Space

In August of last year, the LIGO and Virgo collaborations made a first-of-its-kind gravitational wave detection – what seemed to be a black hole swallowing up a neutron star. Now LIGO has confirmed the event, giving it the name GW190814. And it looks like the neutron star was not actually… a neutron star. That would

Picture a spiral galaxy. You’re probably imagining something like Messier 34 – long, spiralling arms sweeping away from a brightly glowing centre, speckled with glittering star clusters and punctuated with dark streaks of dust. But from our vantage point, galaxies can be oriented any which way, including edge-on – like NGC 5907, also known as

The Moon may be Earth’s closest cosmic neighbour – and the only extraterrestrial body humans have ever set foot on – but there’s a lot about it we don’t understand. And one of the biggest mysteries is why its two sides are so significantly different. Researchers have proposed a possible new explanation, backed by experimental

It’s only been in recent years – since the historic flyby of the New Horizons probe in 2015 – that we’ve been able to understand Pluto with any great depth or detail. We’ve learnt a lot about our Solar System’s tiny outlier, but one of the biggest surprises was a number of hints that liquid

Throughout the Universe, there are numerous examples of galaxies coming together in colossal mergers, a billion-year process that smears stars and gas across the surrounding space. For the most part, we know how this plays out – but we don’t quite know what happens to the supermassive black holes within their galactic centres. Astronomers think

Skywatchers along a narrow band from west Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, India and the Far East witnessed a dramatic “ring of fire” solar eclipse Sunday. So-called annular eclipses occur when the Moon – passing between Earth and the Sun – is not quite close enough to our planet to completely obscure sunlight, leaving a

Nothing rages against the dying of the light harder than a star. Their death throes are wild and violent as the star is wracked with colossal quakes, throwing vast amounts of stellar material out into the surrounding space. Studying the gas and dust thrown off in such events can help us understand how these stars

Solar power has become a focal point of the battle to mitigate climate change. The potential of solar power is massive – Earth receives as much solar energy in an hour as all of humanity uses in a year. Even with that much energy hitting the Earth, it is only a tiny fraction of the

A space telescope launched in July 2019 has just completed its first survey. For months, the eROSITA telescope aboard the Spektr-RG space observatory has been scanning the entire sky, collecting observations for the deepest all-sky survey in X-ray wavelengths. Now, all those data have been compiled into a map containing over 1 million bright X-ray

Only 566 people have ever travelled to space. Sixty-five of them, or about 11.5 percent, were women. NASA recently proclaimed it will put the “first woman and next man” on the Moon by 2024. Despite nearly 60 years of human spaceflight, women are still in the territory of “firsts”. Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in

Near the centre of the Milky Way, in a vast cloud in the space between the stars, astronomers have identified an organic molecule never before detected in the interstellar medium. It’s called propargylimine, and it could play a key role in the formation of the amino acids vital for the emergence of life. “The peculiarity

It was in the early hours of Monday morning when Denby Turton, a mechanical fitter at the Yandi mine in Western Australia, saw a curious light streaking through the sky. He and three others were sitting on top of a crusher, waiting for it to start up, when his boss suddenly exclaimed, “What the heck

One of the defining characteristics of the mysterious deep-space signals we call fast radio bursts is that they are unpredictable. They belch out across the cosmos without rhyme or reason, with no discernible pattern, making them incredibly hard to study. Now astronomers have found a fast radio burst (FRB) that repeats on a regular cycle.

From our perspective here on Earth, one of the most spectacular celestial dances appears when the Moon partially obscures our view of the Sun, allowing a ring of star fire to escape its edges. And on June 21, that’s exactly the show we’ll be getting. The phenomenon is called an annular solar eclipse. It happens when

There’s only one planet we know of in the entire Universe that’s capable of hosting life. That’s Earth. So, when we search for exoplanets that might host life, it’s pretty much what we look for: a rocky exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star at a distance that is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid

High in the atmosphere of Mars, astronomers have found a phenomenon they’ve been hunting for decades: a faint green glow, caused by the interaction between sunlight and oxygen in the upper atmosphere. Previously, this glow has only been detected in one place: the sky above Earth. Its discovery in the Martian atmosphere will help us

The fact of human existence is evidence that technologically advanced life is possible in the Universe, yet all our searches for other civilisations have turned up exactly nothing. Since Earth harbours the only proof of life we have, it’s difficult to know just how common – or rare – it is. A new method for

Curiosity has been through some challenges. A two-year mission that’s now almost eight years and counting, storm seasons, getting covered in dust… and yet the rover is still rolling around the Red Planet and making amazing discoveries. But sometimes, even on Mars, it’s nice to just take a break and look up at the stars.

