Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Space
Artemis II is returning humans to the moon with science riding shotgun
NASA’s Artemis II could be the first time human eyes set sight on the farside of the moon — and there are things human eyes can see that cameras can’t.
- Physics
A Greek star catalog from the dawn of astronomy, revealed
Researchers are using X-rays to discover invisible markings left on ancient parchment containing information from the Greek astronomer Hipparchus.
- Physics
A massive clump of dark matter may lurk in the Milky Way
Pulsating remnants of stars hint at a clump of invisible matter thought to be about 10 million times the sun’s mass.
- Physics
Physics theories about the multiverse are stranger than fiction
Cosmology and quantum physics both offer tantalizing possibilities that we inhabit just one reality among many. But testing that idea is challenging.
- Space
Seismometers can track falling space junk
As the threat of falling spacecraft increases, using earthquake sensors to detect the effects of their sonic booms could better map trajectories.
- Cosmology
A massive cosmic ring may challenge a key assumption about the universe
At 3.3 billion light-years across, the ring may challenge the “cosmological principle” that the universe looks uniform at sufficiently large scales.
- Planetary Science
A newly spotted asteroid spins faster than any of its size ever seen
Among the first finds from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, the discovery hints at a population of exceptionally strong asteroids.
- Astronomy
A double cosmic explosion could be the first known ‘superkilonova’
The blast may have been a kilonova — a type of neutron star merger — in the wake of a more traditional supernova.
- Climate
Hidden tree bark microbes munch on important climate gases
Trees are known for absorbing CO2. But microbes in their bark also absorb other climate-active gases, methane, hydrogen, and carbon monoxide.
- Particle Physics
Earth is bathed in droves of neutrinos spewed by the Milky Way’s stars
The subatomic particles are incredibly numerous. About 1,000 neutrinos from stars other than the sun pass through a thumbnail every second.
- Space
Betelgeuse’s buddy leaves a wake in the giant star’s atmosphere
The wake left by Betelgeuse’s companion could solve a decades-old mystery of its strange brightness cycles.
- Astronomy
Galaxies with ‘hoop skirts’ are more common than we thought
The discovery of thousands more galaxies with stars ringing their main disks could help astronomers study galactic evolution more generally.
