Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Astronomy
Neutron stars may not be as squishy as some scientists thought
NASA’s NICER X-ray telescope finds that the most massive known neutron star has an unexpectedly large diameter.
- Planetary Science
NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter made history by flying on Mars
An autonomous helicopter just lifted itself into the air on Mars, marking the first time a vehicle has flown on a planet other than Earth.
- Planetary Science
How the laws of physics constrain the size of alien raindrops
Physics limits the size of raindrops, no matter what they’re made of or what planet they fall on.
- Planetary Science
Earth sweeps up 5,200 tons of extraterrestrial dust each year
Thousands of micrometeorites collected from Antarctica come from both comets and asteroids, a new study suggests.
- Astronomy
A record-breaking, oxygen-starved galaxy may be full of gigantic stars’ shrapnel
The newly discovered galaxy may have once been home to stars more than 300 times as massive as the sun — a peek at conditions in the early universe.
- Planetary Science
A meteor may have exploded over Antarctica 430,000 years ago
Tiny spherules recovered from a mountaintop suggest a space rock broke apart midflight and sprayed debris across thousands of kilometers.
- Cosmology
Physicists’ devotion to symmetry has led them astray before
If dark matter WIMPs are mythical, they join the ancient idea that the planets moved in circles.
- Physics
Uranium ‘snowflakes’ could set off thermonuclear explosions of dead stars
Uranium crystals that settle in the cores of white dwarfs could trigger nuclear chain reactions that blow the dead stars apart, a new study suggests.
- Astronomy
Here’s why humans chose particular groups of stars as constellations
Distances between stars, their brightnesses and patterns of human eye movement explain why particular sets of stars tend to be grouped together.
- Astronomy
The ‘USS Jellyfish’ emits strange radio waves from a distant galaxy cluster
The unusual pattern of radio waves dubbed the USS Jellyfish tells a story of intergalactic gas meeting black hole by-products.
- Space
50 years ago, experiments hinted at the possibility of life on Mars
In 1971, lab experiments suggested organic molecules could be made on Mars. Fifty years later, robots are searching for such signs of life on the planet itself.
- Astronomy
A new black hole image reveals the behemoth’s magnetic fields
A new analysis of Event Horizon Telescope data from 2017 brings to light the magnetic fields twisted around the black hole at the core of galaxy M87.
