Astronomy
- Planetary Science
New Horizons’ next target caught making a star blink
The team behind the spacecraft that visited Pluto has seen its next quarry blocking the light from a distant star.
- Planetary Science
Giant mud balls roamed the early solar system
The first asteroids may have been great balls of mud, which would solve some puzzling features of meteorites.
- Animals
Water bears will survive the end of the world as we know it
Water bears have a till-death-do-us-part pact with the sun, study suggests.
- Astronomy
Teeny-weeny star vies for title of smallest known
A Saturn-sized star is one of the smallest yet discovered.
- Astronomy
Teensy star vies for title of smallest known
A Saturn-sized star is one of the smallest yet discovered.
- Astronomy
The most distant star ever spotted is 9 billion light-years away
A bright blue star sends its light from two-thirds of the way across the universe, thanks to a chance alignment with a galaxy cluster.
- Astronomy
Astronomers get glimpse of star 9 billion light-years away
A bright blue star sends its light from two-thirds of the way across the universe, thanks to a chance alignment with a galaxy cluster.
- Planetary Science
The moon might have had a heavy metal atmosphere with supersonic winds
Heat from a glowing infant Earth could have vaporized the moon’s metals into an atmosphere as thick as Mars’, a new simulation shows.
- Tech
Gecko-inspired robot grippers could grab hold of space junk
Aboard a microgravity plane, NASA is testing gecko-inspired grippers that one day could help clear up space junk.
- Astronomy
Satellite trio will hunt gravitational waves from space
The European Space Agency has green-lighted the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, expected to launch in 2034.
- Astronomy
Kepler shows small exoplanets are either super-Earths or mini-Neptunes
The final catalog from the Kepler space telescope splits Earthlike exoplanets into two groups and pinpoints 10 new rocky planets in the habitable zone.
- Astronomy
Eclipse watchers catch part of the sun’s surface fleeing to space
A serendipitous eruption during a solar eclipse showed relatively cool blobs of plasma, wrapped in a million-degree flame, streaming from the sun.
