Tantalising evidence has been uncovered for a mysterious population of “free-floating” planets, planets that may be alone in deep space, unbound to any host star. The results include four new discoveries that are consistent with planets of similar masses to Earth, published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.The study, led by Iain […]

An unknown methane-producing process is likely at work in the hidden ocean beneath the icy shell of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, suggests a new study published in Nature Astronomy by scientists at the University of Arizona and Paris Sciences & Lettres University. Giant water plumes erupting from Enceladus have long fascinated scientists and the public alike, […]

Our universe is expanding, but our two main ways to measure how fast this expansion is happening have resulted in different answers. For the past decade, astrophysicists have been gradually dividing into two camps: one that believes that the difference is significant, and another that thinks it could be due to errors in measurement.If it […]

A near-perfectly preserved ancient human fossil known as the Harbin cranium sits in the Geoscience Museum in Hebei GEO University. The largest of known Homo skulls, scientists now say this skull represents a newly discovered human species named Homo longi or “Dragon Man.” Their findings, appearing in three papers publishing June 25 in the journal […]

A worldwide team led by UC Santa Barbara scientists at Las Cumbres Observatory has discovered the first convincing evidence for a new type of stellar explosion — an electron-capture supernova. While they have been theorized for 40 years, real-world examples have been elusive. They are thought to arise from the explosions of massive super-asymptotic giant […]

Scientists at Cornell University and the American Museum of Natural History have identified 2,034 nearby star-systems — within the small cosmic distance of 326 light-years — that could find Earth merely by watching our pale blue dot cross our sun. That’s 1,715 star-systems that could have spotted Earth since human civilization blossomed about 5,000 years […]

Using neural networks, researchers from the University of Copenhagen have developed a new method to search the human genome for beneficial mutations from Neanderthals and other archaic humans. These humans are known to have interbred with modern humans, but the overall fate of the genetic material inherited from them is still largely unknown. Among others, […]

To the human eye, most stationary objects appear to be just that — still, and completely at rest. Yet if we were handed a quantum lens, allowing us to see objects at the scale of individual atoms, what was an apple sitting idly on our desk would appear as a teeming collection of vibrating particles, […]

It could be a milestone on the path to detecting life on other planets: Scientists under the leadership of the University of Bern and of the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS detect a key molecular property of all living organisms from a helicopter flying several kilometers above ground. The measurement technology could […]

Astronomers have spotted a giant ‘blinking’ star towards the centre of the Milky Way, more than 25,000 light years away.An international team of astronomers observed the star, VVV-WIT-08, decreasing in brightness by a factor of 30, so that it nearly disappeared from the sky. While many stars change in brightness because they pulsate or are […]

Four planets locked in a perfect rhythm around a nearby star are destined to be pinballed around their solar system when their sun eventually dies, according to a study led by the University of Warwick that peers into its future.Astronomers have modelled how the change in gravitational forces in the system as a result of […]

An international group of collaborators, including scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and The University of New Mexico, have discovered a new, temperate sub-Neptune sized exoplanet with a 24-day orbital period orbiting a nearby M dwarf star. The recent discovery offers exciting research opportunities thanks to the planet’s substantial atmosphere, small star, and how fast […]

What is happening deep beneath the surface of ice planets? Is there liquid water, and if so, how does it interact with the planetary rocky “seafloor”? New experiments show that on water-ice planets between the size of our Earth and up to six times this size, water selectively leaches magnesium from typical rock minerals. The […]

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope is giving astronomers a rare look at a Jupiter-sized, still-forming planet that is feeding off material surrounding a young star. “We just don’t know very much about how giant planets grow,” said Brendan Bowler of the University of Texas at Austin. “This planetary system gives us the first opportunity to witness […]

Scientists have recreated the reaction by which carbon isotopes made their way into different organic compounds, challenging the notion that organic compounds, such as amino acids, were formed by isotopically enriched substrates. Their discovery suggests that the building blocks of life in meteorites were derived from widely available substrates in the early solar system. Carbonaceous […]

A newly discovered planet could be our best chance yet of studying rocky planet atmospheres outside the solar system, a new international study involving UNSW Sydney shows. The planet, called Gliese 486b (pronounced Glee-seh), is a ‘super-Earth’: that is, a rocky planet bigger than Earth but smaller than ice giants like Neptune and Uranus. It […]

A new map of dark matter in the local universe reveals several previously undiscovered filamentary structures connecting galaxies. The map, developed using machine learning by an international team including a Penn State astrophysicist, could enable studies about the nature of dark matter as well as about the history and future of our local universe.Dark matter […]

In early 2016, an icy visitor from the edge of our solar system hurtled past Earth. It briefly became visible to stargazers as Comet Catalina before it slingshotted past the Sun to disappear forevermore out of the solar system.Among the many observatories that captured a view of this comet, which appeared near the Big Dipper, […]

