Here is the first direct look at Neptune’s rings in more than 30 years
Humankind is seeing Neptune’s rings in a whole new light thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope. In an infrared image released September 21, Neptune…
Category: Space
Saturn’s rings and tilt might have come from one missing moon
A single, doomed moon could clear up a couple of mysteries about Saturn. This hypothetical missing moon, dubbed Chrysalis, could have helped tilt Saturn over,…
Here’s the James Webb telescope’s first direct image of an exoplanet
This is the first picture of an exoplanet from the James Webb Space Telescope. “We’re actually measuring photons from the atmosphere of the planet itself,”…
Clouds in the Milky Way’s plasma bubbles came from the starry disk — and far beyond
Huge bubbles of plasma billowing out from the Milky Way’s center might contain scraps from all over the galaxy — and beyond. A new look…
A fast radio burst’s rapid, steady beat offers a clue to its cosmic origin
An unusual blast of radio waves from deep space had a sense of rhythm. Over the few seconds in December 2019 when the burst was…
The most distant rotating galaxy hails from 13.3 billion years ago
There is a galaxy spinning like a record in the early universe — far earlier than any others have been seen twirling around. Astronomers…
Here is the James Webb Space Telescope’s stunning first picture
We’ve now seen farther, deeper and more clearly into space than ever before. The first image from the James Webb Space Telescope, released in a…
NASA’s Webb Telescope Is Now Fully Ready for Science
The months-long process of preparing NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope for science is now complete. All of the seventeen ways or ‘modes’ to operate Webb’s…
Sand clouds are common in atmospheres of brown dwarfs
Clouds of sand can condense, grow and disappear in some extraterrestrial atmospheres. A new look at old data shows that clouds made of hot silicate…
NASA’s Webb Telescope NIRSpec Instrument Ready for Science
Three of the four science instruments on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have completed their commissioning activities and are ready for science. Each of Webb’s…
A new look at the ‘mineral kingdom’ may transform how we search for life
If every mineral tells a story, then geologists now have their equivalent of The Arabian Nights. For the first time, scientists have cataloged every different…
An otherwise quiet galaxy in the early universe is spewing star stuff
PASADENA, Calif. — A lucky celestial alignment has given astronomers a rare look at a galaxy in the early universe that is seeding its surroundings…
Seven newfound dwarf galaxies sit on just one side of a larger galaxy
PASADENA, Calif. — The faint dwarf galaxies in a nearby galaxy group seem to have missed the memo. Instead of being dispersed evenly around the…
Neutrinos hint the sun has more carbon and nitrogen than previously thought
After two decades of debate, scientists are getting closer to figuring out exactly what the sun — and thus the whole universe — is made…
A celestial loner might be the first known rogue black hole
A solitary celestial object — more massive than the sun, yet far smaller — is wandering the galaxy a few thousand light-years from Earth. It…
New Gaia data paint the most detailed picture yet of the Milky Way
1.6 billion stars. 11.4 million galaxies. 158,000 asteroids. One spacecraft. The European Space Agency’s Gaia space observatory, which launched in 2013, has long surpassed its…
Samples of the asteroid Ryugu are scientists’ purest pieces of the solar system
Samples of the asteroid Ryugu are the most pristine pieces of the solar system that scientists have in their possession. A new analysis of Ryugu…
A newfound, oddly slow pulsar shouldn’t emit radio waves — yet it does
Astronomers have added a new species to the neutron star zoo, showcasing the wide diversity among the compact magnetic remains of dead, once-massive stars. The…
50 years ago, the United States and Soviet Union joined forces for science
A busy week for science in Moscow — Science News, June 3, 1972 U.S. and Soviet leaders … signed agreements on space, science and technology, health and…
The Solar Orbiter spacecraft spotted a ‘hedgehog’ on the sun
A spacecraft has spied a spiky “hedgehog” on the sun and watched a solar flare in ways never done before. The Solar Orbiter, a collaboration…
Ice at the moon’s poles might have come from ancient volcanoes
Four billion years ago, lava spilled onto the moon’s crust, etching the man in the moon we see today. But the volcanoes may have also…
Pulsars may power cosmic rays with the highest-known energies in the universe
The windy and chaotic remains surrounding recently exploded stars may be launching the fastest particles in the universe. Highly magnetic neutron stars known as pulsars…
NASA’s InSight lander has recorded the largest Marsquake yet
Any Martians out there should learn to duck and cover. On May 4, the Red Planet was rocked by a roughly magnitude 5 temblor, the…
The sun’s searing radiation led to the shuffling of the solar system’s planets
In the solar system’s early years, the still-forming giant planets sidestepped, did a do-si-do and then swung one of their partners away from the sun’s…
50 years ago, scientists had hints of a planet beyond Pluto
