A possible galaxy that exists some 13.5 billion light-years from Earth has broken the record for farthest astronomical object ever seen. That age places this collection of stars, now dubbed HD1, between a time of total darkness — about 14 billion years ago the universe was a blank slate devoid of any stars or galaxies … Read more
Two of the strangest, most colossal structures in the Milky Way may have formed in a 100,000-year-long explosion at our galaxy’s center, new research suggests. Those structures — named the Fermi bubbles and eROSITA bubbles after the respective telescopes that discovered them — straddle the Milky Way’s center in an enormous hourglass shape, with one … Read more
The Goldilocks zone gets its name from the fairy tale, “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”. Goldilocks is a fussy little girl whose porridge has to be just right — neither too hot nor too cold. It’s the same with life itself — or at least, the kind of water-based life we’re familiar with on Earth. … Read more
Filaments of plasma escaped from a fiery canyon that opened on the sun’s surface on Sunday (April 3) releasing powerful streams of magnetized solar wind (opens in new tab) that might bring more auroras to Earth later this week. According to Space Weather (opens in new tab), the “canyon of fire” is at least 12,400 … Read more
Astronomers searching for our solar system’s elusive Planet Nine — a theoretical world that may lurk deep in a cloud of icy rocks far beyond the orbit of Neptune — have come up short once again. In a recent paper published Dec. 23, 2021 in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers pored over six years of telescope … Read more
Large galaxies may steal dark matter from smaller galaxies they nearly collide with, new research suggests. Scientists from the University of California, Irvine and Pomona College used computer models to simulate the evolution of a corner of the universe about 60 million light-years across. The new computer models, which weren’t designed to do so, created … Read more
One of the biggest cosmological mysteries is why the universe is made up of way more matter than antimatter, essentially why we exist. Now, a team of theoretical physicists says they know how to find the answer. All they need to do is detect the gravitational waves produced by bizarre quantum objects called Q balls. … Read more
The sun is a yellow dwarf star in the center of the solar system, and it is the largest, brightest and most massive object in the system. The sun formed around 4.5 billion years ago. At that time, the area of the Milky Way galaxy that would become the solar system consisted of a dense … Read more
Officials at NASA are no doubt both excited and nervous as the agency gets ready for the debut of its most powerful rocket ever, dubbed the “Mega Moon rocket.” The vehicle is officially known as the Space Launch System (SLS) and is part of NASA’s Artemis program. It is being prepped for a rollout towards … Read more
A gold-hilted dagger found in the tomb of King Tut surprised archaeologists when they discovered that it was made of a material forged in outer space. Now, two new studies are painting conflicting pictures of the origins of the mysterious weapon, which may have been wielded by arguably the most famous ancient Egyptian pharaoh. One … Read more
