Space
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Planetary ScienceA meteor may have exploded over Antarctica 430,000 years ago
Tiny spherules recovered from a mountaintop suggest a space rock broke apart midflight and sprayed debris across thousands of kilometers.
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CosmologyPhysicists’ devotion to symmetry has led them astray before
If dark matter WIMPs are mythical, they join the ancient idea that the planets moved in circles.
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PhysicsUranium ‘snowflakes’ could set off thermonuclear explosions of dead stars
Uranium crystals that settle in the cores of white dwarfs could trigger nuclear chain reactions that blow the dead stars apart, a new study suggests.
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AstronomyHere’s why humans chose particular groups of stars as constellations
Distances between stars, their brightnesses and patterns of human eye movement explain why particular sets of stars tend to be grouped together.
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AstronomyThe ‘USS Jellyfish’ emits strange radio waves from a distant galaxy cluster
The unusual pattern of radio waves dubbed the USS Jellyfish tells a story of intergalactic gas meeting black hole by-products.
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Space50 years ago, experiments hinted at the possibility of life on Mars
In 1971, lab experiments suggested organic molecules could be made on Mars. Fifty years later, robots are searching for such signs of life on the planet itself.
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AstronomyA new black hole image reveals the behemoth’s magnetic fields
A new analysis of Event Horizon Telescope data from 2017 brings to light the magnetic fields twisted around the black hole at the core of galaxy M87.
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CosmologyThe dark matter mystery deepens with the demise of a reported detection
Early results from an experiment designed to replicate one that hinted that dark matter is made up of WIMPs came up empty-handed.
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AstronomyCarbon-ring molecules tied to life were found in space for the first time
Two types of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the Taurus Molecular Cloud are far more abundant than predicted.
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Space‘Oumuamua may be a chip knocked off an icy, Pluto-like exoplanet
If the first interstellar visitor were a shard of nitrogen ice, it would explain some of its unusual behavior when it passed through our solar system.
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AstronomyA gargantuan supernova remnant looks 40 times as big as the full moon
New observations confirm that a cloud in the constellation Antlia really is a supernova remnant and the largest ever seen from Earth.
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SpaceMost of Mars’ missing water may lurk in its crust
Computer simulations of the fate of Mars’ water may explain why the Red Planet turned into a desert, when so little of its water has escaped into space.