Astronomy
- Space
This fast radio burst shined a light on a galaxy’s mysterious gas halo
A lucky alignment let astronomers probe one galaxy’s diffuse gas using a brief, bright blast from a more distant galaxy.
- Astronomy
How an astrophysicist chased a star from the Halo games to real life
Julián Alvarado Gómez has devoted his career to a star called Iota Horologii. His former life as a Halo video gamer helps fuel that devotion.
- Space
The Milky Way’s supermassive black hole reached record brightness this year
The big black hole at the center of the galaxy recently flared twice as bright as ever seen before in near-infrared wavelengths.
- 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.
- Astronomy
Giant radio bubbles spew from near the Milky Way’s central black hole
New structures found at the heart of our galaxy join other bubbles, chimneys and filaments that hint at a turbulent past.
- Space
Einstein’s general relativity reveals new features of a pulsar
Measurements that rely on the physicist’s theory of gravity are letting astronomers view a pulsar in ‘a whole new way.’
- Science & Society
‘End Times’ explores the catastrophic events that could kill us all
A new book looks at the threats that could wipe out humankind and what can be done to counteract them.
- Space
LIGO and Virgo probably spotted the first black hole swallowing up a neutron star
In a first, astronomers may just have detected gravitational waves from a black hole merging with a neutron star.
- 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.
- Space
A proposed space telescope would use Earth’s atmosphere as a lens
One astronomer has a bold solution to the high cost of building big telescopes.
- Physics
Exploding stars scattered traces of iron over Antarctic snow
Researchers melted half a ton of snow to find just 10 atoms of a radioactive variety of iron.
- Astronomy
Giant, active galaxies from the early universe may have finally been found
Overlooked galaxies from when the universe was younger than 2 billion years old could be the ancestors of other ancient and modern monster galaxies.
