Lots of Tatooine-like planets around binary stars may be habitable
SEATTLE — Luke Skywalker’s home planet in Star Wars is the stuff of science fiction. But Tatooine-like planets in orbit around pairs of stars might…
Category: Space
Enceladus is blanketed in a thick layer of snow
Saturn’s moon Enceladus is shrouded in a thick layer of snow. In some places, the downy stuff is 700 meters deep, new research suggests. “It’s…
The James Webb telescope found ‘Green Pea’ galaxies in the early universe
Galaxies that helped transform the early universe may have been small, round and green. Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have spotted “Green Pea”…
Methylated gases could be an unambiguous indicator of alien life
SEATTLE — Attention alien hunters: If you want to find life on distant planets, try looking for signs of toxic chemical cleanup. Gases that organisms…
Io may have an underworld magma ocean or a hot metal heart
CHICAGO — An entire ocean of liquid magma, or maybe a hot heart of solid metal, may lurk in Io’s underworld. The surface of Jupiter’s…
NASA’s Perseverance rover captured the sound of a dust devil on Mars
Thanks to a bit of good luck, the Mars rover Perseverance has captured the first-ever sound of a Martian dust devil. The NASA rover has…
Artemis 1’s Orion capsule returned safely to Earth. What’s next?
NASA’s Orion passenger space capsule has passed a huge test, splashing down intact in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico on December 11.…
A bizarre gamma-ray burst breaks the rules for these cosmic eruptions
Astronomers have spotted a bright gamma-ray burst that upends previous theories of how these energetic cosmic eruptions occur. For decades, astronomers thought that GRBs came…
Artemis missions will usher in a new, more diverse crew of astronauts
When astronaut Eugene Cernan stepped from the moon’s surface into his spacecraft in December 1972, he was aware it was the end of an era.…
Here’s why some supermassive black holes blaze so brightly
For the first time, astronomers have observed how certain supermassive black holes launch jets of high-energy particles into space — and the process is shocking.…
These are our top space images of all time
We’ve never seen images of space as astounding as those from the James Webb Space Telescope, which shared its first cosmic vistas in July. The…
The pristine Winchcombe meteorite suggests that Earth’s water came from asteroids
Late in the evening of February 28, 2021, a coal-dark space rock about the size of a soccer ball fell through the sky over northern…
Artemis I finally launched. Here’s what it means for human spaceflight
Fifty years ago, three NASA astronauts splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, concluding the final Apollo mission. Less than a dozen years after President John…
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…