Astronomy

Happy Asteroid Day! Today is the annual UN-recognised global event to promote public education on asteroids and planetary defence. But why today, of all days? Read on to find out – and find out the other key dates in our current golden age of asteroids!

The wreckage of an exploded star is meant to fade quietly, cooling over thousands of years like the embers of a fire. So astronomers were stunned when NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory caught dozens of these supernova remnants in a nearby galaxy doing the opposite, flaring and flickering in X-rays as though refusing to die. In each case a star appears to have survived its partner's explosion, only to be slowly devoured by the black hole or neutron star its companion left behind. It’s a discovery that turns the calm graveyards of dead stars into something far stranger and more alive.

Jezero Crater on Mars is a 45-kilometer-wide (28-mile) crater that once hosted a lake billions of years ago fed by two distinct river valleys with Jezero eventually forming an exit channel over time. One of Jezero’s most prominent features is the massive river delta that consists of sediments that were deposited as the inflow slowed down. Researchers hypothesize that the delta and lake were formed under freshwater conditions, indicating the potential for life as we know it, also called biosignatures.

The toxin behind two outbreaks in seven months is hard to find—and just a handful of labs are equipped to look for it at all

Europe's CERN physics research center bids 'Farewell' to the Large Hadron Collider, but it's actually more like 'See You Later, Accelerator!' The new, improved High-Luminosity LHC is due to make its debut in 2030.

After more than eight years of searching and with instruments designed to detect it, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Trace Gas Orbiter has yet to find methane in the red planet’s atmosphere.

On September 22, 2021, the IceCube Neutrino Detector in Antarctica caught a blast of neutrinos as it passed through the solar system. These neutrinos were remarkably high-energy and came from a galaxy 11 billion light-years away. That's a period of the Universe's history known as "Cosmic Noon". It's when star formation in galaxies was at its most active and that provided an interesting clue to their origin. The source of the neutrinos was nicknamed "Shadow Blaster" because the event that created the neutrinos was hidden by a dense cloud of dust, which made it invisible to optical observations.

Stellar mass black holes may not be black holes at all. Instead, they could be a type of extremely compact star called a gravastar, which mimics a black hole. This is according to theoretical phsyicists who have discovered a solution to Einstein's Theory of General Relativity that doesn't automatically result in a black hole when a star collapses at the end of its life.

A prolonged, intense heat wave will make temperatures feel as hot as 115 degrees Fahrenheit in the eastern U.S. this week

Training people to pay attention to the right visual cues nearly doubled how accurately they could spot AI-generated faces

The US government is trying to speed up the development of quantum computers so it can have one sooner

The US government is trying to speed up the development of quantum computers so it can have one sooner

For decades, we’ve thought that childbirth is uniquely challenging for humans, but it turns out that many other primates find the birth process just as difficult

For decades, we’ve thought that childbirth is uniquely challenging for humans, but it turns out that many other primates find the birth process just as difficult

Sleep is essential, yet humans have evolved to need so little of it. When evolutionary anthropologist David Samson delved into our ancient past to find the reasons why, he discovered surprising ways to get a better night’s rest

Sleep is essential, yet humans have evolved to need so little of it. When evolutionary anthropologist David Samson delved into our ancient past to find the reasons why, he discovered surprising ways to get a better night’s rest

Researchers from the University of Oxford have uncovered evidence that Mars once hosted widespread, Earth-like magmatic systems deep beneath its surface – despite the planet lacking the plate tectonics long thought necessary for this kind of geological complexity. The findings, published June 26th in Nature Astronomy, reveal fascinating new possibilities for how rocky planets become habitable.

What would it look like to fly past

Flight engineer Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) assists flight engineer Chris Williams of NASA as he tries on his spacesuit, testing its comfort and mobility as well as its communications and life support systems inside the International Space Station’s Quest airlock.