Astronomy
- Planetary Science
Comet 67P, Rosetta spacecraft cozy up to the sun
Comet 67P is shooting off brilliant jets of gas and dust as it swings in close to the sun, giving scientists clues to the space rocks chemical composition.
- Astronomy
Lucy’s new neighbor, downloading New Horizon’s data and more reader feedback
Readers discuss why Pluto's data will take so long to get to Earth, the role the cerebellum plays in creative thinking and more.
- Astronomy
24-eyed telescope takes full-sky movies every night
The Evryscope, a 24-telescope array in northern Chile, will nearly continuously watch for changes in the southern sky.
- Astronomy
Young black holes evade detection
Supermassive black holes should be growing in the first billion or so years after the Big Bang, but astronomers can’t find them.
- Astronomy
Faint red stars can build water worlds drip by drip
Rocky planets around faint red stars have a hard time getting water, but they’re still probably the most common habitable locales in the Milky Way, new computer simulations suggest.
- Astronomy
Cosmic threads may hide some of universe’s missing matter
Half the normal matter in the universe might be hiding in cosmic threads strung between clusters of galaxies.
- Astronomy
Distant star has northern lights–like display
A dim star shows signs of auroral lights, the first detected on a body that’s not a planet or moon.
- Space
Best cosmic ‘cradles of life’ may be elliptical in shape
Giant elliptical galaxies might harbor up to 10,000 times as many Earthlike planets than galaxies like the Milky Way.
- Astronomy
Kepler telescope identifies new ‘habitable zone’ planet
A new analysis of data from NASA’s Kepler mission has uncovered a planet orbiting a sunlike star that could be Earth’s “cousin.”
- Space
Search for E.T. gets financial boost
Search for extraterrestrial intelligence gets a $100 million donation from a Russian entrepreneur.
- Astronomy
Source of blazars’ super brightness comes into focus
Astronomers take a close look at a blazar, a galaxy whose central black hole emits gamma rays and other high-energy material toward Earth.
- Astronomy
Massive black hole lurks in lightweight galaxy
A heavyweight black hole grew to weigh as much as 7 billion suns within the first 2 billion years after the Big Bang.
