Astronomy

Computing

Core memory weavers and Navajo women made the Apollo missions possible

The stories of the women who assembled integrated circuits and wove core memory for the Apollo missions remain largely unknown.

Astronomy

How ‘hot Jupiters’ may get their weirdly tight orbits

Gravitational kicks from other planets and stars can send giant worlds into orbits that bring them close to their suns.

Planetary Science

These are the first visible-light images of Venus’ surface captured from space

Cameras aboard NASA’s Parker Solar Probe managed to peer through Venus’ thick clouds to photograph the planet’s surface.

Space

The heart of the Milky Way looks like contemporary art in this new radio image

The MeerKAT telescope array in South Africa provided this image of radio emissions from the center of our galaxy using data taken over three years.

Astronomy

The James Webb Space Telescope has reached its new home at last

The most powerful telescope ever launched still has a long to-do list before it can start doing science.

Astronomy

An X-ray glow suggests black holes or neutron stars fuel weird cosmic ‘cows’

With the brightest X-ray glow of a new class of exploding stars, cosmic oddity AT2020mrf boosts evidence of these mysterious blasts’ power source.

Astronomy

An early outburst portends a star’s imminent death

An eruption before a stellar explosion was the first early warning sign for a standard type of supernova.

Astronomy

Astronomers identified a second possible exomoon

Kepler 1708 b i, a newly discovered candidate for an exoplanet moon, has a radius about 2.6 times that of Earth, a new study suggests.

Astronomy

Two stars’ close encounter may explain a cosmic flare that has barely faded

A brilliant outburst of light that has lasted nearly a century arose when two young stars skirted past each other, simulations suggest.

Space

Spacecraft in 2021 set their sights on Mars, asteroids and beyond

This year, a bevy of new missions got under way on Mars and spacecraft prepared to visit asteroids.

Astronomy

The Parker Solar Probe is the first spacecraft to visit the sun’s atmosphere

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe crossed a boundary between the sun’s atmosphere and interplanetary space that has been predicted for decades but never observed.

Astronomy

The only known pulsar duo sheds new light on general relativity and more

Einstein was right, among other insights gleaned from watching a one-of-a-kind system of two pulsating dead stars for 16 years.