Space is very, very cold. The baseline temperature of outer space is 2.7 kelvins — minus 454.81 degrees Fahrenheit, or minus 270.45 degrees Celsius — meaning it is barely above absolute zero, the point at which molecular motion stops. But this temperature is not constant throughout the solar system. So-called “empty” space — though it … Read more
Dark matter, the elusive substance that accounts for the majority of the mass in the universe, may be made up of massive particles called gravitons that first popped into existence in the first moment after the Big Bang. And these hypothetical particles might be cosmic refugees from extra dimensions, a new theory suggests. The researchers’ … Read more
One side of the moon is littered with far more craters than the other, and researchers finally know why: A massive asteroid that slammed into the moon around 4.3 billion years ago wreaked havoc in the moon’s mantle, according to a new study. More than 9,000 visible craters pockmark the moon, thanks to barrage of … Read more
An area of Pluto that researchers think was formed from the eruption of ice volcanoes is unique on the dwarf planet and in the solar system, a new study suggests. NASA’s New Horizons mission, which launched in 2006, took detailed photos of the surface of Pluto, a dwarf planet and the largest object in the … Read more
In 1676, by studying the motion of Jupiter’s moon Io, Danish astronomer Ole Rømer calculated that light travels at a finite speed. Two years later, building on data gathered by Rømer, Dutch mathematician and scientist Christiaan Huygens became the first person to attempt to determine the actual speed of light, according to the American Museum … Read more
A seemingly intractable black hole paradox first proposed by physicist Stephen Hawking could finally be resolved — by wormholes through space-time. The “black hole information paradox” refers to the fact that information cannot be destroyed in the universe, and yet when a black hole eventually evaporates, whatever information was gobbled up by this cosmic vacuum … Read more
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
