Astronomy
A Primordial Dark Matter Galaxy Found Without Stars
There's a galaxy out there without apparent stars but largely chock full of dark matter. What's that you say? A…
Two Giant Structures Have Been Found Billions of Light-Years Away
The early universe, according to the Standard Model of Cosmology, ought to be a fairly homogenous place, with little structure…
The Meteorites That Made Earth Were Filled With Water
According to the most widely accepted scientific theory, our Solar System formed from a nebula of dust and gas roughly…
Solar Electric Propulsion Systems are Just What we Need for Efficient Trips to Mars
There are many different ways to get to Mars, but there are always tradeoffs. Chemical propulsion, proven the most popular,…
A Giant Star is Fading Away. But First, it Had an Enormous Eruption
About 16,000 light-years away, a massive star experienced an unusual dimming event. This can happen in binary stars when one…
The Youngest Planetary Disks Ever Seen
How long does planet formation take? Maybe not as long as we thought, according to new research. Observations with the…
Young Stars in the Outskirts of Galaxies Finally Have an Explanation
Star formation is well understood when it happens in the populous centers of galaxies. From our vantage point on Earth,…
NASA Selects the MAGGIE Solar-Powered Aircraft for the 2024 NIAC Program
Since 1998, the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program has fostered innovation by accepting new and unconventional proposals from the scientific…
Japan’s New X-Ray Observatory Sees First Light
XRISM, the X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, is a joint NASA/JAXA mission led by JAXA. The X-ray space telescope began…
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,…