For the first time, scientists have discovered a double-star system that is doomed to explode in a fiery “kilonova,” a precious-metal-creating blast caused by the merger of two stellar corpses. The kilonova — which will send gold, silver, platinum and other new heavy elements careening into space — won’t happen for millions of years. But … Read more
The moon exerts a previously unknown tidal force on the “plasma ocean” surrounding Earth’s upper atmosphere, creating fluctuations that are similar to the tides in the oceans, a new study suggests. In the study, published Jan. 26 in the journal Nature Physics, scientists used more than 40 years of data collected by satellites to track … Read more
Using a new machine-learning algorithm, scientists have picked up eight extraterrestrial signals that seem to bear the hallmarks of technology. The research, published Jan. 30 in the journal Nature Astronomy, doesn’t claim to have really found proof of intelligent aliens; a brief follow-up search for the signals detected in the study turned up only silence. … Read more
Scientists have made one of the most precise maps of the universe’s matter, and it shows that something may be missing in our best model of the cosmos. Created by pooling data from two telescopes that observe different types of light, the new map revealed that the universe is less “clumpy” than previous models predicted … Read more
Scientists have spotted an enormous, ‘alien’ comet streaking straight towards the sun. The 3.7 mile-wide (6 kilometers) space iceball, called 96P/Machholz 1, is thought to have come from somewhere outside our solar system, and is being monitored by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft as it zips toward our star … Read more
Scientists studying the surface of Mars recently found a piece of the rocky planet smiling back at them. In an image shared Jan. 25 by The University of Arizona (opens in new tab) (UA), what appears to be the face of an enormous Martian teddy bear — complete with two beady eyes, a button nose … Read more
NASA has revealed plans to create a nuclear-powered rocket that could send astronauts to Mars in just 45 days. The agency, which has partnered with the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to design the rocket, announced on Tuesday (Jan. 24) that it could build a working nuclear thermal rocket engine as soon as … Read more
Young stars are surrounded by chaos: Clouds of gas, dust and ice swirl about in a so-called protoplanetary disk. And when gravity binds this material together, planets are born. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, researchers developed a new technique to measure and date infant exoplanets forming in these protoplanetary disks. By … Read more
Dust collected from the surface of an ancient, peanut-shaped and “potentially-hazardous” asteroid has revealed that some space rocks are much bouncier and harder to destroy than first thought — posing concerns about Earth’s long-term safety. The analysis of three tiny dust particles — gathered from the surface of the 1640-foot-long (500 meters) rubble pile asteroid … Read more
Are aliens using a quirk of the sun’s gravity to transmit information through an interstellar communication network? For the first time ever, astronomers explored this intriguing possibility and scanned for signals coming from hidden nonhuman probes orbiting the sun. So far, the method hasn’t turned up signs of spacefaring aliens, but it represents a promising … Read more
