Space

During the 1930s, astronomers came to realize that the Universe is in a state of expansion. By the 1990s, they realized that the rate at which it is expansion is accelerating, giving rise to the theory of “Dark Energy”. Because of this, it is estimated that in the next 100 billion years, all stars within

The curvature of empty space caused by an entire galaxy has now been pinned down with unprecedented precision, demonstrating Einstein’s theory of general relativity still rules on a super-sized scale. Not that anybody is seriously surprised. But on the off chance the results had failed to meet expectations, they might have provided insight into some

A stunning new photo of the Milky Way came about because of a flea-market purchase, a late night on a Chilean mountain range, and a dash of inspiration. The photo, taken by astronomer Juan Carlos Muñoz-Mateos, shows our home galaxy projected backward and upside-down through a crystal ball. Muñoz-Mateos focused his camera’s lens on the

It’s a strange and lucky irony that the worst solar storm in recorded history happened at a time when human civilisation wasn’t yet uniquely vulnerable to the Sun’s inescapable geomagnetic fury. The Carrington Event – aka the solar storm of 1859 – saw a huge solar coronal mass ejection unleashed at Earth’s protective magnetosphere, producing

Almost all the large vertebrates on Earth suddenly went extinct 66 million years ago – including dinosaurs, mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, and pterosaurs. A city-size asteroid or comet is thought to be responsible for that mass extinction. The impact, called the Chicxulub event, triggered global cooling and volcanic eruptions that transformed Earth. In the 1980s, Richard Muller,

Astronomers have spotted what they think is a super-rare cosmic phenomenon: a type of medium-weight black hole proven so elusive that researchers thought it might not exist at all. There are a few different black hole size categories out there in the Universe. There are the stellar-mass black holes. Those are the ones whose collisions

Chris Hadfield, most widely known for his zero-gravity guitar-playing, has seen an impressive amount of space travel. Between his first spaceflight in 1995, his second in 2001, and a third in 2013, Hadfield has flown inside NASA space shuttles, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, and the International Space Station. Hadfield, who’s now retired, shares his expertise

A mysteriously fluctuating bulge observed in the atmosphere of Venus now has a more concrete explanation. According to a newly published study, the planet’s enormous mountain ranges are to blame for a massive gravity wave. Venus is often called Earth’s sister planet because of the similarities between the two. If it’s a twin, though, it’s

Mars will look brighter in the night sky over the next six weeks than it has appeared in 15 years. That’s because the red planet will be at its closest point to Earth since 2003 throughout June and July, as our planet passes between Mars and the Sun. On July 31, when Mars will be

In 2006, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) established orbit around the Red Planet. Using an advanced suite of scientific instruments – which include cameras, spectrometers, and radar – this spacecraft has been analyzing landforms, geology, minerals and ice on Mars for years and assisting with other missions. While the mission was only meant to last

A lunar meteorite, discovered in the desert of northwest Africa, holds strong evidence that there is an abundant supply of water on the Moon – maybe even enough for a future colony. Examining the meteorite, scientists from Tohoku University have determined that the other-worldly rock is made up of moganite, a mineral that requires water

As a Chinese microsatellite called Longjiang-2 slipped into orbit around the moon last month, the spacecraft looked back at Earth and snapped its first test photos. One of those images shows our blue-marble planet hanging in the void of space beyond the Moon. The images were taken on May 28 using an on-board camera funded

When a black hole tears apart a star, not all of it ends up sucked into oblivion. Some of the material gets to be blasted out in a spectacular jet – and now, for the first time, we have direct images of one of those jets forming and expanding. The event took place in a

When it comes to the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) in the Universe, there is the complicated matter of what to be on the lookout for. Beyond the age-old question of whether or not intelligent life exists elsewhere in the Universe (statistically speaking, it is very likely that it does), there’s also the question of

Mars is not a friendly place to be right now, especially if you’re an aging solar-powered rover. NASA says a global dust storm is forming. The storm is now about 10 billion acres in size, which is enough to cover North America and Russia, or more than one-quarter of Mars. Some regions of the Martian

In 1935, Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen hypothesised the existence of wormholes – a sort of “bridge” connecting two regions of space, due to extreme gravitational warping of spacetime. The concept is theoretical, and wormholes are yet to be detected. But according to a new paper, those gravitational waves we’ve detected from colliding black holes?

