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.
Astronomy
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.
Triton Massacred Neptune's Moons. The Outlier Survived.
Nereid was filed under "captured outsider" for decades. JWST says it's the only original moon that survived Triton's arrival. The orbit we called wrong is why it's still there.
Rocky, Gaseous, Gaseous, Rocky. The Universe Skipped Astronomy 101.
A star 116 light-years away built its planets in an order that shouldn't exist. What happened out there at the edge?
The End of the Universe
Astronomers say we've been misreading dark energy; the cosmological constant is negative. Not good news for the universe.
Fight Clubs of the Cosmos
Too massive to originate from a single collapsing star, the biggest black holes form from a series of clashes of smaller black holes.
Glowing Galaxy So Primitive, It's Still Big Bang Gas
LAP1-B glows with radiation no known star produces. Powerful evidence points to first generation Population III stars.
Dead Stars Have Been Snowing on Antarctica for 80,000 Years
Iron-60 doesn't form on Earth. So why is it showing up in 80,000-year-old Antarctic ice — and what dead star left it there?
A Ghost Galaxy Called Loki Is Lurking in the Milky Way
Ancient stars hiding in the galactic plane share identical chemistry but opposite orbits. Remnants of a galaxy the Milky Way devoured at the dawn of time.
The Big Bang Made Two Universes. We Got the One Going Forward.
A math-supported theory proposes that matter exists because the Big Bang created a mirror twin running in reverse. That twin may also explain dark energy.
Hellish Sulfur World Is Off the Charts
A planet 35 light-years away has a sulfur atmosphere that should have burned off billions of years ago. Astronomers had to create a new category to describe it.
No Spin, No Explanation: A Massive Ancient Galaxy Sits Still
A rare non-rotating galaxy spotted by the James Webb telescope. One dramatic collision might explain it.
A World Beyond Pluto Burped Up an Atmosphere
An icy rock out past Neptune is holding onto gas it has no right to hold.
An Unknown Object Has Been Keeping a 44-Minute Clock. Astronomers Just Found Out It Has Two Hands.
It has pulsed every 44 minutes for longer than anyone has been watching. Astronomers just found a second signal running in perfect sync — and the physics for it doesn't exist yet.