Astronomers previously believed that you needed a special environment for a rocky planet to have liquid oceans on its surface, with just the right temperature and surface pressure. But a new study suggests that the radioactivity from rocks could melt water. Even if the surface is frozen, there could be oceans of water beneath the surface. Researchers suggest that there could be an average of one planet per star with these conditions in the Milky Way - 100 times more likely than previous estimates.

A new paper argues that the universe is 26.7 billion years old. But the model only works by assuming tired light and changing physical constants.

China just launched the first in a series of broadband internet satellites, which could lead to another mega-constellation.

Wildfires in British Columbia and Canada, driven by Climate Change, established new records this year.

Saturn's moon Enceladus is one of the most promising places to look for life in the Solar System. It has an ocean of liquid water venting into space, and evidence from Cassini suggested that it's filled with organic molecules and nutrients for bacteria. A new mission that could continue the search, the Astrobiology eXploration at Enceladus (AXE), has been proposed. This would be a New Frontiers-class mission with a modest budget and a suite of instruments specifically chosen to maximize the science at Enceladus.

The ESA's Ariane 5 rocket just conducted its last launch to space.

A new machine learning technique could make it much easier to estimate the age of stellar populations.

It's been a year since JWST began its operations, so the people behind the telescope released a stunning new image to celebrate. The Rho Ophiuchi complex is already a famous target for astrophotographers because of its many-colored splendor. Under JWST's infrared gaze reveals the closest star-forming region to Earth in all its glory. Jets are blasting out of newly forming stars, impacting the surrounding interstellar gas and lighting up molecular hydrogen. Some of the stars even have the shadows of circumstellar disks.

ESA's Cheops mission has been studying an ultra-hot exoplanet around a nearby star and discovered its metallic clouds reflect about 80% of the light shining on it from its host star. The planet is about the size of Neptune, and its high-temperature clouds are filled with silicate mixed with metals like titanium. The planet takes only 19 hours to orbit its star, and astronomers are puzzled why it hasn't had its atmosphere blown away, leaving only bare rock behind. The metal clouds might actually be the solution, reflecting the heat away and preventing the atmospheric stripping.