Cometary evidence of a planet beyond Pluto — Science News, May 6, 1972 There have been suggestions that our solar system might have a tenth…
Lava and frost may form the mysterious lumps on Jupiter’s moon Io
On Jupiter’s moon Io, lava creeping beneath frost may give rise to fields of towering dunes. That finding, described April 19 in Nature Communications, suggests…
‘Goldilocks’ stars may pose challenges for any nearby habitable planets
If you’re an aspiring life-form, you might want to steer clear of planets around orange dwarf stars. Some astronomers have called these orange suns “Goldilocks…
U.S. planetary scientists want to explore Uranus and Enceladus next
The continuing search for life beyond Earth is driving many of the priorities for what’s next when it comes to U.S. planetary exploration. In a…
Europa may have much more shallow liquid water than scientists thought
Europa’s frozen surface is covered with distinctive pairs of ridges that straddle troughs of ice. These double ridges are the most common features on the…
Here’s how NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter has spent 1 year on Mars
One year ago, Ingenuity took its first flight on Mars. And its story since is that of a real-world little helicopter that could. Ingenuity traveled…
Crumbling planets might trigger repeating fast radio bursts
Fragmenting planets sweeping extremely close to their stars might be the cause of mysterious cosmic blasts of radio waves. Milliseconds-long fast radio bursts, or FRBs,…
A newly discovered planet renews debate about how some giant worlds form
A young, massive planet is orbiting in an unusual place in its star system, and it’s leading researchers to revive a long-debated view of how…
This is the biggest known comet in our solar system
The nucleus of a comet discovered in 2014 is the largest ever spotted. The “dirty snowball” at the center of comet C/2014 UN271 is about…
New thermal maps of Neptune reveal surprising temperature swings
Neptune’s atmospheric temperature is on an unexpected roller-coaster ride, and it could take decades for scientists to piece together what’s happening at the distant planet.…
Mars has two speeds of sound
On Mars, the speed of sound depends on its pitch. All sound travels slower through Mars’ air compared with Earth’s. But the higher-pitched clacks of…
A star nicknamed ‘Earendel’ may be the most distant yet seen
A chance alignment may have revealed a star from the universe’s first billion years. If confirmed, this star would be the most distant one ever…
Binary stars keep masquerading as black holes
As astronomy datasets grow larger, scientists are scouring them for black holes, hoping to better understand the exotic objects. But the drive to find more…
When the Magellanic Clouds cozy up to each other, stars are born
Like two great songwriters working side by side and inspiring each other to create their best work, the Magellanic Clouds spawn new stars every time…
Here’s the best timeline yet for the Milky Way’s big events
A new analysis of nearly a quarter million stars puts firm ages on the most momentous pages from our galaxy’s life story. Far grander than…
NASA’s exoplanet count surges past 5,000
It’s official: The number of planets known beyond our solar system has just passed 5,000. The exoplanet census surpassed this milestone with a recent batch…
The universe’s background starlight is twice as bright as expected
Even when you remove the bright stars, the glowing dust and other nearby points of light from the inky, dark sky, a background glow remains.…
Diamonds may stud Mercury’s crust
A treasure trove of diamonds may be sown into Mercury’s cratered crust. Billions of years of meteorite impacts may have flash-baked much of Mercury’s surface…
Some of the sun’s iconic coronal loops may be illusions
Coronal loops, well-defined hot strands of plasma that arch out into the sun’s atmosphere, are iconic to the sun’s imagery. But many of the supposed…
Earth’s purported ‘nearest black hole’ isn’t a black hole
The nearest black hole to Earth isn’t a black hole at all. Instead, what scientists thought was a stellar triplet — two stars and a…
A new image captures enormous gas rings encircling an aging red star
Huge rings of gas surround a large red star named V Hydrae, new images show, signaling its eventual transformation into a much smaller and bluer…
A fast radio burst’s unlikely source may be a cluster of old stars
In a galaxy not so far away, astronomers have located a surprising source of a mysterious, rapid radio signal. The signal, a repeating fast radio…
A rare collision of dead stars can bring a new one to life
Like a phoenix, some stars may burst to life covered in “ash,” rising from the remains of stars that had previously passed on. Two newfound…
These are the first visible-light images of Venus’ surface captured from space
By serendipity, scientists have photographed Venus’ surface from space for the first time. Though the planet’s rocky body is concealed beneath a thick veil of…
The heart of the Milky Way looks like contemporary art in this new radio image
An image that looks like a trippy Eye of Sauron or splatter of modern art is actually a new detailed look at the Milky Way’s…
Earth has a second known ‘Trojan asteroid’ that shares its orbit
A recently found space rock is schlepping along with Earth around the sun. This “Trojan asteroid” is only the second one discovered that belongs to…