Science
How We Get Planets from Clumping Dust
Our gleaming Earth, brimming with liquid water and swarming with life, began as all rocky planets do: dust. Somehow, mere…
NASA is Trying to Fix a Problem With one of Perseverance's Instruments
There's a problem with the Perseverance rover. One of its instruments, the laser-shooting SHERLOC, which is mounted on the end…
Some Young Planets Are Flattened Smarties, not Spheres.
One of contemporary astronomy's most pressing questions concerns planet formation. We can see more deeply than ever into very young…
A Super-Earth (and Possible Earth-Sized) Exoplanet Found in the Habitable Zone
Astronomers have found a new Super-Earth orbiting an M-dwarf (red dwarf) star about 137 light-years away. The planet is named…
Giant Star Seen 150 Days Before it Exploded as a Supernova
Supernovae are relatively rare. It might not seem like it, but that's because they're so bright we can see them…
Betelgeuse. Before, During and After the Great Dimming
When a prominent star in the night sky suddenly dims, it generates a lot of interest. That's what happened with…
A Hot Jupiter With a Comet-Like Tail
About 164 light-years away, a Hot Jupiter orbits its star so closely that it takes fewer than four days to…
Planetesimals Are Buffeted by Wind in their Nebula, Throwing Debris into Space
Before planets form around a young star, the protosolar disk is populated with innumerable planetesimals. Over time, these planetesimals combine…
Hubble Returns to Science Operations
After a brief interruption, NASA announced that the Hubble Space Telescope is back in business. Problems with one of its…
What Would a Modern “Golden Record” Include?
Now that several decades have passed since the launch of Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 in 1977, we look back…