In the cold, quiet reaches of space, far from planets and sunlight, chemistry still unfolds. Inside a vast molecular cloud…
Category: Astronomy
This Ancient Planet Is Literally Being Stripped To Its Bones By Its Own Sun
It began, as so many planetary discoveries do, with a faint and persistent flicker in starlight. NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey…
These Cosmic Time Travelers Are Staying Young by Sucking the Life Out of Their Neighbors
In the quiet depths of the Milky Way’s oldest star clusters, time is supposed to move in only one direction.…
Astronomers Found a Supermassive Black Hole Ignoring a Universal Speed Limit
Twelve billion years ago, when the universe was still young and galaxies were only beginning to take shape, a brilliant…
The Early Universe Was a Total Galaxy Factory Way Earlier Than We Thought
The early universe is often imagined as quiet and sparse, a vast darkness only beginning to flicker with the first…
Astronomers Finally Capture the Teenage Years of Planetary Systems Hidden for Billions of Years
For decades, astronomers have been assembling a family album of planetary systems. They have crisp baby pictures showing planets being…
This Peaceful Looking Galaxy Cluster Is Actually Hiding a Violent Secret
From a distance, Abell 3571 appears almost serene. Floating quietly in space, this vast galaxy cluster gives the impression of…
Saturn’s Moon Enceladus is Actively Cooking Up the Ingredients for Life
Far from Earth, wrapped in ice and circling Saturn in quiet obedience, Enceladus once seemed like just another frozen moon.…
The Mysterious Signal From 2.5 Billion Light Years Away is Not Alone
For years, fast radio bursts, or FRBs, have arrived like cosmic whispers—brief, brilliant flashes of radio light traveling billions of…
Scientists Discover a Giant Iron Structure 500 Times the Size of Pluto’s Orbit
For centuries, the Ring Nebula has felt reassuringly known. Hanging in the northern constellation of Lyra, it has been sketched,…
Massive Oceans of Glowing Liquid Stone May Be Hiding Inside Alien Super-Earths
Far beneath the imagined landscapes of distant worlds, beyond mountains no telescope can see and depths no probe has reached,…
This Ancient Supernova Exploded When the Universe Was Only a Billion Years Old
Long before Earth existed, before the Sun had fully taken shape, the universe was still learning how to shine. Galaxies…
This Distant Galaxy Is Coming Back to Life and It Looks Like a Violent Explosion
For almost 100 million years, the heart of a distant galaxy lay quiet. At its center, a supermassive black hole…
James Webb Finally Solved the Mystery of the Little Red Dots
When the James Webb Space Telescope opened its golden eyes to the cosmos, it did more than deliver breathtaking images.…
These 19 Newly Discovered Pulsars Were Hiding in Our Own Galactic Backyard
Sometimes discovery does not come from pointing a new instrument at the heavens, but from listening more carefully to what…
Scientists Finally Know Why the Moon Has Two Completely Different Faces
Every night, the moon rises with the same familiar face turned toward Earth. Its dark volcanic plains form shapes people…
This Ordinary Point of Light Was Actually Hiding a Massive Cosmic Secret
At first glance, LAMOST J065816.72+094343.1 looked like just another faint point of light cataloged in a massive sky survey. Identified…
Scientists Thought This Black Hole Was Exploding but It’s Actually Doing the Opposite
Thirteen million light-years away, the Circinus galaxy appears calm and unassuming. But deep in its core, hidden behind dense curtains…
Most Planets in Our Galaxy Might Be Trapped in a Permanent Microbe Phase
For decades, the search for life beyond Earth has been fueled by a simple, hopeful idea. Look for planets that…
Astronomers Found a Ghostly Shock Wave Where Nothing Should Exist
Far from Earth, 730 light-years away, a small, dead star drifts through the galaxy, following the same slow orbit around…
Astronomers Discovered a Galaxy That Starved to Death Without a Single Explosion
In the vast, early universe, just a few billion years after everything began, one galaxy lived an intense and surprisingly…
This 11 Billion Year Old Galaxy Is Way More Mature Than Scientists Expected
Imagine gazing across the vast, dark ocean of the cosmos, looking so far back in time that the light you…