Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and BeyondAshley Jean YeagerMIT Press, $24.95 Vera Rubin’s research forced cosmologists to radically reimagine the cosmos. In the 1960s and ’70s, Rubin’s observations of stars whirling…
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Cosmic filaments may be the biggest spinning objects in space
Moons do it, stars do it, even whole galaxies do it. Now, two teams of scientists say cosmic filaments do it, too. These tendrils stretching hundreds of millions of light-years…
Machine learning points to prime places in Antarctica to find meteorites
The hunt for meteorites may have just gotten some new leads. A powerful new machine learning algorithm has identified over 600 hot spots in Antarctica where scientists are likely to…
Organic molecules in an ancient Mars meteorite formed via geology, not alien life
When researchers in 1996 reported they had found organic molecules nestled in an ancient Martian meteorite discovered in Antarctica, it caused quite a buzz. Some insisted the compounds were big-if-true…
A new image captures enormous gas rings encircling an aging red star
Huge rings of gas surround a large red star named V Hydrae, new images show, signaling its eventual transformation into a much smaller and bluer star. “It’s definitely going through…
Astronomers may not have found a sign of the universe’s first stars after all
A new study casts a haze over a hint of the universe’s first glimmers of starlight. In 2018, researchers claimed that a subtle signature in radio waves from early in…
How Russia’s war in Ukraine hinders space research and exploration
Space exploration may seem like a faraway endeavor from Earth’s surface, but events on the ground ripple into space. The Russian war on Ukraine is no exception. From a rocket…
A fast radio burst’s unlikely source may be a cluster of old stars
In a galaxy not so far away, astronomers have located a surprising source of a mysterious, rapid radio signal. The signal, a repeating fast radio burst, or FRB, was observed…
A rare collision of dead stars can bring a new one to life
Like a phoenix, some stars may burst to life covered in “ash,” rising from the remains of stars that had previously passed on. Two newfound fireballs that burn hundreds of…
Invasive grasses are taking over the American West’s sea of sagebrush
No one likes a cheater, especially one that prospers as easily as the grass Bromus tectorum does in the American West. This invasive species is called cheatgrass because it dries…
