Space & Future
Can Martian soil kill Earth microbes? Water bears reveal surprising clues
Scientists are using one of Earth’s toughest microscopic creatures to explore an important question for future space travel: Could the soil on Mars naturally...
6 million years ago something slammed into modern-day Brazil
Giant impacts on Earth's surface can be cataclysmic events with far-reaching consequences. They can excavate massive craters like the Vredefort Crater.
There's also growing evidence...
Early Mars was warm and wet not icy
A recent study showed that Mars was warm and wet billions of years ago.
The finding contrasts with another theory that this era was mainly...
Moon once had a magnetic field stronger than Earth’s—But only for brief moments
For decades, scientists have debated whether the Moon once had a powerful magnetic field like Earth’s or only a weak one.
Now, a new study...
One of the biggest stars in the universe might be getting ready to explode
One of the largest known stars in the universe underwent a dramatic transformation in 2014, new research shows, and may be preparing to explode.
A...
Stunning new image reveals hidden gas “rivers” at the heart of the Milky Way
Astronomers have captured the most detailed view ever of the center of our Milky Way galaxy, revealing a tangled web of cold gas filaments...
How giant galaxies could form just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang
When the venerable Hubble Space Telescope made its Deep Fields studies of the early Universe, it discovered something that would puzzle astronomers to this...
Scientists discover Earth-like auroras on Jupiter’s giant moon
Scientists have discovered that the colorful light shows seen above Earth’s poles also occur on Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon—and they behave in strikingly similar...
NASA spots a young sun blowing a giant bubble in space
Astronomers have captured the first clear image of a giant “bubble” surrounding a young star that closely resembles what our own sun looked like...
Jupiter’s icy moons may have been born with the ingredients for life
Scientists have found new evidence that Jupiter’s largest moons may have received the chemical building blocks of life at the moment they formed.
The discovery...
Why we may still be waiting for an alien signal
Since the first Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) experiment in 1960, scientists have been scanning the Milky Way for signs of advanced alien civilizations.
They...
Could quantum light expose the universe’s biggest mystery?
Dark matter is one of the biggest mysteries in science.
Astronomers believe it makes up most of the matter in the universe, yet no one...
Deep Space
New study helps explain the dimming of the most mysterious star in the universe
For years, astronomers have looked up at the sky and speculated about the strange dimming behavior of Tabby's Star.
First identified more than a century...
The solar wind is stripping oxygen and carbon away from Venus
The BepiColombo mission, a joint effort between JAXA and the ESA, was only the second (and most advanced) mission to visit Mercury, the least...
Webb confirms the coldest planet ever found. It’s orbiting a white dwarf
In 2020, astronomers detected WD 1856+534 b, a gas giant that orbits a star 81 light-years from Earth.
This exoplanet, which is roughly six times...
Why the sun’s corona is hotter than its surface
The solar corona, or the outer atmosphere of the sun, has puzzled scientists for decades. Despite being farther from the sun's core, the corona...
Scientists detect the heaviest black hole mergers ever recorded
Astronomers have uncovered new evidence that helps solve one of space’s biggest mysteries—the existence of intermediate-mass black holes, or IMBHs.
These black holes are heavier...