Astronomy
An early outburst portends a star’s imminent death
An eruption before a stellar explosion was the first early warning sign for a standard type of supernova.
Astronomy
More Stories in Astronomy
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SpaceSpacecraft in 2021 set their sights on Mars, asteroids and beyond
This year, a bevy of new missions got under way on Mars and spacecraft prepared to visit asteroids.
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AstronomyThe Parker Solar Probe is the first spacecraft to visit the sun’s atmosphere
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe crossed a boundary between the sun’s atmosphere and interplanetary space that has been predicted for decades but never observed.
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AstronomyThe only known pulsar duo sheds new light on general relativity and more
Einstein was right, among other insights gleaned from watching a one-of-a-kind system of two pulsating dead stars for 16 years.
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AstronomyThe cosmic ‘Cow’ may have produced a new neutron star or black hole
A bright, mysterious blast of extragalactic light appears to have spawned a small, compact object.
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Planetary ScienceThis tiny, sizzling exoplanet could be made of molten iron
A newly discovered exoplanet that whips around its star in less than eight hours is smaller than Earth, as dense as iron and hot enough to melt.
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AstronomyAstronomers have found the Milky Way’s first known ‘feather’
Named for the glacier that feeds India’s longest river, the Gangotri wave spans up to 13,000 light-years and bridges two of our galaxy’s spiral arms.
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AstronomyHow massive stars in binary systems turn into carbon factories
A massive star with an orbiting partner star ejects on average twice as much carbon, an element crucial for life, into space compared with a solo star.
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AstronomyDistant rocky planets may have exotic chemical makeups that don’t resemble Earth’s
Elements sprinkled on white dwarf stars suggest that the mantles of faraway rocky worlds differ greatly from their counterparts in our solar system.
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SpaceA stunning simulation re-creates how M87’s black hole launches plasma jets
Two jets, thousands of light-years long, are re-created in a computer simulation, which suggests that M87’s black hole must be spinning rapidly.