Astronomy

Astronomy

Japanese satellite stalls in space and won’t reach its asteroids

Because of an engine failure, the Japanese Space Agency’s PROCYON spacecraft won’t make it to its target binary asteroid.

Astronomy

Erupting volcanoes may cause exoplanet’s temperature extremes

Temperatures fluctuate wildly on a nearby exoplanet, and volcanoes might be the culprit.

Astronomy

Amorphous space blob takes title for most distant galaxy

The new record holder for the most distant galaxy is a blob of 8 billion stars whose light took more than 13 billion years to reach Earth.

Astronomy

‘Black Hole’ traces 100 years of a transformative idea

Implied by general relativity and proven by astronomical discoveries, black holes’ existence took decades for physicists to accept.

Astronomy

Wandering planets, the smell of rain and more reader feedback

Readers consider how hard it would be to fashion Paleolithic tools, discuss what to call free-floating worlds and more.

Planetary Science

How did Earth get its water?

Earth is a wet planet that formed in a dry part of the solar system. How our planet’s water arrived may be a story of big, bullying planets and ice-filled asteroids.

Astronomy

Tiny explosions add up to heat corona

Millions of mini-explosions every second on the sun could solve the riddle of why the sun’s atmosphere is so much warmer than its surface.

Planetary Science

The Martian Diaries

Curiosity has explored Mars for over two and a half years. What if NASA's rover kept a scrapbook?

Astronomy

Lit-up gas clouds hint at galaxies’ violent pasts

Voorwerpjes, tendrils of gas that orbit galaxies, continue to glow tens of thousands of years after being blasted with ultraviolet radiation.

Astronomy

Astronomers celebrating Hubble’s past focus on its future

Astronomers celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope by reflecting on its diversity and looking ahead to the future.

Astronomy

Cosmic threesomes make some galaxies run away

Extremely rare, free-floating galaxies called compact ellipticals may have been ejected from their home clusters after a massive intergalactic meet-up.

Astronomy

Cosmic rays misbehave in space station experiment

A puzzling feature in a new cosmic ray census may force physicists to rethink which cosmic objects send these speedy particles hurtling across the galaxy.