This Globular Cluster is Plunging Toward the Milky Way’s Centre
Globular clusters (GCs) are spherical groups of stars held together by mutual gravity. Large ones can have millions of stars,…
Want to Find Life? See What's Missing in an Atmosphere
In the search for life, astrobiologists have proposed that various chemicals, like methane, could be potential biosignatures. But a new…
Astronomers Test an Exoplanet Instrument on Jupiter
The European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) has a high-resolution spectrograph called  ESPRESSO, designed specifically to detecting and characterize…
Iron Snow Could Explain the Magnetic Fields at Worlds Like Ganymede
Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede, features a surprisingly strong magnetic field for its size. Tidal effects from Jupiter continually stretch and…
China’s FAST Observatory is Playing a Key Role in the Search for Aliens
Some years ago I rememeber running the SETI at Home screensaver and would watch it for hours to see if…
Ingenuity’s 69th Flight is its Farthest So Far
When NASA decided to send the little Ingenuity rotorcraft to Mars on the belly of the Perseverance rover, they weren't…
Juno Makes its Closest Flyby of Io
NASA's Juno spacecraft has been getting closer and closer to Jupiter's volcanic moon Io with each recent orbit. Juno is…
The Oldest Known Spiral Galaxy Has Ripples Like the Surface of a Pond
Astronomers have detected pond-like ripples across the gaseous disk of an ancient galaxy. What caused the ripples, and what do…
The Most Massive Neutron Stars Probably Have Cores of Quark Matter
When a star with several times the mass of the Sun dies in a supernova explosion, it ends up as…
Watch a Full Martian Day, From Dawn to Dusk
On November 8th, NASA's Curiosity Rover paused its incessant science work and just watched the day unfold on Mars. The…