For almost two decades, astronomers have detected extremely powerful, millisecond-long flashes of radio waves known as fast radio bursts (FRBs) from beyond our galaxy—and had no clue where they came from. Now, a team of scientists has detected the brightest-ever FRB and finally pinpointed its origin to a nearby galaxy. Researchers have long suspected that […]
A Rogue Star Could Hurl Earth Into Deep Space, Study Warns
Billions of years from now, the Sun will swell into a red giant, swallowing Mercury, Venus, and Earth. But that’s not the only way our planet could meet its demise. A new simulation points to the menacing threat of a passing field star that could cause the planets in the solar system to collide or […]
Researchers Claim Ancient Chinese Star Catalog Is the Oldest of Its Kind—But Not Everyone’s Convinced
Humans have been stargazing for thousands—possibly hundreds of thousands of years. Ancient people around the globe looked to the heavens for physical and spiritual guidance. Dozens and dozens of generations later, their descendants are now arguing over which civilization created the oldest known visual star catalog in the world. Researchers from the Chinese Academy of […]
This Perfectly Spherical Supernova Is Weirding Us Out
The universe is a chaotic place filled with exploding stars, material falling into black holes, and rogue planets wandering off on their own. All that chaos makes astronomers suspicious when they glimpse a hint of perfection in the cosmos, like a bubble of material left over from the death of a star that appears to […]
A Rogue Black Hole of Unusual Size Is Devouring Stars in a Distant Galaxy
Astronomers have spotted an apparent supermassive black hole snacking on a star 600 million light-years away, wandering through a galaxy with an even larger black hole at its core. The event, dubbed AT2024tvd, was first spotted by the Palomar Observatory’s Zwicky Transient Facility and later confirmed by powerhouse space telescopes including Hubble and Chandra, which […]
Webb Telescope Reveals Astronomers Got It All Wrong About This Dying Planet
Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope just gave a cosmic mystery a serious plot twist. The event in question—a sudden brightening from a star about 12,000 light-years away—was initially chalked up to the star swelling into a red giant and engulfing a nearby planet, a typical tale in some star systems. But not this […]
Webb Spots ‘Cosmic Tornado’ in Stunning Detail
Webb has imaged phantasmal billows of bright orange space gas, captured in vibrant detail 630 light-years from Earth. This is the dazzling power of the Webb Space Telescope on full display, revealing the protostellar outflow Herbig Haro 49/50 (or HH 49/50) from the telescope’s perch in space, about one million miles from Earth. Herbig-Haro objects […]
Webb Telescope Captures First Direct Evidence of Carbon Dioxide on an Exoplanet
NASA’s Webb Space Telescope has captured direct images of carbon dioxide in a planet beyond our solar system for the first time. The images feature HR 8799, a multiplanet system 130 light-years from Earth. The discovery not only reveals a chemical compound essential on Earth for processes including photosynthesis and the carbon cycle, but also […]
Astronomers Confirm 4 Rocky Exoplanets in Earth’s Backyard, Just 6 Light-Years Away
Astronomers have identified four exoplanets orbiting Barnard’s Star, a red dwarf star just 6 light-years away from Earth. No, really, this time it’s for real! We have to emphasize this because astronomers have been “discovering” exoplanets orbiting Barnard’s Star—and then discovering they were wrong—for a century. “Exoplanet” is the technical term for planet-like bodies beyond […]
Chunks of Alpha Centauri—Our Closest Stellar Neighbor—Might Have Already Reached Us
Our nearest stellar neighbor, Alpha Centauri, is moving towards us at a slow and steady pace. In about 3,000 years, the triple star system will be at its closest point to Earth, but new research proposes that material from Alpha Centauri has already made its way to our solar system. And more is on the […]