Mars is currently being blasted with a dust storm the likes of which we’ve rarely seen. And at 1:30 pm EDT (5:30 pm UTC) this Wednesday, NASA will let us know just how this weather event will affect their ongoing operations. A week ago the storm was 18 million square kilometres (7 million square miles)

It was a Saturday, and Laura Murray was a 10-year-old girl hanging out with her nanny outside her family’s Cincinnati townhouse. Her mother, giddy with excitement, handed the little girl a small glass vial filled with light-gray dust. It was from the Moon, her mother told her. Along with it was a handwritten note: “To

Particles collected from Earth’s upper atmosphere, originally deposited by comets, are older than our Solar System, scientists say – and these fine bits of interstellar dust could teach us about how planets and stars form from the very beginning. These cosmic particles have lived through at least 4.6 billion years and travelled across incredible distances,

The source of a mysterious microwave glow detected across our galaxy eluded astronomers for decades. But now a crack team has finally pinpointed the source: nanoscopic particles of crystalline carbon, otherwise known as diamond dust. There are several environments across the Milky Way that produce a faint glow known as anomalous microwave emission (AME). Scientists

NASA has suspended science operations on its brave little Mars rover, Opportunity, as a huge dust storm rages over its location in the planet’s Perseverance Valley. First detected by NASA on June 1, the storm has worsened over the weekend, the intense dust darkening the sky over Mars and leaving Opportunity in the dark. And

In an exciting first, Indian scientists have discovered a sub-Saturn exoplanet orbiting a Sun-like star around 600 light-years away. The planet has been named EPIC 211945201b or K2-236b and it’s big – around 27 times more massive than Earth. The find sees India join a small group of countries to have confirmed a planet outside our

During the 1970s, astronomer became aware of a massive radio source at the center of our galaxy that they later realized was a Supermassive Black Hole (SMBH) – which has since been named Sagittarius A*. And in a recent survey conducted by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers discovered evidence for hundreds or even thousands of black holes located in

Between 1971 and 1977, Apollo scientists conducting experiments on the Moon discovered that the surface of our li’l satellite buddy got mysteriously warmer. But the data from 1974 onwards went missing, and the strange warming phenomenon remained an enigma. Now a team of researchers from Texas Tech University has found and restored that data –

The search is heating up for a planet beyond Pluto – not just over the evidence, but also over the hypothetical world’s name. No one knows for sure if there really is a missing planet out there, since astronomers have yet to identify it in telescope images. However, they keep turning up indirect evidence that

For years, NASA’s Curiosity rover has patiently gathered samples on the surface of Mars. Today, scientists are announcing they’ve discovered conclusive evidence that several organic compounds are indeed found on the Red Planet. On top of that, after keeping close tabs on methane levels in the Martian atmosphere, scientists have finally confirmed something weird is

NASA’s New Horizons probe – the same one that gave us stunning photos of Pluto – has just woken up, approximately 6 billion kilometres (3.7 billion miles) from home. It’s currently flying through the Kuiper Belt, and off on an exciting mission scheduled for New Year’s Day – the first-ever flyby of the Kuiper Belt

Lightning on Jupiter has always been something of a mystery. But thanks to the latest efforts of the Juno probe, we now know that it is actually far more similar to lightning on Earth than we had thought – but it’s also still pretty weird, too. Data from everyone’s favourite Jupiter probe has revealed that,

In the far reaches of the Solar System, objects go into some weird orbits, and astronomers have been baffled as to why. The most intriguing possibility has been that of a huge, unseen planet lurking out there way beyond Neptune. But now a new explanation has emerged, putting a massive dent in the idea of this

At 2 pm EDT (6 pm UTC) this Thursday, NASA will have a big Mars announcement to make. As with most announcements of announcements, they’ve only released a few details, but we do know that the “live discussion” will talk about “new science results from NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover”. So what has Curiosity found? Well,

For the past two years, NASA’s Juno probe has studied planet Jupiter like no spacecraft before it. The US$1 billion mission has peeled back the giant planet’s thick cloud layers, searched for an elusive core, and returned dazzling images of colossal storms and chaotic cloud bands. But all good things must come to an end,

Time seems to move faster as we age, but it turns out that maybe the opposite is true: our days on Earth are getting longer over time, and it’s all thanks to the Moon’s effect on our planet’s rotation. But don’t go planning your extra sleep-ins just yet. A new study has traced the relationship

Witnesses reported a fireball streaking across the sky above Botswana on Saturday night. The asteroid hurtling toward Earth at 10 miles (16 km) a second looked like it could be the harbinger of catastrophe. A webcam in a rural area west of Johannesburg captured it, showing a luminous orb igniting the sky in a bright

The world has fallen in love with the spectacular images of Jupiter NASA delivers every few month. But few people know that to obtain these photos is a long, complicated, and even dangerous process. To take them, the shoe-box sized camera on NASA’s Juno probe has survived years of the cold wasteland of space, not

Astronomers have come up with the most precise measurement of the Universe’s expansion rate so far – and sure enough, it still appears to be accelerating. The increasing speed shouldn’t come as a shock – we’ve suspected it for a while. What this measurement does is reduce the odds that it’s a coincidence to 1

Isn’t it beautiful? This is an illustrated logarithmic scale conception of the observable Universe with the Solar System at the centre. Encircling the Solar System are the inner and outer planets, Kuiper belt, Oort cloud, Alpha Centauri star, Perseus Arm, Milky Way galaxy, Andromeda galaxy, other nearby galaxies, the cosmic web, cosmic microwave radiation, and invisible

A small Solar System object is about to pay us a second visit since its discovery in 2015. It’s called 2015 TB145, also known as the Halloween Asteroid – and for good reason. It’s just perfect. It looks a little like a human skull in certain conditions; it’s as dark as coal; its closest approach