Sign Up for Our Amazing Newsletter!
A daily update by email. Science news, great photos, sky alerts.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Astronomers find the brightest quasar yet
It shines with a brightness equivalent to 600 trillion suns. "We don’t expect to find many quasars brighter than that in the whole observable universe," said the astronomers.
January 10, 2019
New tool reveals ‘missing’ merging galaxies
Astronomers see many breathtaking merging galaxies, with their giant tidal streams of stars and unusual shapes. But some normal-looking galaxies might be merging, too. Now astronomers have a new tool to find out.
January 10, 2019
Probing the magnetar at the center of our galaxy
A new study analyzes pulses of radio waves coming from a magnetar - a rotating, dense, dead star with a strong magnetic field - located near the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way.
January 10, 2019
So long, Iridium flares
And hello, Iridium NEXT. The final launch of 10 Iridium NEXT satellites is targeted for January 8, 2019, at 7:48 a.m. PST. Meanwhile, the beloved glints of Iridium flares are disappearing from Earth's night skies.
January 7, 2019
New Juno images of Io’s fiery volcanoes
Jupiter's moon Io is the most volcanically active world in our solar system. The Juno spacecraft - now orbiting Jupiter - has now gazed across a distance to acquire new images and insights about the "fires of Io."
January 6, 2019
Galaxy collision to send solar system flying?
A new computer simulation shows the Large Magellanic Cloud is hurtling toward our galaxy on a collision course. Could the collision knock our solar system out of the Milky Way?
January 6, 2019
Dark matter on the move
New evidence suggests that dark matter - the mysterious stuff that makes up a significant percentage of the universe's mass - can heat up and move around.
January 6, 2019
China’s Chang’e-4 lands on moon’s far side
China’s Chang’e-4 spacecraft set down last night, according to clocks in the Americas. It's a historic event, the first time a spacecraft has landed on the side of the moon we cannot see.
January 3, 2019
Oxygen and life: a cautionary tale
On Earth, oxygen is a signature byproduct of life. But what if astronomers found oxygen in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a distant sun? Would that prove life exists there? Not necessarily, says a new study.
January 3, 2019
Ultima Thule seen in detail
Ultima Thule - a Kuiper Belt object and the most distant object yet seen by an earthly spacecraft - is now revealed as a "contact binary," created when two small bodies in the early solar system stuck together.
January 2, 2019
