Joanna Thompson

Here's how your brain might adjust to see color on another world.

The star T CrB flares up every 80 years. A document from 1217 could help confirm its regularity.

Earth is the only rocky body in the inner solar system with strong magnetic poles. But where do these poles come from, and what do they do?

The enigmatic pulsar J1023 radically changes in brightness every few seconds. Astronomers may finally have an explanation.

The record-breaking find of a star 43,000 times more magnetic than the sun could help unravel the mystery of how magnetars form.

This Jupiter-size object is 80 times denser than a planet and hotter than the sun.

Data from NASA's InSight mission shows that Mars's rotation is speeding up and its days are growing slightly shorter. Scientists have a few ideas why.

Instruments in different parts of the solar system all captured radiation from the same coronal mass ejection for the first time ever.

Asteroids are left over from the early solar system. Here's how they get destroyed.

Lightning is terrifying, but it's not always deadly. Here's what it does to the human body.

In its first year of operations, the James Webb Space Telescope has already revolutionized our view of the cosmos. Its one-year anniversary image is a spectacularly beautiful addition.

A distant star system has Milky Way-like spiral arms orbiting it. New research suggests a giant planet may be to blame.

A prominent extraterrestrial-hunting scientist thinks that more than 50 tiny, metal spheres pulled from the Pacific Ocean might be the work of intelligent aliens. Others are skeptical.

A phenomenon called coronal rain produces hot plasma clumps that streak through the sun's atmosphere like meteors, new data reveals.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a clump of ancient galaxies that may be the oldest strand of the "cosmic web" ever detected.

The James Webb Space Telescope's new images of Saturn aren't finished, but they're still mind-blowingly cool.

The cold and mysterious Oort cloud at the edge of our solar system may be hiding a rogue exoplanet, new research suggests.

Scientists have discovered a weird celestial object that's blurring the line between planet and star.

For the first time, researchers have observed how just one particle of light can trigger photosynthesis in bacteria — finally revealing the first step of the crucial process.

NASA officials overestimated their ability to contain alien microbes after the first moon landing, a new analysis suggests.

The 1.5-million-light-year-long gas trail was caused by a group of galaxies moving 3 million miles per hour

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope discovered evidence of complex organic molecules in a galaxy 12.3 billion light-years away — the furthest and oldest ever detected.

Japan's private Hakuto-R spacecraft broke into at least four large pieces of debris, according to new images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Here's what we know (and don't know) about China's mysterious space plane, which just landed after nine months in orbit on a secret mission.

A new analysis of a comet in the asteroid belt reveals frozen water from the early solar system, hinting at the origins of water on Earth.