For scientists, the urgent problem with phosphine—a molecule famously touted as a potential sign of life—isn’t so much about where it came from, but why it’s not where we think it should be. After a decade of searching, a long-awaited result has confirmed that our astronomical models aren’t a total bust. At least, for now. […]
Astronomers Spot ‘Unexpected’ Bead and Star Patterns in Saturn’s Atmosphere
Saturn already tops the list of the coolest-looking objects in our solar system, but a new finding might put it on another level. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers spotted strange, beady patterns spreading across the planet’s atmosphere—features never seen before on any other planet in the solar system. In a recent Geophysical […]
This Visiting Interstellar Comet Just Keeps Getting Weirder
Ever since interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS whizzed into our cosmic neighborhood in July, astronomers have been racing to uncover its characteristics. Now that the powerful James Webb Space Telescope has taken a good look at this icy interloper, it seems to be weirder than anyone imagined. A preprint submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Letters for peer […]
Astronomers Discover the Earliest Black Hole Ever Confirmed
An international team of astronomers has identified the earliest black hole ever confirmed, an ancient behemoth that existed just 500 million years after the Big Bang. The discovery could offer new clues to a mysterious class of ancient galaxies that confounded prevailing theories of cosmology. In a new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, […]