Universe
Exoplanet's jet stream reaches 33,000 km/h, dwarfing anything in our solar system
Doppler-shifted water and carbon monoxide reveal record equatorial motion on the inflated giant exoplanet WASP-127b.
Universe
Titan's hidden ocean vanishes, leaving behind slush and scattered water pockets
A decade-old theory about a hidden ocean on Saturn's moon Titan is collapsing, replaced by a messier picture of slush and isolated water pockets that upends our understanding of where life might exist beyond Earth.
Universe
Venus and Earth diverged billions of years ago, and scientists still don't know why
Venus’s radar-bright highlands may carry lead- and bismuth-bearing frost, but the proposed coating and the planet’s divergence from Earth remain unresolved.
Science & Engineering
Images reveal tiny plasma whirlpools that may explain the Sun's mysterious million-degree halo
A mysterious heat engine lurks in the Sun's turbulent surface, where universal physics—the same forces that sculpt ocean waves and storm clouds—may finally solve why our star's corona blazes hotter than its own source of fire.
Universe
The observable universe may hold a septillion stars, yet complex life could still…
A septillion stars supplies an enormous number of opportunities, but Rare Earth asks whether the conditional path to complex, detectable life may be vastly less probable.
Science & Engineering
Astronomer's 1842 eclipse mystery: why the ground appeared to ripple remains unsolved
A centuries-old mystery persists even as astronomers have grown better at watching the sky—and they still can't fully explain what made the earth appear to breathe during that eclipse.
Science & Engineering
Trillions of rogue planets may lurk in the Milky Way, untethered to any star
A nine-year microlensing survey implies roughly 20 free-floating or very wide-orbit planets per star, but the trillions figure is a model with broad uncertainty, not a direct census.
Science & Engineering
The popular claim that every star you see is already dead is the opposite of true
The light from every star is old, but naked-eye stars are nearby and their lives are vastly longer than the delay. The familiar night sky is not a stellar graveyard.
Universe
The Wow! signal was even more powerful than astronomers realized
Recovered Big Ear calibration records make the 1977 Wow! signal brighter and better located, while a magnetar-triggered hydrogen flare remains unconfirmed.
Universe
Alien planet's mineral clouds vanish each afternoon in Webb's sharpest view yet
Webb separated WASP-94A b's cloudy morning and clear evening limbs, exposing a mineral-cloud cycle and a hidden source of error in atmospheric chemistry.
Science & Engineering
Halley's Comet returns in 2061, possibly your only chance to see it
Halley’s Comet is calculated to reach perihelion on July 28, 2061. The date is precise, but the best viewing window, brightness and human stakes require context.
Science & Engineering
Physicists can only account for 5% of the universe's mass and energy
Ordinary atomic matter supplies only about five per cent of the universe's mass-energy budget. Gravity and cosmic expansion reveal the rest without yet revealing what dark matter and dark energy are.
Universe
NASA's solar storm forecast was off by nearly a full day despite nailing the arrival time
Predicting a solar storm to the minute sounds like a breakthrough—until you realize the forecast was equally uncertain about whether it would arrive a full day earlier or later.
Universe
Solar storm turned Earth itself into a working telegraph battery
A geomagnetic storm so powerful it turned the planet itself into a telegraph battery—and nearly nobody noticed.
Science & Engineering
A robotic rover sitting on the surface of Mars photographed real clouds glowing…
The clouds above Mars glow in colors that defy everything we know about how planets work, revealing an atmosphere far stranger than we imagined.
Space & Missions
When the FAA proposed letting commercial rocket licenses bypass specified…
A decades-old waiver power and an obscure Supreme Court case about a Utah railroad are now central to whether the FAA can strip environmental and safety reviews from commercial rocket launches.