Astronomy

Optimists have similar patterns of brain activation when they think about the future—but pessimists are all different from one another, a brain scan study suggests

NASA recently took its new X-59 "quiet' supersonic jet for a drive during taxi tests, one of the final hurdles between the aircraft and its first flight.

Mysteries abound in space. In the Tarantula Nebula, which lies in the Large Magellanic Cloud, astronomers used simulations to reconstruct how three stars were ejected from the star cluster R136, about 60,000 years ago. The analysis, published in Physical Review Letters, reveals that five stars were involved, an unexpected result.

Astronomers using the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA gravitational wave detectors announced the most massive black hole merger ever seen. Two black holes crashed together, producing a final black hole with approximately 225 times the mass of the Sun. Designated GW231123, it was detected during the 2023 observing run, and appears to be from the collision of 100- and 140-stellar-mass black holes. Black holes this massive are hard to get through standard stellar evolution, but could be the results of previous mergers.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope isn't due to launch until May 2027, but astronomers are preparing for its science operations by running simulated operations. One of those involves supernovae, massive stars the end their lives in gargantuan explosions. Research shows that the Roman could find 100,000 supernovae in one of its surveys.

Searching for habitable exoplanets will require decades of work, new technologies, and new ideas. A lot of that effort seems to coalescing around the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), a proposed mission expected to launch in the early 2040s that would be capable of directly imaging potentially habitable worlds, and, importantly, detecting features about them that could prove whether or not they host life as we know it. A new paper by exobiology specialists in Europe and the US, led by Svetlana Berdyugina of ISROL in Locarno, Switzerland, details an observational plan with HWO that could definitely prove that life exists on another planet - if they’re able to find one where it does anyway.

The Orion Nebula, the Pleiades and the Hyades open clusters could represent the different phases of star clusters: baby, adolescent and elderly.

In only its second year, the International Logic Olympiad is already booming as logic becomes more and more crucial in our ever changing world

Analysis of an ancient meteorite suggests that rocky planets both near and distant from the sun may have formed at the same time, challenging current models of our solar system’s evolution.

Employees who trialled a four-day work week for six months said they slept better and felt that their ability to work improved

Employees who trialled a four-day work week for six months said they slept better and felt that their ability to work improved

On July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, NASA's Cassini spacecraft slipped into Saturn's shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings, and, in the background, our home planet, Earth.

Octopuses can be tricked into thinking that a fake arm is part of their body, suggesting they have a sense of body ownership similar to our own

Octopuses can be tricked into thinking that a fake arm is part of their body, suggesting they have a sense of body ownership similar to our own

Physicists would dearly love to find new particles, but there's no sign of them in colliders like the LHC. Now we have found a new way of accessing a tiny slice of reality where they might be hiding

Physicists would dearly love to find new particles, but there's no sign of them in colliders like the LHC. Now we have found a new way of accessing a tiny slice of reality where they might be hiding

Propstore will also trot out this rare relic for a 3-city press tour this August

Humid heat is blanketing the eastern U.S. this week, exacerbated by “corn sweat” in the Midwest

A SkyWest pilot’s last-second decision could have prevented a collision that air-traffic controllers may not have foreseen

Astronomers have finally imaged the long theorized companion star of Betelgeuse, solving a mystery regarding its dimming that has persisted for millennia.