For the first time, scientists have measured the lifespan of a neutron in the void of space. The margin of error means we can’t narrow it down yet, but once the technique is refined, it could prove to be a game changer. You see, when safely ensconced in the nucleus of an atom, the subatomic

A 2014 Mars photo that has strangely resurfaced in tabloids this month does not show a femur amidst the rubble of the Red Planet. Like all such photos to date, the object you see is just a plain old Mars rock. And NASA debunked it six years ago. The image was taken using the Curiosity

In July 2015, the New Horizons spacecraft made history when it became the first robotic explorer to conduct a flyby of Pluto. This was followed by another first, when the NASA mission conducted the first flyby of a Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) on 31 December 2018 – which has since been named Arrokoth. Now, on the edge of the Solar System, New

For the first time, astronomers were able to watch the entire process of a neutron star absorbing material and eventually unleashing a powerful blast of X-rays. Scientists have long wondered why neutron stars create these violent outbursts. This time around, it took 15 scientists from five institutes using seven observatories in order to gather the complete data

The NASA official who managed the inaugural private crewed flight into space last month has been promoted to become the first female head of human spaceflight, the agency said Friday, as it prepares to return people to the Moon in 2024.​ “Kathy Lueders has been selected to lead @NASA’s Human Exploration & Operations Mission Directorate,”

When Canadian astronomer Robert Weryk discovered ‘Oumuamua passing through our Solar System with the Pan-STARRS telescope, in October 2017, it caused quite a stir. It was the first interstellar object we’d ever seen coming through our neighbourhood. The excitement led to speculation: what could it be? There was lots of fun conjecture on its origins. Was it an

By this time next year, NASA expected to have a new observatory in orbit, one that would make the Hubble Space Telescope look like a kid’s toy. Unfortunately, we will need to wait a little longer for the next generation of stunning space photographs. The launch window for the James Webb Space telescope has been officially

Yet again, scientists have validated a major component of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Specifically, a trio of two white dwarf stars and a collapsed neutron star demonstrated the concept of freefall, according to research published this month in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. That’s the idea, famously illustrated by Galileo’s Leaning Tower of Pisa thought experiment, that gravity

We’re pretty familiar with our Sun. We’ve even sent a probe to go study it; we haven’t done that with any other star. Given how closely we study it, it would be tempting to think of it as a typical example of a G-type main-sequence star, or yellow dwarf. New research suggests that this is

In the depths of space 3.5 billion light-years away, two supermassive black holes are locked in one of the most extreme orbital dances in the Universe. Their riotous, somewhat erratically flaring death spiral has been documented for decades. With new observations, astronomers have now characterised the way they whirl about each other in the centre

A comet only just discovered in December of last year has already met its demise. It didn’t reach perihelion, or its closest approach to the Sun. It didn’t even pass inside Earth orbit. Yet Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) has now absolutely shattered. In images taken on April 20 and April 23, the Hubble Space Telescope

It’s been a busy week for astrophysicist Michel Mayor. On Tuesday, he won a Nobel Prize for his work detecting exoplanets. Then, on Wednesday, he crushed the dreams of anyone hoping to one day colonize those planets. “If we are talking about exoplanets,” Mayor told Agence France-Presse when asked about off-world colonization, “things should be clear: we will not migrate there.”

