Space
NASA’s Voyager 2 flyby of Uranus decades ago shaped scientists’ understanding of the planet but also introduced unexplained oddities. A recent data dive has offered answers. »
New research suggests a moon orbiting the sophomoric-sounding planet Uranus might contain enough natural resources to support alien life. »
Researchers have discovered the most distant Milky-Way-like galaxy yet observed. Dubbed REBELS-25, this disc galaxy seems as orderly as present-day galaxies, but we see it as it was when the Universe was only 700 million years old. »
Measurements from the agency’s Curiosity rover are providing clues as to how the Red Planet’s ancient climate transformed. »
Deposits of ice in lunar dust and rock (regolith) are more extensive than previously thought, according to a new analysis of data from NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) mission. »
While actual evidence for life on Mars has never been found, a new NASA study proposes microbes could find a potential home beneath frozen water on the planet’s surface. »
Astronomers have published a gigantic infrared map of the Milky Way containing more than 1.5 billion objects ― the most detailed one ever made. »
Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), astronomers have discovered an exoplanet orbiting Barnard’s star, the closest single star to our Sun. »
They used data from NASA’s WISE telescope, which later became the NEOWISE mission, to discover the faint, fast-moving object zooming out of the Milky Way. »
NASA announced at a press conference that Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore would return home from the International Space Station on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft in February 2025. »
Results from newly released 3-year study may help illuminate origins of magnetic neutron stars »
After 3½ years exploring Jezero Crater’s floor and river delta, the rover will ascend to an area where it will search for more discoveries that could rewrite Mars’ history. »
Astronomers have discovered that red dwarf stars can produce stellar flares that carry far-ultraviolet (far-UV) radiation levels much higher than previously believed. »
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image captures the dwarf irregular galaxy UGC 4879 or VV124. »
In October 2022, astronomers were stunned by what was quickly dubbed the BOAT — the brightest-of-all-time gamma-ray burst (GRB). Now an international science team reports that data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope reveals a feature never seen before. »
The six-wheeled geologist found a fascinating rock that has some indications it may have hosted microbial life billions of years ago, but further research is needed. »
An international team of astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has directly imaged an exoplanet roughly 12 light-years from Earth. The planet, Epsilon Indi Ab, is one of the coldest exoplanets observed to date. »
Researchers used more than 120 years of data to decipher how melting ice, dwindling groundwater, and rising seas are nudging the planet’s spin axis and lengthening days. »
Among several recent findings, the rover has found rocks made of pure sulfur — a first on the Red Planet. »
An international team of scientists using data from NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) has discovered evidence of caves beneath the Moon’s surface. »
NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory will capture the faint light of distant brown dwarfs to help scientists understand the Milky Way's formation and evolution »
The 23-year-old orbiter is taking images that offer horizon-wide views of the Red Planet similar to what astronauts aboard the International Space Station see over Earth. »
Infrared imagery from the solar-powered spacecraft heats up the discussion on the inner workings of Jupiter’s hottest moon. »
Tucked away with each rock and soil sample collected by the agency’s Perseverance rover is a potential boon for atmospheric scientists. »
Astronomers have detected carbon in a galaxy just 350 million years after the Big Bang, the earliest detection of any element in the universe other than hydrogen. »
Using the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), astronomers have identified a new radio galaxy, J0011+3217, characterized by an unusual one-sided secondary lobe. »
Early analysis of the asteroid Bennu sample returned by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission has revealed dust rich in carbon, nitrogen, and organic compounds, all of which are essential components for life as we know it. Dominated by clay minerals, particularly serpentine, the sample mirrors the type of rock found at mid-ocean ridges on Earth. »
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has signed an agreement for the design and construction of ANDES, the ArmazoNes high Dispersion Echelle Spectrograph. »
Water frost has been detected at the equator of Mars, a region where it was previously believed to be impossible. »
In late 2019 the previously unremarkable galaxy SDSS1335+0728 suddenly started shining brighter than ever before. »
After months of driving, Perseverance has finally arrived at ‘Bright Angel’, discovering oddly textured rock unlike any the rover has seen before. »
Astronomers have used new data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the retired SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) as well as archival data from other missions to revisit one of the strangest binary star systems in our galaxy – 40 years after it burst onto the scene as a bright and long-lived nova. »
The two earliest and most distant galaxies yet confirmed, dating back to only 300 million years after the Big Bang, have been discovered using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of astronomers today announced. »
An analysis of data from Magellan’s radar finds two volcanoes erupted in the early 1990s. This adds to the 2023 discovery of a different active volcano in Magellan data. »
An international team of astronomers, led by the University of Cambridge, has used the James Webb Space Telescope to find evidence for an ongoing merger of two galaxies and their massive black holes when the Universe was only 740 million years old. This marks the most distant detection of a black hole merger ever obtained and the first time that this phenomenon has been detected so early in the Universe. »