A new map including rover paths of the Schrodinger basin, a geologically important area of the moon, could guide future exploration missions.The map was created by a team of interns at the Lunar and Planetary Institute, including Ellen Czaplinski, a University of Arkansas graduate student researcher at the Arkansas Center for Planetary Sciences and first […]

New research provides the best evidence to date into the timing of how our early Milky Way came together, including the merger with a key satellite galaxy. Using relatively new methods in astronomy, the researchers were able to identify the most precise ages currently possible for a sample of about a hundred red giant stars […]

Rodents share with certain aquatic organisms the ability to use their intestines for respiration, finds a study publishing in the journal Med. The researchers demonstrated that the delivery of oxygen gas or oxygenated liquid through the rectum provided vital rescue to two mammalian models of respiratory failure. “Artificial respiratory support plays a vital role in […]

Evidence of recent volcanic activity on Mars shows that eruptions could have taken place in the past 50,000 years, according to new study by researchers at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the Planetary Science Institute.Most volcanism on the Red Planet occurred between 3 and 4 billion years ago, with smaller eruptions […]

Simon Fraser University researchers have designed a remarkably fast engine that taps into a new kind of fuel — information. The development of this engine, which converts the random jiggling of a microscopic particle into stored energy, is outlined in research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) and […]

University of South Australia researchers have drawn inspiration from a 300-million-year-old superior flying machine — the dragonfly — to show why future flapping wing drones will probably resemble the insect in shape, wings and gearing. A team of PhD students led by UniSA Professor of Sensor Systems, Javaan Chahl, spent part of the 2020 COVID-19 […]

The prospects for life on a given planet depend not only on where it forms but also how, according to Rice University scientists.Planets like Earth that orbit within a solar system’s Goldilocks zone, with conditions supporting liquid water and a rich atmosphere, are more likely to harbor life. As it turns out, how that planet […]

The use of multimode optical fibers to boost the information capacity of the Internet is severely hampered by distortions that occur during the transmission of images because of a phenomenon called modal crosstalk. However, University of Rochester researchers at the Institute of Optics have devised a novel technique, described in a paper in Nature Communications, […]

Astronomers have identified more than 4,000, and counting, confirmed exoplanets — planets orbiting stars other than the sun — but only a fraction have the potential to sustain life.Now, new research from UBC’s Okanagan campus is using the geology of early planet formation to help identify those that may be capable of supporting life. “The […]

Scientists have spotted the largest flare ever recorded from the sun’s nearest neighbor, the star Proxima Centauri.The research, which appeared in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, was led by the University of Colorado Boulder and could help to shape the hunt for life beyond Earth’s solar system. CU Boulder astrophysicist Meredith MacGregor explained that Proxima Centauri […]

A new study led by University of Minnesota astrophysicists shows that high-energy light from small galaxies may have played a key role in the early evolution of the Universe. The research gives insight into how the Universe became reionized, a problem that astronomers have been trying to solve for years. The research is published in […]

One of the great mysteries of modern space science is neatly summed up by the view from NASA’s Perseverance, which just landed on Mars: Today it’s a desert planet, and yet the rover is sitting right next to an ancient river delta.The apparent contradiction has puzzled scientists for decades, especially because at the same time […]

As NASA’s Perseverance rover begins its search for ancient life on the surface of Mars, a new study suggests that the Martian subsurface might be a good place to look for possible present-day life on the Red Planet. The study, published in the journal Astrobiology, looked at the chemical composition of Martian meteorites — rocks […]

Astronomers using data from NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) telescopes have released a new all-sky map of the outermost region of our galaxy. [Editor’s note: See Related Multimedia link below.] Known as the galactic halo, this area lies outside the swirling spiral arms that form the Milky Way’s recognizable central disk and is sparsely […]

New research led by Curtin University has revealed how radar satellites can improve the ability to detect, monitor, prepare for and withstand natural disasters in Australia including bushfires, floods and earthquakes.The research used Synthetic Aperture Radar data obtained by the European Space Agency Sentinel-1 satellite, amongst others, to evaluate Australia-specific case studies. Lead researcher Dr […]

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter took this shot, capturing its own shadow, while hovering over the Martian surface on April 19, 2021, during the first instance of powered, controlled flight on another planet. It used its navigation camera, which autonomously tracks the ground during flight. “Ingenuity is the latest in a long and storied tradition of […]

How many Tyrannosaurus rexes roamed North America during the Cretaceous period? That’s a question Charles Marshall pestered his paleontologist colleagues with for years until he finally teamed up with his students to find an answer.What the team found, to be published in the journal Science, is that about 20,000 adult T. rexes probably lived at […]

Every year, our planet encounters dust from comets and asteroids. These interplanetary dust particles pass through our atmosphere and give rise to shooting stars. Some of them reach the ground in the form of micrometeorites. An international program conducted for nearly 20 years by scientists from the CNRS, the Université Paris-Saclay and the National museum […]