Space
- Astronomy
The universe’s background starlight is twice as bright as expected
Images from the New Horizons spacecraft suggest that light from all known galaxies accounts for only half of the cosmos’ visible background glow.
- Planetary Science
Diamonds may stud Mercury’s crust
Billions of years of meteorite impacts may have flash-baked much of a primitive graphite crust into precious gemstones.
- Astronomy
Some of the sun’s iconic coronal loops may be illusions
Folds in the plasma that streams from the sun might trick the eye into seeing the well-defined arches, computer simulations of the solar atmosphere show.
- Astronomy
Earth’s purported ‘nearest black hole’ isn’t a black hole
A disputed multiple-star system doesn’t have a black hole, as once reported, but is actually a missing piece in binary star evolution.
- Astronomy
A new image captures enormous gas rings encircling an aging red star
The rings, seen for the first time, provide insight into how giant stars lose mass and seed the cosmos with elements.
- Astronomy
Astronomers may not have found a sign of the universe’s first stars after all
A new study of radio waves from early in the universe’s history finds no hint of the “cosmic dawn” claimed by an earlier study.
- Space
How Russia’s war in Ukraine hinders space research and exploration
A Mars rover, an X-ray telescope and several low-Earth satellites are at risk in response to international sanctions on Russia.
- Astronomy
A fast radio burst’s unlikely source may be a cluster of old stars
The burst’s origin in a globular cluster suggests that not all these enigmatic blasts come from young stellar populations.
- Planetary Science
An ancient impact on Earth led to a cascade of cratering
For the first time, scientists have discovered clusters of craters on Earth that were formed by the impacts of material thrown out of a larger crater.
- Astronomy
A rare collision of dead stars can bring a new one to life
These carbon- and oxygen-covered stars may have formed from an unusual merging of two white dwarfs.
- Computing
Core memory weavers and Navajo women made the Apollo missions possible
The stories of the women who assembled integrated circuits and wove core memory for the Apollo missions remain largely unknown.
- Astronomy
How ‘hot Jupiters’ may get their weirdly tight orbits
Gravitational kicks from other planets and stars can send giant worlds into orbits that bring them close to their suns.
