Astronomers have uncovered more than 400 previously hidden black holes feeding on stars and dust in the center of galaxies. It appears that many of the new black holes, discovered using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, remained unknown until now because they are buried beneath cocoons of dust. Supermassive black holes, which can be millions of … Read more
An enormous,1,000-light-year-wide “superbubble” surrounds our planet. Now, astronomers have made the first ever 3D map of its magnetic field. The gigantic structure, known as the “Local Bubble,” is a hollow blob of diffuse, hot plasma enclosed by a shell of cold gas and dust along whose surface stars form. It is just one of numerous … Read more
Black holes are scary beasts — objects so massive that not even light can escape their clutches. In 2022, we learned more about these gravitational monsters than ever before — from the first direct image of the black hole “heart” at the center of the Milky Way to one of the earliest black hole ancestors … Read more
For decades, astronomers assumed that Mars was geodynamically dead — a planet without rumbling earthquakes and erupting volcanoes. Though remnants of towering volcanoes exist on the surface of the Red Planet today, these colossal structures have been dormant for millions of years. With little to no heat firing the planet’s engine, scientists reasoned, Mars became … Read more
Black holes are some of the most enigmatic objects in the universe. This is partially because the equations of general relativity that we use to understand them break down when studying black holes’ ultra-dense centers. However, a new paper shows how astronomers could one day overcome this challenge by using gravitational waves to “see” inside … Read more
Scientists studying a distant “hell planet” where clouds rain lava, the oceans are molten and the core is filled with diamonds have found that the nightmarish planet wasn’t always so bad; but it became infernally hot after being yanked closer to its sun. The planet, classified as 55 Cancri e, is nicknamed “Janssen” after Zacharias … Read more
The exact origins of the Milky Way are shrouded in mystery. But astronomers believe that our home galaxy started out more than 13 billion years ago, and that it was much smaller than its present-day size. How did it grow so much to reach its current size? For that, we can likely thank eons of … Read more
A newly discovered impact crater on Mars was likely left by an enormous asteroid that slammed into the Red Planet around 3.4 billion years ago and may have triggered an 800-foot-tall “mega-tsunami.” The colossal explosion was similar to the asteroid impact on Earth that wiped out the nonavian dinosaurs, a new study shows. From about … Read more
Astronomers estimate that roughly 85% of all the matter in the universe is dark matter, meaning only 15% of all matter is normal matter. Accounting for dark energy, the name astronomers give to the accelerated expansion of the universe, dark matter makes up roughly 27% of all the mass energy in the cosmos, according to … Read more
The winter solstice heralds the astronomical start of winter and marks the day with the fewest hours of daylight for the year. But what’s the science behind the shortest day and longest night? The winter solstice — and for that matter, the four seasons — occur because Earth is tilted at an angle of about … Read more
