Astronomy

The planet TRAPPIST-1e lies in its star’s Goldilocks zone, where water remains liquid – and an analysis suggests it might have a nitrogen-rich atmosphere like Earth’s

"The American people deserve maximum transparency from the federal government on sightings, acquisitions and examinations of UAPs and whether they pose a potential threat to Americans' safety."

A carved figure found in northern France, dated to 27,000 years ago, may reflect how hair was styled in a culture that disappeared during the last glacial maximum

A carved figure found in northern France, dated to 27,000 years ago, may reflect how hair was styled in a culture that disappeared during the last glacial maximum

A strange kind of geometry governs how particles move inside matter. Now, for the first time, physicists have uncovered its full shape – and it could transform how we design materials

A strange kind of geometry governs how particles move inside matter. Now, for the first time, physicists have uncovered its full shape – and it could transform how we design materials

What role can the relationship between oxygen (O2) and ozone (O3) in exoplanet atmospheres have on detecting biosignatures? This is what a recent study submitted to Astronomy & Astrophysics hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated novel methods for identifying and analyzing Earth-like atmospheres. This study has the potential to help scientists develop new methods for identifying exoplanet biosignatures, and potentially life as we know it.

When NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returned from its mission to asteroid Bennu in 2023, it brought back more than just ancient space rocks, it delivered answers to puzzles that have baffled astronomers for years. Among the most intriguing questions was why asteroids that should look identical through telescopes appear strikingly different colours from Earth.

The recent discovery of the third known interstellar object (ISO), 3I/ATLAS, has brought about another round of debate on whether these objects could potentially be technological in origin. Everything from random YouTube channels to tenured Harvard professors have thoughts about whether ISOs might actually be spaceships, but the general consensus of the scientific community is that they aren’t. Overturning that consensus would require a lot of “extraordinary evidence”, and a new paper led by James Davenport at the DiRAC Institute at the University of Washington lays out some of the ways that astronomers could collect that evidence for either the current ISO or any new ones we might find.

A new review study examines the “gut virome”: the microbiome’s mysterious viral population

A common nasal spray shows promise in reducing COVID risk, but vaccine access remains tangled in policy in the U.S.

A device made from superconducting qubits could prove a powerful technology for enabling practical quantum computing or more experimental propositions like quantum machine learning

A device made from superconducting qubits could prove a powerful technology for enabling practical quantum computing or more experimental propositions like quantum machine learning

All (or at least most) astronomical eyes are on 3I/ATLAS, our most recent interstellar visitor that was discovered in early July. Given its relatively short observational window in our solar system, and especially its impending perihelion in October, a lot of observational power has been directed towards it. That includes the most powerful space telescope of them all - and a recent paper pre-printed on arXiv describes what the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) discovered in the comet’s coma. It wasn’t like any other it had seen before.

Its surface is the most densely cratered in the Solar System -- but what's inside?

We surveyed people in the U.S. about artificial-intelligence-generated art. Their answers told us a lot about how we value human creativity

Ant queens of one species are sexual parasites that clone ants of another species to create hybrid workers that do their bidding

Imagine worlds where water exists in forms so exotic that they defy our everyday understanding of matter, where the familiar liquid we drink every day transforms into something that behaves like neither gas nor liquid. These aren't science fiction fantasies, but real planets that represent some of the most common worlds in our Galaxy, and scientists at UC Santa Cruz have just developed new models to understand them.

Liftoff occurred at 2:06 p.m. EDT on Saturday (Sept. 6).