Astronomy
The Kuiper Belt’s dwarf planet Quaoar hosts an impossible ring
Quaoar’s ring lies outside the Roche limit, an imaginary line beyond which rings aren’t thought to be stable.
Space
More Stories in Space
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AstronomyNew data show how quickly light pollution is obscuring the night sky
Tens of thousands of observations from citizen scientists spanning a decade show that the night sky is getting about 10 percent brighter every year.
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Planetary ScienceEnceladus is blanketed in a thick layer of snow
Pits on the Saturnian moon reveal the surprising depth of the satellite’s snow, suggesting its plume was more active in the past.
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AstronomyThe James Webb telescope found ‘Green Pea’ galaxies in the early universe
The James Webb telescope spotted tiny “green” galaxies that might have helped trigger a dramatic cosmic makeover more than 13 billion years ago.
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Planetary ScienceMethylated gases could be an unambiguous indicator of alien life
On Earth, methylated gases are produced by organisms cleaning up their environment — and by little else. The same might be true on some exoplanets.
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PhysicsWe could get messages back from spacecraft sent through a wormhole
A simulation of a probe sent to the other side of a wormhole shows it could send speedy messages back before the hole closes and the probe is lost.
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SpaceIo may have an underworld magma ocean or a hot metal heart
New calculations support dueling ideas for what powers the ubiquitous volcanoes on the hellish surface of Jupiter’s innermost moon.
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SpaceHumans haven’t set foot on the moon in 50 years. That may soon change
In 1972, the era of crewed missions to the moon came to an end. Fifty years later, a new one has begun.
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LifeHere are 5 record-breaking science discoveries from 2022
The earliest surgery, fastest supercomputer and biggest single-celled bacteria were some of this year’s top science superlatives.
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AstronomyThe James Webb Space Telescope wasn’t the only big space news in 2022
DART crashed into an asteroid, Artemis went to the moon and we got a pic of our galaxy’s monstrous black hole. Space was a busy place this year.