Astronomy

After studying mice in the 1910s, Maude Slye concluded that vulnerability to cancer was hereditary. She thought she had a solution to eliminate it, but she made some crucial mistakes

Oceanographers hope to find otherworldly ecosystems at hydrothermal vents on the Arctic seafloor

Iron rusts. On Earth, this common chemical reaction often signals the presence of something far more interesting than just corroding metal for example, living microorganisms that make their living by manipulating iron atoms. Now researchers argue these microbial rust makers could provide some of the most promising biosignatures for detecting life on Mars and the icy moons of the outer Solar System.

Astronomers have deployed a survey with the most memorable and tasty acronym in astrophysics - SPAM, The Search for Protoplanets with Aperture Masking - to catch planets in the act of being born. Using Keck Observatory's most powerful instruments, researchers have just captured the closest ever view of a protoplanetary disk 400 light years away, revealing a telltale gap and clumpy structures that hint at a world coalescing from interstellar dust.

A new study argues that the Universe is decelerating, based on a correlation between the brightness of Type-Ia supernovae and the age of their host galaxies.

As the COP30 climate conference gets underway in Brazil, the world’s attention is once again drawn to the plight of the Amazon – the planet’s largest and most vital rainforest. With the European Space Agency’s Earth Explorer Biomass satellite now in orbit, ESA is helping Brazil prepare to transform this new mission’s groundbreaking data into actionable knowledge for protecting the rainforest and confronting climate change.

Tracking time is one of those things that seems easy, until you really start to get into the details of what time actually is. We define a second as 9,192,631,770 oscillations of a cesium atom. However, according to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, mass slows down these oscillations, making time appear to move more slowly for objects in large gravity wells. This distinction becomes critical as we start considering how to keep track of time between two separate gravity wells of varying strengths, such as on the Earth and the Moon. A new paper by Pascale Defraigne at the Royal Observatory of Belgium and her co-authors discusses some potential frameworks for solving that problem and settles on using the new Lunar Coordinate Time (TCL) suggested by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

The images hammered into the sides of a goblet found in Palestine give us an idea of what people living more than 4000 years ago imagined the creation of the cosmos looked like

The images hammered into the sides of a goblet found in Palestine give us an idea of what people living more than 4000 years ago imagined the creation of the cosmos looked like

An 18-year dataset from the North Sea reveals that rogue waves are not freak accidents but particular products of ordinary swells stacking up—an insight that could make prediction possible

To understand Adolf Hitler, we need to look at his personal life and the wider societal and historical context - analysing his DNA for a TV gimmick tells us nothing, says Michael Le Page

To understand Adolf Hitler, we need to look at his personal life and the wider societal and historical context - analysing his DNA for a TV gimmick tells us nothing, says Michael Le Page

To understand Adolf Hitler, we need to look at his personal life and the wider societal and historical context - analysing his DNA for a TV gimmick tells us nothing, says Michael Le Page

Sexual activity in young people is on the decline, but why? And what's more, should we be worried about what this means for society and the future of the human race?

Sexual activity in young people is on the decline, but why? And what's more, should we be worried about what this means for society and the future of the human race?

Global emissions from fossil fuels are expected to hit another record high in 2025, but China’s carbon emissions appear to be reaching a peak

Global emissions from fossil fuels are expected to hit another record high in 2025, but China’s carbon emissions appear to be reaching a peak

“Kryptos has not been solved,” said artist Jim Sanborn after releasing his parting clues to the “K4” section of his sculpture puzzle

ESA’s Euclid space telescope is revealing the patterns of galaxy evolution of millions of galaxies across cosmic time. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) are using this data to trace how galaxies grow, merge, and transform.

Last night's aurora painted the sky in reds, greens and even oranges. It's expected to return tonight!

The post Double Solar Eruptions Spark Widespread Aurora appeared first on Sky & Telescope.