The Moon’s Soil Could Hold a Timeline of Nearby Supernovae
The Moon has no wind, rain or active plate tectonics to erase its surface history. That makes its soil a possible archive of events that happened far beyond Earth. A…
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Cosmos
This category presents the reader with astronomical events that can be seen each week, and month.
A Faster Chemical Route Could Explain How Space Makes Complex Carbon Molecules
Large carbon-based molecules are common in space, turning up around dying stars, inside interstellar clouds, and in material returned from carbon-rich asteroids. The problem has been explaining how they form…
A Virtual Universe Lets Astronomers Watch Black Holes Grow for 13.5 Billion Years
Researchers have completed one of the largest computer simulations of cosmic history yet assembled. Called ASTRID, it follows the growth of galaxies and black holes from the universe’s early days…
What Is Darkening Venus’ Clouds? New Models Narrow the Possibilities
Venus looks pale yellow in ordinary photographs, but ultraviolet images reveal dark and bright bands moving through its upper clouds. Scientists have known about those markings for about a century.…
The Milky Way’s Gravity Can Fake a Dark-Matter Signal
Astronomers often treat the thin streams of stars around the Milky Way as sensitive tracers of dark matter. A new University of Washington simulation shows why that evidence needs to…
Webb Traced Two “Dyson Sphere” Signals to Hidden Background Galaxies
Two stars once considered promising Dyson sphere candidates have now been removed from the list. Follow-up observations with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope showed that the infrared glow did not…
What Is a Quasar? Why Some Galaxy Cores Outshine Their Entire Host Galaxies
A quasar is a distant galaxy with a brilliant active centre. Here is how a feeding supermassive black hole can outshine every star around it.
What Is a Light-Year? Why Astronomers Measure Space in Time
A light-year sounds as if it should measure time. It does not. A light-year is a unit of distance: the distance light travels through empty space in one year. Astronomers…
Meteorite Dust Records a Magnetic Field That Shaped the Young Solar System
A fragment of meteorite has preserved a magnetic snapshot from the first days of the Solar System. By studying microscopic dust inside the meteorite, researchers estimate that the disk around…
Why Do Planets Orbit the Sun?
Why do planets orbit the Sun instead of falling into it? The short answer is that gravity pulls the planets inward while their sideways motion carries them forward. The combination…
OP 313 Is the Most Distant Blazar Ever Seen in the Highest-Energy Gamma Rays
Astronomers have detected the highest-energy gamma rays ever recorded from a blazar at this distance. The source, OP 313, is an active galaxy whose central black hole is feeding on…
What Is a Supernova—and What Happens After a Star Explodes?
What is a supernova? It is a stellar explosion powerful enough to briefly outshine an entire galaxy. Some supernovae mark the collapse of massive stars. Others happen when a dense…
Webb Maps Water Ice and Carbon Dioxide Across Jupiter’s Moon Callisto
JWST observations reveal uneven water-ice and carbon-dioxide patterns across Callisto, including a striking difference between its leading and trailing hemispheres.
How Do We Know an Exoplanet Has an Atmosphere?
How do astronomers know an exoplanet has an atmosphere? They usually do not see the atmosphere as a separate blue shell. Instead, they measure the way the planet changes the…
Comet 28P Has No Visible Coma Even Far Beyond Saturn
Comets are usually introduced through their tails, but a recent Subaru Telescope observation captured one without the cloud that gives a comet its familiar appearance. Comet 28P/Neujmin was more than…
A Lab-Made Quantum Field Reveals the Jitter Expected in Empty Space
Physicists have observed the tiny, random fluctuations expected in a quantum field by building a version of the field in the laboratory. The experiment did not photograph literal empty space.…
JWST Finds Planet-Forming Disks Losing Gas Before Giant Planets Can Finish Growing
Planets are assembled inside broad disks of gas and dust around young stars, but those disks do not last forever. A new James Webb Space Telescope survey shows that winds…
Curiosity Reaches a New High on Mars—and the View Explains Why the Climb Matters
NASA’s Curiosity rover has climbed roughly a kilometre up Mount Sharp, the 5-kilometre-high mountain rising from the floor of Gale Crater. The milestone is more than a distance record. Each…
How Does a Gravity Assist Send a Spacecraft Farther Into the Solar System?
How does a gravity assist send a spacecraft farther into the Solar System? The spacecraft flies close to a moving planet or moon and uses the body’s gravity to bend…
Roman Space Telescope Is About to Test a New Way of Seeing Distant Exoplanets
Most exoplanets are found indirectly. Astronomers watch a star dim when a planet crosses its face, or measure the tiny wobble caused by the planet’s gravity. The Nancy Grace Roman…
The Waves Inside Enceladus’ Ocean May Be Carving Its Famous Tiger Stripes
Enceladus’ south pole is cut by four long fractures that spray water vapour and ice into space. Scientists call them the “tiger stripes,” and a new model suggests that waves…
A Warm Layer Beneath Mars’ South Pole May Reveal How the Planet Lost Its Heat
Mars looks cold from orbit, but a new study suggests that the rock beneath its south polar region may still be carrying a surprising amount of heat. By analysing tiny…
NASA’s X-59 Is Trying to Replace the Sonic Boom With a Quiet Thump
A supersonic aircraft does not need to be silent to change aviation. It needs to be quiet enough that people on the ground do not experience every overflight as a…
Why Does Earth Have a Magnetic Field?
Why does Earth have a magnetic field? The answer begins more than 2,000 kilometres below our feet, in a layer of liquid iron and nickel that is constantly moving. Heat…