First-of-Its-Kind Neutron Star Flashes Bizarre 'Cyclotron Line' at Earth By Rafi Letzter Neutron stars have never been caught behaving this way before.
Weird 'Tiger Stripes' on Icy Saturn Moon Enceladus Finally Explained By Chelsea Gohd New research solves some of the mysteries of the "tiger stripes" on Saturn's moon Enceladus.
Europe Is Launching a Suicide Robot to 'Hug' Space Trash Out of Orbit By Brandon Specktor Meta description: The ESA has announced a mission to launch a four-armed robot to grab a single piece of space junk and drag it into the atmosphere.
Mysterious 'Particle X17' Could Carry a Newfound Fifth Force of Nature, But Most Experts Are Skeptical By Mara Johnson-Groh It would rewrite the Standard Model of physics.
The Universe Remembers Gravitational Waves — And We Can Find Them By Paul Sutter Gravitational waves leave behind a memory — a permanent bend in space-time — as they pass through.
Student Solves a Decades-Old Physics Mystery By Yasemin Saplakoglu Why do gas bubbles appear to get stuck inside narrow vertical tubes?
Evidence of an Alien Planet Spotted Around a White Dwarf, a Cosmic First By Mike Wall For the first time ever, astronomers have spotted evidence of a planet circling a superdense stellar corpse known as a white dwarf, a new study reports.
Solar Probe Finds Active, Mysterious Corona, Surprising Scientists By Rafi Letzter NASA's Parker Solar Probe has passed through the outer atmosphere of the sun, and now we get to see what it found.
Is the Universe Curved? Not So Fast. By Paul Sutter A new study has called into question the prevailing notion that the universe is "flat." The stakes of this cosmological debate are huge.
19 Galaxies Are Apparently Missing Dark Matter. No One Knows Why. By Rafi Letzter Nineteen newly discovered dwarf galaxies seem to be missing their dark matter, and physicists aren't sure why.
Hoag's Object Is a Galaxy Within a Galaxy Within a Galaxy (and Nobody Knows Why) By Brandon Specktor Hoag's object, which is a galaxy within a galaxy within a galaxy, has befuddled stargazers since astronomer Arthur Hoag discovered it in 1950.
NASA Spots Crash Site and Debris from India's Lost Moon Lander By Meghan Bartels Scientists and amateurs alike have spent months combing through images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter looking for the remains of India's moon lander — and that search has paid off.
Lego's NASA Apollo Saturn V Is 20% Off for Cyber Monday By Tariq Malik NASA's Apollo 11 moon landing celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and Lego set the stage with this epic Saturn V moon rocket set, which is on sale now for 20% off on Amazon.
Astronomers See Stars Slinging Comets at Earth for the First Time By Mara Johnson-Groh For the first time, a Polish group has identified two nearby stars that seem to have plucked up their icy partners, swinging them into orbits around our sun.
When Did the 'Dark Ages of the Universe' End? This Rare Molecule Holds the Answer. By Brandon Specktor Scientists hunting for neutral hydrogen — a rare molecule that predates every star in the universe — just took a step closer to catching their prize.
Do We Live in a Quantum World? By Paul Sutter At some point, the rules of the subatomic give way to the rules of the macroscopic. But how? We're not exactly sure, and it's been a long, strange journey in trying to answer that question.
Stellar Black Hole Is So Massive It Shouldn't Exist By Yasemin Saplakoglu A gigantic black hole 15,000 light-years from our planet is twice as massive as what researchers thought was possible in our own galaxy.
Will 2020 Be the Year We Find Intelligent Alien Life? By Leonard David Is 2020 the celestial payoff year, in which astronomers finally confirm a "technosignature" coming from an advanced alien civilization?