Astronomy

Research led by the RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS) in Japan has successfully performed the world’s first Milky Way simulation that accurately represents more than 100 billion individual stars over the course of 10,000 years.

New research shows how a galaxy's surroundings influence its development. Its size, shape, and growth rate are all affected. It's all based on "the finer details of the cosmic landscape."

Domestic cats originated in North Africa and spread to Europe in the past 2000 years, according to DNA evidence, while in China a different species of cat lived alongside people much earlier

Domestic cats originated in North Africa and spread to Europe in the past 2000 years, according to DNA evidence, while in China a different species of cat lived alongside people much earlier

Whether it is a cube of sugar or a chunk of a mineral, a mathematical analysis can identify how many fragments of each size any brittle object will break into

Whether it is a cube of sugar or a chunk of a mineral, a mathematical analysis can identify how many fragments of each size any brittle object will break into

Scientists sounded the alarm on the dire consequences of continued inaction at a briefing in London, warning that we could be heading for "unprecedented societal and ecological collapse"

Scientists sounded the alarm on the dire consequences of continued inaction at a briefing in London, warning that we could be heading for "unprecedented societal and ecological collapse"

A red giant orbiting a dormant black hole is spinning impossibly fast and contains chemistry that makes it look ancient when it's actually relatively young. By listening to faint vibrations rippling through the star, astronomers have decoded a violent secret, that this star likely collided with and absorbed another star billions of years ago, an explosive merger that left it chemically confused and rotating once every 398 days. The discovery reveals how even quiet black hole systems can have turbulent histories written in starlight.

Ninety five years after Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky inferred its existence from galaxies moving impossibly fast, researchers may have detected the first direct evidence of dark matter, the invisible scaffolding that holds the universe together. Using gamma ray data from NASA's Fermi Space Telescope, a Japanese physicist has identified a halo of extremely energetic photons around the Milky Way's center that matches predictions for annihilating dark matter particles. If confirmed, humanity has finally "seen" the unseeable.

Hotter temperatures and a series of droughts in what is now Pakistan and India fragmented one of the world’s major early civilisations, providing a "warning shot" for today

Hotter temperatures and a series of droughts in what is now Pakistan and India fragmented one of the world’s major early civilisations, providing a "warning shot" for today

Chytrid fungus is a scourge to global amphibian populations, but before it kills some frogs, it can produce symptoms that may help the infected animals find mates and spread the fungus further

Chytrid fungus is a scourge to global amphibian populations, but before it kills some frogs, it can produce symptoms that may help the infected animals find mates and spread the fungus further

On Earth, Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) like the one we experienced earlier this month are aesthetic, even disruptive events, sending aurora southward and interrupting radio signals. But around other stars, they could prove lethal to life. This point was driven home by a recent CME detection from an M-class red dwarf star. This marks the first detection of an energetic Type II radio burst from a nearby star.

A planet’s habitability is determined by a confluence of many factors. So far, our explorations of potentially habitable worlds beyond our solar system have focused exclusively on their position in the “Goldilocks Zone” of their solar system, where their temperature determines whether or not liquid water can exist on their surface, and, more recently, what their atmospheres are composed of. That’s in part due to the technical limitations of the instruments available to us - even the powerful James Webb Space Telescope is capable only of seeing atmospheres of very large planets nearby. But in the coming decades, we’ll get new tools, like the Habitable Worlds Observatory, that are more specifically tailored to search for those potentially habitable worlds. So what should we use them to look for? A new paper available in pre-print on arXiv by Benjamin Farcy of the University of Maryland and his colleagues, argues that we should look to how a planet formed to understand its chances of harboring life.

What did Comet Lemmon look like when it was at its best?

What created this unusual space sculpture?