Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Space
Iron sulfide may be keeping Mercury’s core toasty and its magnetic field alive
New estimates of how much heat Mercury’s core loses could explain why the tiny world has a long-lived magnetic field.
- Space
Overnight changes in Mars’ atmosphere could solve a methane mystery
Overnight atmospheric changes on Mars can explain why two spacecraft measure vastly different concentrations of methane.
- Space
5 of Jupiter’s newly discovered moons received names in a public contest
Astronomers first announced the discovery of the worlds in July 2018, and have now named them for goddesses and spirits of Greek and Roman mythology.
- Science & Society
‘End Times’ explores the catastrophic events that could kill us all
A new book looks at the threats that could wipe out humankind and what can be done to counteract them.
- Space
For an asteroid, Ryugu has surprisingly little dust on its surface
Ryugu lacks the dust that some other space rocks have. The near-Earth asteroid may hide the fine debris inside porous rocks or eject it into space.
- Space
LIGO and Virgo probably spotted the first black hole swallowing up a neutron star
In a first, astronomers may just have detected gravitational waves from a black hole merging with a neutron star.
- Space
A planetary body may have smashed into Jupiter, creating its weird core
A planetary body smashing into Jupiter may have jostled the gas giant’s insides during its formative years, creating the strange interior seen today.
- Space
Astronomers just quintupled the number of known repeating fast radio bursts
A Canadian telescope spotted eight more repeating fast radio bursts. What causes these cryptic flashes of radio waves from deep space remains unclear.
- Space
A proposed space telescope would use Earth’s atmosphere as a lens
One astronomer has a bold solution to the high cost of building big telescopes.
- Physics
Exploding stars scattered traces of iron over Antarctic snow
Researchers melted half a ton of snow to find just 10 atoms of a radioactive variety of iron.
- Astronomy
Giant, active galaxies from the early universe may have finally been found
Overlooked galaxies from when the universe was younger than 2 billion years old could be the ancestors of other ancient and modern monster galaxies.
- Astronomy
Stars may keep spinning fast, long into old age
NASA’s TESS telescope has spotted an old star that spins too fast for theory to explain, suggesting that stars may have a magnetic midlife crisis.
