The Universe's First Stars Were Monsters. We Just Found Their Fingerprints.
They burned for a few million years, then vanished. But these universe-scale monsters left something behind, and it took 13 billion years and the right telescope to read it.
Astronomy
Mars Has No Magnetosphere. It's Doing the Magnetosphere Thing Anyway.
Mars lost its magnetic field billions of years ago. So why is it producing an effect that requires one? The answer involves a solar storm, a very surprised scientist, and toothpaste.
Hundreds of Organic Carbon Detections on Mars. In Exactly the Right Place.
Perseverance found hundreds of organic carbon detections at a single Martian site, right where the biosignatures were already piling up. How much evidence is enough?
Cotton Candy Is Denser Than Some Planets
Jupiter-sized planets lighter than spun sugar. How does a planet that big end up less dense than a carnival snack?
A Star That Drains Its Partner Has Been Broadcasting the Crime Scene for 20 Years
A puzzling radio signal stumped astronomers for two decades. The culprit turned out to be a white dwarf quietly draining its companion star — and broadcasting every meal.
Neptune Had a Moon System Once. Triton Ate It.
Neptune once had an orderly family of moons. Then a rogue the size of Pluto arrived.
Mini Neptune Planets Clogged with Diesel Exhaust
A chemical engineer looked at JWST's baffling exoplanet data and recognized something instantly: the spectral signature of diesel soot.
A Space Peanut Is Tumbling Through the Asteroid Belt
It's shaped like a peanut, it wobbles on two axes, and it used to have water. NASA called this flyby a warm-up. The asteroid apparently didn't get that memo.
Shadow Blaster Galaxy Shot Neutrinos at South Pole
An 11-billion-year-old particle vanishes into Antarctic ice. Gamma rays, X-rays, optical scans all come up empty. So what finally cracked it?
Fireball Over Boston Detonates With the Force of 300 Tons of TNT. Casual Saturday.
A 5.6-metric-ton iron meteor exploded over Boston creating a sonic boom. NASA has a technical name for where it landed.
The Universe's Most Baffling Odd Couples Just Got a Bit More Real
Two Jupiter-sized planets orbit each other in the dark: no star, no system, no explanation. How does something form that shouldn't be able to exist?
Europa's Famous Water Plumes May Have Been a Trick of the Light
A reanalysis of 14 years of Hubble data has quietly dismantled one of the most exciting clues in the search for life near Jupiter.
The Bar at the Beginning of the Universe
Stellar bars don't survive in gas-rich environments. GN20 is 75 percent gas. It has one anyway.
The Sun's Interior and Its Surface Are No Longer Telling the Same Story
Scientists have listened to acoustic waves inside the Sun since 1987. What they're hearing in the current cycle diverges significantly from what four centuries of surface observation would predict.
Life Found a Way to Not Need a Star
The most hospitable worlds in the galaxy might not orbit anything at all. Moons of rogue planets have been drifting through interstellar space for billions of years carrying the chemistry of life.
This Galaxy Has No Spin
A massive early galaxy stopped forming stars and lost its spin before the universe was 2 billion years old. How does a galaxy grow old so fast?
Hot Jupiter Posts Eviction Notice. Mini Neptune Ignores It.
Two planets sharing a solar system they shouldn't both occupy. JWST gave astronomers insight into the atmosphere that explains how they pulled it off.
The Largest Wave in the Solar System Works Like Your Kitchen Sink
A 6,000-km wall of acid clouds sweeps around Venus every few days. Scientists finally know why, and the answer has been sitting in your kitchen the whole time.