Mars might be, geologically speaking, not quite dead. Researchers have analyzed a slew of recent temblors on the Red Planet and shown that these Marsquakes are probably caused by magma…
Category: Space
Ancient bacteria could persist beneath Mars’ surface
Radiation-tolerant microbes might be able to live beneath Mars’ surface for hundreds of millions of years and may yet persist today, thanks in part — counterintuitively — to the Red…
Meet the BOAT, the brightest gamma-ray burst of all time
The brightest gamma-ray burst ever recorded recently lit up a distant galaxy — and astronomers have nicknamed it the BOAT, for Brightest of All Time. “We use the boat emoji…
Particles from space provide a new look inside cyclones
Particles raining down from space offer 3-D views inside swirling tropical storms. Muons created from cosmic rays that smash into Earth’s upper atmosphere have revealed the inner workings of cyclones…
Most stars may have much more time to form planets than previously thought
Good news for late bloomers: Planets may have millions of years more time to arise around most stars than previously thought. Planet-making disks around young stars typically last for 5…
For the first time, astronomers saw dust in space being pushed by starlight
A pair of stars in our galaxy is revealing how light pushes around matter. It’s the first time anyone has directly seen how the pressure of light from stars changes…
A 3-D model of the Cat’s Eye nebula shows rings sculpted by jets
Roughly 3,000 light-years from Earth sits one of the most complex and least understood nebulae, a whirling landscape of gas and dust left in the wake of a star’s death…
NASA’s DART mission successfully shoved an asteroid
It worked! Humanity has, for the first time, purposely moved a celestial object. As a test of a potential asteroid-deflection scheme, NASA’s DART spacecraft shortened the orbit of asteroid Dimorphos…
The James Webb Space Telescope spied the earliest born stars yet seen
Some of the earliest stars yet seen are now coming to light in one of the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope. Formed roughly 800 million years after…
Mars’ buried ‘lake’ might just be layers of ice and rock
“Follow the water” has long been the mantra of scientists searching for life beyond Earth. After all, the only known cradle of life in the cosmos is the watery planet…
