Expanding catalog of black hole collisions is rewriting the history of the universe
Between May 2023 and January 2024, a global network of gravitational-wave detectors picked up 128 new cosmic signals,…
6,800 feet below ground, in the search for dark matter, something has gone very, very cold
Six thousand eight hundred feet below the floor of an active nickel mine in northern Ontario, something has…
Scientists are rethinking how young galaxies formed their magnetic fields
Magnetic fields that stretch across thousands of light-years should take a very long time to organize. Standard dynamo…
Every building block of DNA and RNA has been found on an asteroid
A rock measuring 900 meters is on a journey through our solar system, providing what is arguably one…
Hydrogen atmospheres could keep exomoons habitable for billions of years
There is a category of planet that belongs to no star. It was thrown clear of its solar…
Astronomers discover the first neutron star–black hole merger with an eccentric orbit
In 2020, astronomers discovered a violent cosmic event that has led them to rethink how extreme pairs of…
Newborn magnetar offers rare evidence of Einstein’s relativity in a stellar explosion
The light did not fade the way it was supposed to. After blazing into view about a billion…
Earth’s distance from the Sun found to dramatically alter seasons
A strip of cool water stretches west from South America along the equator, helping set the pace for…
Ancient Milky Way stars challenge the age of the universe and the Hubble tension
The oldest stars in the Milky Way are forcing a fresh look at one of cosmology’s biggest arguments.…
Astronomers built the largest and most accurate 3D map of the ultraviolet universe
The space between galaxies is not empty. In a new map of the early universe, those “blank” stretches…
Asteroid Ryugu fragments carry a magnetic record from the birth of the solar system
A small, round piece of asteroid Ryugu (sample #91), called “S-lunar,” contains tiny particles (less than 1 mm)…
Martian microbes can survive being blasted into space by a large asteroid strike
Some bacteria can take a punch that would crush a submarine. In a new set of impact tests,…