

More than 30 giant dust devils spotted twisting through ancient Martian canyons

The European Space Agency (ESA) has captured remarkable new images of dozens of giant dust devils swirling across an ancient canyon system on Mars. The...

Ancient black holes may be triggering exploding stars across the universe, study finds

Scientists are exploring a fascinating idea: some of the brilliant stellar explosions seen across the universe may have been triggered by tiny black holes...

Lava planet has hydrogen-rich, active atmosphere

It’s 2158, and you’re chugging away on your PhD in Planetary Volcanology from the University of Utopia Planitia on Mars. Graduate students still get...

Astronomers detect the fuel for star formation in some of the universe’s earliest galaxies

Astronomers have made a major breakthrough by directly detecting the gas that fueled star formation in some of the universe’s earliest galaxies. The discovery offers...

Ancient stellar debris is still falling on Earth after 100 million years, study finds

Tiny traces of material from a giant cosmic explosion are still falling to Earth more than 100 million years after the event occurred, according...

Astronomers discover Sun-like star that likely swallowed one of its planets

A team of astronomers has found strong evidence that a star similar to our sun may have eaten one of its own planets. The star,...

Deep Space

Two supermassive black holes on a collision course with each other

Galaxy collisions are foundational events in the Universe. They happen when two systems mingle stars in a cosmic dance. They also cause spectacular mergers of...

More than 30 giant dust devils spotted twisting through ancient Martian canyons

The European Space Agency (ESA) has captured remarkable new images of dozens of giant dust devils swirling across an ancient canyon system on Mars. The...

NASA’s Hubble images a starstruck galaxy

The irregular galaxy Arp 263 lurks in the background of this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, but the view is dominated by...

Is there life out there? The existence of other technological species is highly likely

We live in a golden age for space exploration. Scientists are gathering massive amounts of new information and scientific evidence at a record pace. Yet the...

There aren’t many galaxies like the Milky Way nearby. now we know why

The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy, maybe even a grand design spiral galaxy. We can’t be sure from our vantage point. But one...