Joanna Thompson

First predicted by Einstein more than a century ago, lasers have shaped our modern technological landscape. But how do they work?

Headaches are a common and recurring problem in space, even for astronauts that don't experience them on Earth.

A communications glitch is preventing NASA's Voyager 1 probe — the farthest spacecraft from Earth in history — from sending home data, and mission scientists are growing concerned.

The JET nuclear fusion reactor in the UK has set a new world record for total energy output. However, the reactor's record-smashing test will be its last.

For the first time, scientists discovered a powerful 'black hole wind' that blew through a nearby galaxy for hundreds of days, crushing star formation and reshaping the galaxy. Something similar may already have happened in the Milky Way.

Scientists have discovered complex molecules in the gas and vapor plumes escaping from Enceladus's icy core — and one of them, hydrogen cyanide, is a precursor for life.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have spotted what may be the smallest known brown dwarf, a "failed star" that's only three or four times larger than Jupiter.

The massive planet LHS 3154b orbits a star much smaller than Earth's sun, and its discovery could upend everything we think we know about how solar systems form.

Last summer, a Harvard professor claimed tiny pellets of iron came from beyond our solar system. But new analyses suggest that they likely originated much closer to home.

Researchers have simulated how comets pinballing from one planet to another could deliver critical organic molecules to exoplanets.

In a first, researchers discovered oxygen atoms on the dayside and nightside of Venus' atmosphere.

Additional images from NASA's Lucy mission reveal that the "moon" orbiting asteroid Dinkinesh is actually a contact binary, made of two smaller moons touching.

Astronomers have captured ultrafast radio bursts from 3 billion light-years away for the first time ever.

The exoplanet WASP-17b's atmosphere is full of quartz clouds, according to a new James Webb Space Telescope observations.

Life's Little Mysteries To figure out this mind-bogglingly high number, we need to know how many species have ever lived, dig deep into the fossil record and do a lot of math.

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.