The Moon is a pretty inhospitable place for humans. It’s all dry and dusty, and there’s no atmosphere for us to breathe. But there is a bunch of oxygen: The lunar regolith – the crumbly top layer of dirt and rubble on the Moon’s surface – is loaded with it. And now scientists have figured

NASA astronomers have used data from the Voyager probes to measure the bustle of particles rippling at the very edge of our Solar System, and discovered the pressure in the distant borderlands of our star is higher than they expected. The results suggest “that there are some other parts to the pressure that aren’t being

Some of the strongest magnetic fields ever detected in the Universe come from magnetars. Now, we might finally know how these strange objects form. Large and complex computer simulations, detailed in a new study, show that the collision of two stars can produce a massive star with a particularly strong magnetic field. As it eventually

A cosmologist who revealed that the universe was made mostly of invisible matter and energy, and two scientists who detected the first planet orbiting an alien star, were jointly awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday. By studying the earliest moments after the birth of the universe, James Peebles of Princeton University developed a

Space food is notoriously lacklustre, but new technology is slowly revolutionising the way astronauts eat. Whereas the first astronauts in space squeezed their meals from toothpaste-like tubes, today’s astronauts chow down on ice cream and fresh fruit, and season their meals with liquid salt and pepper. But there are still limits to the types of

In early September 1859, something world-changing occurred. Earth was wracked by a monumental solar storm, which lashed our magnetosphere with a coronal mass ejection, the like of which had never before occurred in recorded history. It’s called the Carrington Event, and it occurred right on the cusp of the Technological Revolution. It temporarily knocked out telegraph

For the first time, astronomers have obtained high-resolution images of a binary star system in the early stages of formation, and it’s more beautiful than we ever expected. Here on Earth, we’re used to orbiting a lone star. But out there in the wider Universe, most stars come with their own little star families, or

Saturn has unseated Jupiter as the Solar System’s most moon-bearing planet, the Carnegie Institution for Science announced on Monday. Scientists discovered 20 previously unknown moons orbiting Saturn, which gives Saturn a grand total of 82 moons, flying past Jupiter’s 79. The discovery unlocks a trove of possible new hints at how Saturn and its moons

Astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) rarely get a break from their cramped quarters. Only on occasion do they get to don a spacesuit and actually venture outside. This month, various mission members will get to do so five times. Over the weekend, NASA began a lengthy series of spacewalks to upgrade a set

According to the most widely-accepted cosmological models, the first galaxies began to form between 13 and 14 billion years ago. Over the course of the next billion years, the cosmic structures we’ve all come to know emerged. These include things like galaxy clusters, superclusters, and filaments, but also galactic features like globular clusters, galactic bulges,

From its red and rugged surface, Mars looks like a lifeless planet, both dry and desolate. But that hasn’t always been the case. NASA’s Curiosity Rover has now collected even more evidence of an ancient salty lake that once lapped the edges of the Gale crater some 3.7 billion years ago. Analysing soil samples collected

When China’s Chang’e-4 spacecraft landed on the lunar far side on 3 January 2019, it made history. It was the first spacecraft to visit that part of the Moon, and among its payload was a 2.6 kg (5.7 lb) mini-biosphere called the Lunar Micro Ecosystem (LME). The sealed, cylindrical biosphere is only 18 cm (7.1

In a death-defying maneuver for the spacecraft, NASA’s Juno has completed an unprecedented and unplanned engine burn. The purpose? To save the spacecraft’s ‘life’, or at least the rest of its mission to Jupiter. Jupiter casts a deep, dark shadow. Dark enough, in fact, to effectively kill Juno if it flies through it. Rather than

Just less than 13,000 years ago, the climate cooled for a short while in many parts of the world, especially in the northern hemisphere. We know this because of what has been found in ice cores drilled in Greenland, as well as from oceans around the world. Grains of pollen from various plants can also

The centre of the Milky Way galaxy is a relatively calm place now (compared to other galactic centres), but that hasn’t always been the case. In fact, just 3.5 million years ago, it was positively riotous – expelling a burst of energy that eventually blasted 200,000 light-years above and below the galactic plane. The shockwaves

In April, an international team of scientists captured the first-ever photo of a black hole. In September, they won a US$3 million Breakthrough Prize for that accomplishment. But they’re far from finished. Next, the team behind the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is planning a cinematic debut. The subject: the supermassive black hole at the centre of our

According to local news reports in Chile, something was seen blazing a trail across the sky over the island of Chiloé last Wednesday. Naturally, with several small fires appearing soon after the sightings, some residents concluded the two events were linked. But experts have now ruled if what people saw was a meteorite, the space

Astronomers across the globe were quick to begin studying 2I/Borisov – the second known interstellar object to visit our solar system – almost immediately upon its detection in August. Those observations are already yielding fascinating insights into the comet – including the fact that its solar system of origin might not be that different from