For the first time, astronomers identify the edge of the Milky Way’s disc
The Milky Way does not come with a clean outer line. Its disc does not stop the way…
‘Bathtub Ring’ points to vast ancient ocean on Mars
Mars may have once held a vast ocean across its northern lowlands, and the clearest clue may not…
Mississippi State physicist creates neutron star reaction in the lab
For years, physicists have wondered whether one unstable form of copper might act like a traffic jam inside…
‘Dancing jets’ from black hole reveal their immense power
The jets do not move in a straight, obedient line. Around Cygnus X-1, a black hole and a…
Undergraduate students built a cavity detector to search for axion dark matter
Dark matter is supposed to be everywhere, threaded through the Milky Way and outnumbering ordinary matter by a…
Scientists reveal the hidden forces shaping how gravity works across the Universe
Gravity behaves predictably in your daily life. Drop a ball, and it falls. Planets loop around stars. On…
Astronomers find compelling new evidence of the first stars formed after the Big Bang
A faint glow of helium, hanging near one of the earliest known galaxies, may be the clearest sign…
Astronomers discover three distinct groups of merging black holes
Black hole collisions do not appear to come from one simple cosmic recipe. After studying more than 150…
Scientists develop laser-powered graphene propulsion for next-generation space travel
A laser hit the tiny black cube, and it lurched forward almost at once. That split-second jump, caught…
The coldest ever hunt for dark matter has begun deep underground
Two kilometres underground near Sudbury, Ont., a machine has reached a temperature so low it barely seems real.…
Our local universe’s expansion rate doesn’t add up, astronomers find
A difference of a few kilometers per second might not sound like much. In cosmology, it has become…
Astronomers discover a mysterious duality in dark matter
A dark matter signal that appears in one place but not another might look like a contradiction. This…