Astronomy
- Astronomy
Finding joy and inspiration in the pursuit of knowledge
Editor in Chief Eva Emerson ruminates on the power of knowledge, and the ways scientists are refining how we think about the aging human brain, far away comets and even the speed of light.
- Astronomy
White dwarf pair will trigger a supernova — in 700 million years
Astronomers found two white dwarfs with enough mass to explode as a supernova.
- Astronomy
First stars born later than thought
New results from the Planck mission indicate that the first stars began to shine 550 million years after the Big Bang.
- Astronomy
Asteroids or planets might trigger a supernova
Rocky debris falling onto a white dwarf might trigger some supernovas.
- Physics
When entering a black hole, fasten your seat belt
Rapidly spinning black holes can generate turbulence, a new analysis shows.
- Astronomy
Giant rings encircle young exoplanet
Stretching 90 million kilometers from their center, 37 stripes of dust around exoplanet were probably crafted by moons.
- Cosmology
Dust erases evidence for gravity wave detection
The claimed detection of primordial gravitational waves does not hold up after taking into account galactic dust, a new analysis concludes.
- Astronomy
Neptune-like worlds could become habitable
Mini-Neptunes can drift toward their stars and lose their atmospheres, leaving behind ice-rich rocky cores that can become watery worlds.
- Astronomy
Oldest solar system unearthed by Kepler
Five rocky planets orbit the 11.2-billion-year-old star Kepler 444, suggesting that Earth-sized worlds formed in the early universe.
- Planetary Science
Large asteroid buzzes Earth
Asteroid 2004 BL86 swings by Earth today at three times the distance to the moon, the closest asteroid encounter until 2027.
- Astronomy
Rocky planets around cool stars may have Earthlike climates
Small, rocky planets that sit close to cool stars might be able to keep spinning, creating conditions hospitable to life.
- Astronomy
Large rocky planets excel at ocean building
Rocky planets a few times as massive as Earth may build deeper oceans – and sustain them for longer – than smaller worlds.
