1+ week, 2+ day ago   (504+ words) September offers several eye-catching skywatching opportunities, including a brilliant Venus, the September equinox, and a Harvest Moon rising near Saturn and Neptune. The Moon can also help observers locate Antares, the Teapot star pattern, and, under dark enough skies, the…...

3+ hour, 21+ min ago   (623+ words) Scientists have found a vast hidden heat imbalance inside Mars, with the southern interior hundreds of degrees hotter than the north and possibly partially molten. Scientists have discovered a major temperature imbalance deep inside Mars, with the planet’s southern interior…...

1+ week, 6+ day ago   (295+ words) An accidental Subaru Telescope image of a distant bare comet is giving astronomers a clearer look at the surface of a cometary nucleus. A comet can reveal its surface most clearly when it is still far from the Sun, before…...

2+ week, 5+ day ago   (283+ words) This month’s total solar eclipse offered more than a spectacular view. It also produced an unusual visual effect that made the event especially interesting from a scientific perspective. During a total solar eclipse, the solar corona, the Sun’s faint outer…...

4+ day, 3+ hour ago   (553+ words) Solar system simulations starting from varied initial conditions suggest that Earth-like planets can emerge naturally from planet formation. Computer simulations of planetary systems can now begin from thousands of different starting conditions, allowing researchers to explore how worlds might emerge…...

4+ day, 4+ hour ago   (568+ words) Researchers developed a model showing how lava-covered planets close to their stars can hold onto their atmospheres, which could help guide the search for life beyond our solar system. Some planets orbit so close to their stars that intense radiation…...

3+ week, 2+ day ago   (547+ words) A mysterious object dubbed Phoebe may be a primordial black hole from the early universe, detected only because it briefly magnified the light of a distant star. On the night of 18 December 2019, a star in our satellite galaxy, the Large…...

1+ week, 21+ hour ago   (739+ words) From tiny glass beads and a map of the Moon to Mercury, a new study uses an indirect method to determine the silicon dioxide content of Mercury’s surface. Mercury’s surface appears to contain substantially less silicon dioxide than researchers previously…...

1+ day, 4+ hour ago   (509+ words) A mysterious signal deep underground may offer LUX-ZEPLIN its most intriguing clue to dark matter yet. For nearly a century, scientists have been trying to identify dark matter, the mysterious material believed to account for about 85% of all matter in…...