For millennia, the universe did a pretty good job of keeping its secrets from science. Ancient Greeks thought the universe was a sphere of fixed stars surrounding smaller spheres carrying…
Category: Space
High-energy neutrinos may come from black holes ripping apart stars
When a star gets too close to a black hole, sparks fly. And, potentially, so do subatomic particles called neutrinos. A dramatic light show results when a supermassive black hole…
NASA’s InSight lander has recorded the largest Marsquake yet
Any Martians out there should learn to duck and cover. On May 4, the Red Planet was rocked by a roughly magnitude 5 temblor, the largest Marsquake detected to date,…
We finally have an image of the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way
There’s a new addition to astronomers’ portrait gallery of black holes. Astronomers announced May 12 that they have finally assembled an image of the supermassive black hole at the center…
The sun’s searing radiation led to the shuffling of the solar system’s planets
In the solar system’s early years, the still-forming giant planets sidestepped, did a do-si-do and then swung one of their partners away from the sun’s gravitational grasp. Things settled, and…
Bilayer graphene inspires two-universe cosmological model
A curved and stretched sheet of graphene laying over another curved sheet creates a new pattern that impacts how electricity moves through the sheets. A new model suggests that similar…
Lava and frost may form the mysterious lumps on Jupiter’s moon Io
On Jupiter’s moon Io, lava creeping beneath frost may give rise to fields of towering dunes. That finding, described April 19 in Nature Communications, suggests that dunes may be more…
Gravitational waves gave a new black hole a high-speed ‘kick’
This black hole really knows how to kick back. Scientists recently observed two black holes that united into one, and in the process got a “kick” that flung the newly…
‘Goldilocks’ stars may pose challenges for any nearby habitable planets
If you’re an aspiring life-form, you might want to steer clear of planets around orange dwarf stars. Some astronomers have called these orange suns “Goldilocks stars” (SN: 11/18/09). They are…
U.S. planetary scientists want to explore Uranus and Enceladus next
The continuing search for life beyond Earth is driving many of the priorities for what’s next when it comes to U.S. planetary exploration. In a new report that could shape…
