Space

Sign up for our newsletter

We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.

  1. Astronomy

    Here’s how cool a star can be and still achieve lasting success

    The dividing line between successful stars and failed ones is a surface temperature of about 1,200° to 1,400° Celsius, a new study reports.

    By
  2. Planetary Science

    See some of the most intriguing photos from NASA’s Perseverance rover so far

    Six months ago, Perseverance landed on the Red Planet. Here’s what the rover has been observing.

    By
  3. Space

    Vera Rubin’s work on dark matter led to a paradigm shift in cosmology

    ‘Bright Galaxies, Dark Matter, and Beyond’ tells the story of how astronomer Vera Rubin provided key evidence for the existence of dark matter.

    By
  4. Space

    Jupiter’s intense auroras superheat its upper atmosphere

    Jupiter’s hotter-than-expected upper atmosphere may be caused by high-speed charged particles slamming into the air high above the poles.

    By
  5. Astronomy

    Measuring a black hole’s mass isn’t easy. A new technique could change that

    The timing of flickers in the gas and dust in a black hole’s accretion disk correlates to its mass, a new study finds.

    By
  6. Space

    A lunar magnetic field may have lasted for only a short time

    New analyses of Apollo-era lunar rocks suggest that any magnetosphere that the moon ever had endured for no more than 500 million years.

    By
  7. Physics

    A bounty of potential gravitational wave events hints at exciting possibilities

    Of about 1,200 possible events, most are probably false alarms, but some could be ripples in spacetime that are especially hard to spot.

    By
  8. Physics

    Black holes born with magnetic fields quickly shed them

    New computer simulations show one way that black holes might discard their magnetic fields.

    By
  9. Astronomy

    A super-short gamma-ray burst defies astronomers’ expectations

    A faraway eruption of gamma rays that lasted for only a second had a surprising origin: the implosion of a massive star.

    By
  10. Astronomy

    The tiny dot in this image may be the first look at exomoons in the making

    New ALMA observations offer some of the strongest evidence yet that planets around other stars have moons.

    By
  11. Space

    How do scientists calculate the age of a star?

    There are a few different methods to determine the age of a star, but none are perfect.

    By and
  12. Planetary Science

    Marsquakes reveal the Red Planet boasts a liquid core half its diameter

    Analyses of seismic waves picked up by NASA’s InSight lander shed new light on the planet’s core and give clues to the thickness of the crust.

    By