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A photo of Mars's surface with a close-up image of tiny egg-like nodules inset
Giant 'spiderwebs' on Mars contain tiny egg-like structures that scientists 'can't quite explain,' NASA rover reveals New photos captured by NASA's Curiosity rover show that Mars' giant, spiderweb-like "boxwork" features are covered in tiny, never-before-seen nodules that bear a striking resemblance to arachnid eggs. And researchers are struggling to explain them.
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A star blowing a purple, wedge-shaped bubble in space
NASA telescope spots first alien 'astrosphere' around a sun-like star: Space photo of the week The first bubble of hot gas seen around another star has been spotted around the "Moth," just 117 light-years away.
A photo of the sun without any sunspots
The sun just experienced its first 'spotless days' in 4 years — but we're not in the clear yet Earlier this week, the number of visible sunspots on our home star fell to zero for the first time in 1,335 days. This normally indicates a period of greatly reduced solar activity, but it's still too soon to relax, experts say.
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Latest about Space

'The brain consistently moved upward and backward': Astronauts' brains physically shift in their heads during spaceflight

By Rachael Seidler, Tianyi (Erik) Wang published

A new study analyzed brain MRI scans from 26 astronauts and found that the longer someone lived in space, the more their brain shifted in their skull.

Space Exploration
A penguin colony of chicks and adults waddle on a snowy surface with a boxout in the top right of the image showing a solar eclipse, a ring of glowing yellow light against a dark background

Lucky few to see 'ring of fire' solar eclipse over Antarctica on Feb. 17

By Jamie Carter published

This month's new moon brings an annular (or "ring of fire") solar eclipse, but it will only be visible from parts of Antarctica.

The Sun
A bright blue streak of light is seen covering a series of bright stars in this dark deep space image. A white box surrounds the blue shape

Deepest views from James Webb and Chandra reveal monster object that defies theory — Space photo of the week

By Shreejaya Karantha published

The James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory have captured the clearest image yet of a galaxy cluster in the making, seen when the universe was only one billion years old.

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Space
An illustration of all the planets in the solar system near Earth, seen at the bottom of the image. Mars, Saturn and Neptune are seen at the left while Mercury, Venus, Jupiter and Uranus are to the right

How long do most planets last?

By Sara Hashemi published

Planets are born, and they can also "die." So what's the lifespan of a typical planet?

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Planets
An annotated image of a runaway black hole leaving a streak of new stars in its wake.

'Runaway' black hole detected by the James Webb telescope adds a strange new chapter to our universe's story

By David Blair published

Recent observations suggest that 'runaway' black holes are tumbling through the cosmos. Building on decades of theory, the discovery adds a remarkable new chapter to the story of the universe.

Black Holes
A photo of the green comet with a long tail in the night sky

Newly visible, city-size 'green comet' will soon be ejected into interstellar space — just like 3I/ATLAS

By Harry Baker published

Comet Wierzchoś, also known as C/2024 E1, is rapidly brightening as it approaches its closest point to Earth next week. But experts predict it will eventually be thrown out of the solar system forever, just like the "alien" comet 3I/ATLAS.

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Comets
Four images arranged in a square show a red, blue, green and yellow tint to similar photographs of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, a glowing ball of light in the middle of each of the four images. The images from top left to bottom right are labeled as: dust, water, organics and carbon dioxide

NASA telescope spots the building blocks for life spewing out of comet 3I/ATLAS

By Patrick Pester published

NASA's SPHEREx space telescope detected organic molecules coming off comet 3I/ATLAS as the interstellar visitor made its closest approach to Earth in December.

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Comets
A deep space image showing the white gas and stars forming two spiral galaxies next to each other, stretching from the bottom right to top left of the image.

The earliest black holes in the universe may still be with us, surprising study claims

By Paul Sutter published

The earliest black holes in the universe may not have disappeared from Hawking radiation after all, new research hints. Instead, they fed on the energy of the ancient cosmos to grow supermassive.

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Black Holes
An illustration of a series of planets in a semicircle with a sun-like star of glowing gas toward the right of the image. The planets in the background are bluer while the one planet in the foreground is yellow and orange

Strange rocky world found lurking on the edge of 'inside out' planetary system

By Skyler Ware published

Astronomers have spotted an unusual 'inside-out' planetary system where a rocky world seems to have formed far beyond the realm typically reserved for gas giants.

Planets
An image showing a metal radio antenna to the left under a glowing band of the Milky Way in the night sky with a circle cutout to the right of the image showing an illustration of a black sphere surrounded by glowing gas

Radio signal discovered at the center of our galaxy could put Einstein's relativity to the test

By Elizabeth Howell published

Scientists hope to probe the nature of general relativity through a possible pulsar found in the center of the Milky Way, near a supermassive black hole.

Astronomy
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