All Stories by Lisa Grossman
- Astronomy
This may be the first known exoplanet with rain and clouds of water droplets
For the first time, astronomers have detected water vapor and possibly signs of clouds and even rain in the air of a potentially habitable exoplanet.
- Space
India lost contact with its first lunar lander just before touchdown
Chandrayaan 2 mission officials are trying to figure out why its rover-carrying lander went silent moments before it was to reach the moon’s surface.
- Space
Iron sulfide may be keeping Mercury’s core toasty and its magnetic field alive
New estimates of how much heat Mercury’s core loses could explain why the tiny world has a long-lived magnetic field.
- Space
Overnight changes in Mars’ atmosphere could solve a methane mystery
Overnight atmospheric changes on Mars can explain why two spacecraft measure vastly different concentrations of methane.
- Space
5 of Jupiter’s newly discovered moons received names in a public contest
Astronomers first announced the discovery of the worlds in July 2018, and have now named them for goddesses and spirits of Greek and Roman mythology.
- Space
For an asteroid, Ryugu has surprisingly little dust on its surface
Ryugu lacks the dust that some other space rocks have. The near-Earth asteroid may hide the fine debris inside porous rocks or eject it into space.
- Space
Astronomers just quintupled the number of known repeating fast radio bursts
A Canadian telescope spotted eight more repeating fast radio bursts. What causes these cryptic flashes of radio waves from deep space remains unclear.
- Astronomy
Stars may keep spinning fast, long into old age
NASA’s TESS telescope has spotted an old star that spins too fast for theory to explain, suggesting that stars may have a magnetic midlife crisis.
- Astronomy
TESS has found the first-ever ‘ultrahot Neptune’
NASA’s TESS telescope has spotted a world that could be a bridge between other types of exoplanets: hot Jupiters and scorched Earths.
- Astronomy
In a first, physicists re-created the sun’s spiraling solar wind in a lab
Some of the sun’s fundamental physics have been re-created with plasma inside a vacuum chamber
- Astronomy
NASA’s Chandra X-ray telescope celebrates 20 years in space
The U.S. space agency has released new images for the Chandra X-ray Observatory’s 20th birthday.
- Particle Physics
Dark matter particles won’t kill you. If they could, they would have already
The fact that no one has been killed by shots of dark matter suggests the mysterious substance is relatively small and light.
