Ever see a star explode? You’re about to get a chance very soon

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Every clear night for the last three weeks, Bob Stephens has pointed his home telescope at the same two stars in hopes of witnessing one of…

Study examines matter distribution and supports unknown influence or new particle

Artistic reconstruction of a photon’s path through intergalactic gas. Credit: UC Riverside The dense peaks in the wavelength distribution graph observed in a Lyman-Alpha forest indeed resemble many small trees.…

A cave discovered on the moon opens up new opportunities for settlement by humans

A lunar pit in the Mare Tranquillitatis region. Credit: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University Almost 55 years after the launch of Apollo 11—the first mission to land humans on the moon—scientists have…

NASA Mars rover captures rock that could hold fossilized microbes

Perseverance drilled into this enigmatic rock to collect a core sample on July 21, as it traversed Neretva Vallis, an ancient river valley. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has made what…

Researchers explore the effects of stellar magnetism on potential habitability of exoplanets

Interest in Earth-like planets orbiting within the habitable zone of their host stars has surged, driven by the quest to discover life beyond our solar system. But the habitability of…

Is this how you get hot Jupiters?

When we think of Jupiter-type planets, we usually picture massive cloud-covered worlds orbiting far from their stars. That distance keeps their volatile gases from vaporizing from stellar heat, similar to…

Perseverance rover discovers rock with potential signs of ancient life

“Cheyava Falls” (left) shows the dark hole where NASA’s Perseverance took a core sample; the white patch is where the rover abraded the rock to investigate its composition. A rock…

At new observatory, Yale expertise helps probe the ‘infant universe’

Whether she’s shuttling between meetings at Yale’s Wright Lab or conferring with colleagues around the world, Laura Newburgh’s thoughts of late rarely stray far from the Simons Observatory in northern Chile. Simons Observatory. Image credit: Simons…

Roadmap details how to improve exoplanet exploration using the James Webb Space Telescope

A new step-by-step roadmap describes how to improve the efficiency of data gathering with the JWST to benefit the astronomy community at large. “Our hope now is that a large-scale…

NASA’s massive moon booster arrives at Kennedy Space Center

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain It’s still covered up in what looks like the world’s largest PEZ dispenser, but the core stage booster for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket for the…