Astronomy

Astronomy

The Kuiper Belt’s dwarf planet Quaoar hosts an impossible ring

Quaoar’s ring lies outside the Roche limit, an imaginary line beyond which rings aren’t thought to be stable.

Astronomy

Lots of Tatooine-like planets around binary stars may be habitable

A new simulation suggests that planets orbiting a pair of stars may be plentiful, and many of those worlds could be suitable for life.

Astronomy

New data show how quickly light pollution is obscuring the night sky

Tens of thousands of observations from citizen scientists spanning a decade show that the night sky is getting about 10 percent brighter every year.

Astronomy

The James Webb telescope found ‘Green Pea’ galaxies in the early universe

The James Webb telescope spotted tiny “green” galaxies that might have helped trigger a dramatic cosmic makeover more than 13 billion years ago.

Planetary Science

Methylated gases could be an unambiguous indicator of alien life

On Earth, methylated gases are produced by organisms cleaning up their environment — and by little else. The same might be true on some exoplanets.

Astronomy

The James Webb Space Telescope wasn’t the only big space news in 2022

DART crashed into an asteroid, Artemis went to the moon and we got a pic of our galaxy’s monstrous black hole. Space was a busy place this year.

Astronomy

The James Webb telescope is getting glimpses of small, far-off planets

Hints of one exoplanet atmosphere’s chemical makeup and the discovery of a planet orbiting another star are two of the telescope’s early successes.

Astronomy

The first planet found by the Kepler space telescope is doomed

The exoplanet dubbed Kepler 1658b is spiraling toward its host star and will meet a fiery death in less than 3 million years.

Astronomy

How the James Webb telescope’s glances back in time are reshaping cosmology

The observatory has found dozens of galaxies from less than 550 million years after the Big Bang, suggesting galaxies formed faster than once thought.

Astronomy

A bizarre gamma-ray burst breaks the rules for these cosmic eruptions

The 50-second gamma-ray burst is the first that unambiguously breaks the rule that long bursts usually come from supernovas.

Astronomy

In 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope brought us new views of the cosmos

Science News looks back at some of the most stunning images from the James Webb telescope’s first year in space.

Astronomy

A new supercomputer simulation animates the evolution of the universe

The detailed simulation shows the cosmos changing from a dark, featureless gas to a web of stars and galaxies radiating light.