Space
We summarize the week's scientific breakthroughs every Thursday.
- Science & Society
50 years ago, UFO sightings in the United States went bust
In 1971, reports of unidentified flying objects were on the decline. Fifty years later, sightings have spiked thanks in part to pandemic lockdowns.
- Astronomy
Dust and a cold spell on Betelgeuse could explain why the giant star dimmed
Scientists had two options to explain Betelgeuse’s weird behavior in late 2019. They chose both.
- Physics
Gravitational waves confirm a black hole law predicted by Stephen Hawking
The first black hole merger detected by LIGO affirms that the surface area of a black hole can increase over time, but not decrease.
- Space
Most planets on tilted orbits pass over the poles of their suns
Nearly all of the worlds on misaligned trajectories in other solar systems orbit at nearly 90 degrees to their stars’ equators.
- Animals
Mouse sperm thrived despite six years of exposure to space radiation
A space station experiment suggests future deep-space explorers don’t need to worry about passing the effects of space radiation on to their children.
- Astronomy
An arc of galaxies 3 billion light-years long may challenge cosmology
Dubbed “the Giant Arc,” the purported structure is much larger than expected in a cosmos where matter is thought to be evenly distributed.
- Physics
Auroras form when electrons from space ride waves in Earth’s magnetic field
New lab results confirm that auroras are triggered by disturbances in Earth’s magnetic field called Alfvén waves.
- Planetary Science
NASA will be heading back to Venus for the first time in decades
Two newly selected missions, VERITAS and DAVINCI+, will explore the history of the planet's water and habitability.
- Life
Even hard-to-kill tardigrades can’t always survive being shot out of a gun
A recent experiment put tardigrades’ indestructibility to the test by firing the critters at speeds up to 1,000 meters per second.
- Astronomy
Some fast radio bursts come from the spiral arms of other galaxies
Tracking five brief, bright blasts of cosmic radio waves to their origins suggests their sources form quickly in regions with lots of star formation.
- Planetary Science
Laser experiments suggest helium rain falls on Jupiter
Compressing a hydrogen and helium mixture with lasers shows that the two elements separate at pressures found within gas giant planets.
- Science & Society
A new memoir tells the life story of NASA ‘hidden figure’ Katherine Johnson
"My Remarkable Journey" gives the backstory of NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, the central character of the 2016 film "Hidden Figures."
