Space & Future
Scientists Solve Key Mysteries Behind Supernovae and X-Ray Bursts
Scientists have made two important nuclear measurements that could help explain what happens inside some of the most powerful explosions in the universe.
In two...
Galactic archaeologists find stars in the Milky Way came from another galaxy 12 billion...
Look up on a dark night and the Milky Way appears as a calm band of stars across the sky. But our galaxy has...
Astronomers Discover a Mysterious New Object Called a ‘Black Hole Star’
Astronomers may have discovered an entirely new kind of object in the early universe: something that looks like an enormous star but is powered...
Giant Planets May Be Born in the Shadow of Supermassive Black Holes
Black holes are often imagined as cosmic vacuum cleaners that simply swallow everything nearby.
But new research suggests the environment around supermassive black holes may...
Why Astronauts Get Constipated in Space: Their Blood Offers a Clue
Constipation is a surprisingly common problem for astronauts living in space.
Scientists have long known that digestion can change when people leave Earth, but exactly...
A Dry Martian Meteorite Reveals Where Water Once Hid on Mars
Mars may look like a dry, dusty world today, but billions of years ago, water interacted with its rocky surface.
Now, scientists have found new...
Chemical Fingerprints Reveal the Secret Pasts of Massive Stars
A massive star may look like it has spent its entire life alone, but its chemical makeup can tell a very different story.
Scientists have...
Astronomers Discover a Stellar Stream Beyond the Milky Way for the First Time
Astronomers have discovered a faint stream of stars in another galaxy for the first time, opening a new way to investigate one of the...
Astronomers Find Three Giant Black Holes in One Ancient Galaxy for the First Time
Astronomers have discovered three actively feeding supermassive black holes inside a single distant galaxy, something never before seen so far back in the history...
Astronomers Catch a Dying Star Recycling Its Material Back into Space
Astronomers have captured a remarkable view of a dying star's remains being broken apart and mixed into the space between stars.
The discovery offers a...
A Blazar 1.5 Billion Light-Years Away Is Challenging What Astronomers Thought They Knew
About 1.5 billion light-years from Earth, a galaxy called PKS 2155-304 is giving astronomers more questions than answers.
After studying nearly two decades of observations,...
Astronomers Release the Largest 2D Map of the Universe Ever Made
Astronomers have released the largest two-dimensional color map of the universe ever created, containing an extraordinary 5.6 trillion pixels and nearly 4 billion stars,...
Deep Space
How a black hole and a shredded star could light up a galaxy
In 2014, a strange cloudy object called G2 made a close approach to Sagittarius A*, (Sag A*) the supermassive black hole at the heart...
This gamma-ray burst challenges theories about cosmic explosions that make gold, uranium and other...
A bright flash of gamma rays from the constellation Boötes that lasted nearly one minute came from a kilonova, as we described in a...
Nearby neutron-star collision likely gave earth some gold and platinum
Astrophysicists have identified a violent collision of two neutron stars 4.6 billion years ago as the likely source of some of the most coveted...
Scientists detect mysterious signal that could confirm primordial black holes
A strange signal from space may be offering a clue to one of the biggest mysteries in science.
Researchers from the University of Miami believe...
Scientists discover an infant exoplanet around a nearby young star
Astronomers study stars and planets much younger than the Sun to learn about past events that shaped the Solar System and Earth.
Most of these...