Astronomy
- Space
An Antarctic ice dome may offer the world’s clearest views of the night sky
The highest point in East Antarctica could be an ideal place for an optical telescope, a new study finds.
- Astronomy
The star cluster closest to Earth is in its death throes
Gaia spacecraft observations of stars’ motion within and fleeing the cluster suggest the 680-million-year-old Hyades has only 30 million years left.
- Astronomy
This is the first picture of a sunlike star with multiple exoplanets
A first family portrait reveals a weird cousin of the solar system: a star about the mass of the sun orbited — distantly — by two massive gas giants.
- Astronomy
Pinning down the sun’s birthplace just got more complicated
Many astronomers think that the sun was born in a loose association of thousands of stars. A new study suggests there’s another possibility.
- Astronomy
The closest images of the sun ever taken reveal ‘campfire’ flares
The first images from Solar Orbiter, a NASA-European Space Agency spacecraft, show tiny, never-before-seen flares across the sun’s surface.
- Space
This is the most comprehensive X-ray map of the sky ever made
A new X-ray map of the entire sky, using data from the eROSITA telescope’s first full scan, looks deeper into space than any other of its kind.
- Space
A newfound exoplanet may be the exposed core of a gas giant
A planet about 734 light-years away could be a former gas giant that lost its atmosphere or a failed giant that never finished growing.
- Space
Colliding black holes may have created a surprising flare of light
A flare-up after a gravitational wave outburst may be the first sighting of light from colliding black holes.
- Particle Physics
Physicists spot a new class of neutrinos from the sun
Researchers with the Borexino experiment in Italy have detected neutrinos produced in the secondary fusion process taking place in the sun’s core.
- Space
LIGO and Virgo detected a collision between a black hole and a mystery object
The first evidence of an object more massive than any neutron star and more lightweight than any black hole has astronomers wondering what it is.
- Space
Black hole plasma jets are shaped like bell-bottoms
Jets of high-energy particles change from slightly curved sides to flared cones as they shoot away from galaxies, just like flare-legged pants.
- Space
The Milky Way’s giant gas bubbles were seen in visible light for the first time
Variation in the light’s wavelengths could help scientists map the velocity of the gas that makes up the towering structures known as Fermi bubbles.
