Space

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

After counting all the normal, luminous matter in the obvious places of the universe – galaxies, clusters of galaxies and the intergalactic medium – about half of it is still missing. So not only is 85 percent of the matter in the universe made up of an unknown, invisible substance dubbed “dark matter”, we can’t

When a single neutrino was detected by a neutrino detector in Antarctica in September 2017, it was the start of something amazing. It was to become the first-ever high-energy neutrino that astronomers could trace back to an origin – a blazar galaxy called TXS 0506+056, 3.8 billion light-years away. But, in the manner of many

Scientists just found the most basic ingredients for life bursting from an ocean on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. A new analysis of NASA data reveals the presence of organic compounds in the plumes of liquid water that shoot into space from the ocean below Enceladus’s icy crust. These compounds, which carry nitrogen and oxygen, play a

NASA’s Mars InSight lander has detected some “peculiar sounds,” thanks to an onboard seismometer that’s capable of picking up the tiniest of vibrations. The InSight team found that delicate parts inside the seismometer itself were expanding and contracting, causing “dinks and donks” – the team’s nickname for strange mechanical sounds – to show up in

Our next-door neighbour is a cannibal. In its distant past, the Andromeda galaxy has devoured at least two other galaxies, subsuming their stars into its galactic halo. And now, for the first time, astronomers have identified those stars, tracking them to individual galactic mergers billions of years ago. It shouldn’t come as a tremendous surprise.

We have a new record. Perhaps 1,060 light-years away, a gas giant called NGTS-10b is whipping around its star so closely, it completes an entire orbit in just 18.4 hours. That’s nearly as close as the planet can get to the host star without being ripped apart by gravitational forces. But it will get closer.

They’re called ‘lurkers’, and they may have been covertly surveilling us from space for millions of years – since before we even existed, perhaps. That’s the bold proposal being made in a new scientific paper by American physicist James Benford. But even though Benford’s ideas sound radical, they draw upon a long history of conjecture

What do you imagine the first settlers on Mars will look like? Maybe they’ll be the best and brightest our world has to offer: people from countries around the world with multiple degrees and decades of training in astrophysics. Or maybe the first Earthlings on Mars will be a bunch of microbes. A paper published

Time, as far as we know, moves only in one direction. But last year, researchers found events in some gamma-ray burst pulses that seemed to repeat themselves as though they were going backwards in time. Now, new research suggests a potential answer for what might be causing this time reversibility effect. If waves within the

At the edge of our Solar System, some unknown object is manipulating the paths of chunks of ice as they circle the Sun. These objects’ oval-shaped orbits all point in the same direction and tilt the same way, suggesting that an unseen force is herding them. At first, scientists thought the culprit was a mysterious

Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, addressed planet Earth on Saturday night about his latest plans to “extend consciousness beyond Earth” using a towering steel spaceship. Standing between two rockets that represented both the future of SpaceX and its nail-biting past, Musk delivered his talk to more than 100 people from the company’s

Astronomers have spotted three supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the center of three colliding galaxies a billion light years away from Earth. That alone is unusual, but the three black holes are also glowing in x-ray emissions. This is evidence that all three are also active galactic nuclei (AGN,) gobbling up material and flaring brightly.

For all our perception of supermassive black holes as gravitational vortices ravenously devouring stars, it doesn’t actually happen that often. For instance, our galaxy’s own black hole might only do it a handful of times every 100,000 years. So it’s quite a special occasion for the astronomers who have just observed the immediate aftermath of

These days we’re used to jaw-dropping photos getting snapped from the International Space Station, but the latest one NASA astronaut Christina Koch recently posted to Twitter comes with a special message, too. The image shows the Soyuz MS-15 spaceflight taking three people to the ISS: Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and NASA astronaut Jessica Meir as part

The first-ever direct image of a black hole‘s event horizon was a truly impressive feat of scientific ingenuity. But it was extremely difficult to achieve, and the resulting image was relatively low-resolution. Techniques and technology will be refined, and it’s expected that future direct images of black holes will improve with time. And a new

It’s hard living in a relativistic Universe, where even the nearest stars are so far away and the speed of light is absolute. It is little wonder then why science fiction franchises routinely employ FTL (Faster-than-Light) as a plot device. Push a button, press a petal, and that fancy drive system – whose workings no

The verdict is in: after conducting a thorough round of observations, the comet suspected of being an interstellar alien has been ratified. According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the comet is “unambiguously” interstellar in origin, and it has now been given a name: 2I/Borisov. Previously, the comet had been going by the provisional name

When KIC 8462852 – affectionately known as Tabby’s Star – arrived on the scene in 2015, it made one heck of a bang. We’d never seen a star like it before. It kept growing dimmer, erratically, in a manner that defied explanation. It still does – but it’s looking like KIC 8462852 isn’t quite unique.

The second-fastest pulsar ever discovered has been caught spitting out gamma rays, and this surprise discovery could help astronomers better understand the properties of these strange and extreme stars. The gamma radiation of millisecond pulsar PSR J0952−0607 is so faint, detecting it required some clever new search methods – and these made it possible to

Venus is not a nice place, by human standards. For a world named after a Roman goddess of love and beauty, it really is quite the toxic, super-heated hellscape. But it wasn’t always this way. In a new study, scientists make the case for how ancient Venus could have once supported life alongside oceans of

The tiny hole aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that caused so much drama in August of last year is still producing controversy, over a year later. According to new reports, Russia now knows the source of the hole, but it doesn’t look like NASA has been informed. While talking to the participants of a

On 27 June 2018, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency‘s (JAXA) Hayabusa2 spacecraft reached asteroid 162173 Ryugu. As part of JAXA’s program to study Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs), this mission has spent over a year conducting landing operations, shooting up the surface with “bullets” and an anti-tank warhead, and collecting samples from the surface and interior that

In the most extreme regions of the Universe, galaxies are being killed. Their star formation is being shut down and astronomers want to know why. The first ever Canadian-led large project on one of the world’s leading telescopes is hoping to do just that. The new program, called the Virgo Environment Traced in Carbon Monoxide

The JunoCam onboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft continues to provide we Earthbound humans with a steady stream of stunning images of Jupiter. We can’t get enough of the gas giant’s hypnotic, other-worldly beauty. This image of Io passing over Jupiter is the latest one to awaken our sense of wonder. This image was processed by Kevin

China’s Yutu-2 lunar lander just sent back new images of a strange substance it found near a small crater on the far side of the Moon. Last month, the team behind the lunar rover claimed it had found a “colored mysterious substance” as described in the rover’s diary, which claimed that the material’s “shape and color

Compared to our brief human lives, we tend to think of events on galactic scales as ones that happen extremely slowly. But that’s not always the case. In a spectacular fashion, six galaxies have just undergone a huge transformation in a matter of mere months. They’ve gone from relatively peaceful galaxies to active quasars –

The time has come. We’re going to smash a spacecraft into an asteroid. The asteroid is Didymos B, the smaller of the two objects in the Didymos binary asteroid system. The spacecraft is NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). The reason: to test whether a spacecraft impact can deflect an asteroid’s trajectory, as a means

We’re yet to make a conclusive detection of an exomoon. But if such moons are out there, orbiting planets outside the Solar System, one of them could be responsible for the peculiarities of KIC 8462852 – AKA Tabby’s star. New research suggests that the strange brightening and dimming fluctuations of the star’s light that have

The biggest volcano on Jupiter’s moon Io could be about to blow. Decades of observation have revealed a periodic cycle in the volcano’s eruptions; according to past behaviour, it’s due for the next one any day. That potential burst of activity – or lack thereof – could help us to better understand the volcano and