Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Space
‘The Milky Way’ wants you to get to know your home in the universe
In a new ‘autobiography,’ the Milky Way tells its own story with the help of astrophysicist Moiya McTier.
- Space
Physicists dispute a claim of detecting a black hole’s ‘photon ring’
A thin ring of light around a black hole, which would probe gravity in a new way, has been found, one team claims. Skeptics aren’t convinced.
- Astronomy
The James Webb telescope spotted CO2 in an exoplanet’s atmosphere
The first definitive detection of the gas on a world in another solar system paves the way for detections in planets that are more Earthlike.
- Space
NASA’s Artemis I mission sets the stage for our return to the moon
The launch will test many aspects of the rocket, capsule and spacesuits that will take astronauts back to the moon.
- Astronomy
The discovery of the Kuiper Belt revamped our view of the solar system
Thirty years ago, astronomers found the Kuiper Belt, a region of space home to Pluto and other icy worlds that helped show how the solar system evolved.
- Earth
Not one, but two asteroids might have slain the dinosaurs
A craterlike structure found off West Africa’s coast might have been formed by an asteroid impact around the same time the dinosaurs went extinct.
- Planetary Science
Oort cloud comets may spin themselves to death
How icy objects from the solar system’s fringe break up as they near the sun is a long-standing mystery. One astronomer now thinks he has an answer.
- Planetary Science
Asteroid impacts might have created some of Mars’ sand
Roughly a quarter of the Red Planet’s sand is spherical bits of glass forged in violent impacts, new observations reveal.
- Space
Over time, Betelgeuse changed color. Now it’s also lost its rhythm
A recent upset to the star’s variability and ancient records that describe the red star as yellow tell a tale of a star that is no stranger to change.
- Space
How balloons could one day detect quakes on Venus
A new study opens the door for future balloon-based missions to study the geology of other worlds.
- Cosmology
Scientists mapped dark matter around galaxies in the early universe
A technique used to reveal dark matter could also shed light on a disagreement about the clumpiness of matter in the cosmos.
- Astronomy
Mini-Neptunes may become super-Earths as the exoplanets lose their atmospheres
Starlight is eroding the atmospheres of a handful of gassy exoplanets that are a bit smaller than Neptune, gradually exposing the rocky cores within.
