News
New discovery rewrites what we know about the speed of light
17+ hour, 58+ min ago (860+ words) A new review tightens limits on whether light changes speed in deep space, sharpening one of physics" most important tests. (CREDIT: Shutterstock) The speed of light remains one of physics" firmest assumptions, but scientists still test whether it ever shifts…...
JWST catches mineral clouds forming and fading on 'hot Jupiter' exoplanet
1+ day, 17+ hour ago (1080+ words) WASP-94 A b, a hot Jupiter nearly 700 light-years away, builds mineral cloud cover each morning and loses it by evening. This gives astronomers a rare clear view of its atmosphere and shows how cloud cycles can distort what distant worlds…...
Tiny black holes may form out of a crystal-like state in spacetime
1+ day, 20+ hour ago (381+ words) New math shows how a crystal-like critical state in spacetime can tip into a microscopic black hole. (CREDIT: Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4. 0) Microscopic black holes have long hovered at the edge of theory, forming only in exquisitely balanced states. Now physicists…...
JWST finds methane in the atmosphere of a rare temperate Saturn-sized planet
2+ day, 17+ hour ago (856+ words) JWST detected methane in TOI-199 b, the first temperate giant exoplanet to have its atmosphere studied in detail. (CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech) TOI-199 b, a rare temperate giant planet, sits between scorching hot Jupiters and frozen gas giants, and JWST has…...
The case for water plumes on Europa just got much harder to make
3+ day, 15+ hour ago (391+ words) Reanalysis of 14 years of Hubble data weakens evidence for Europa plumes and sharpens the picture of its hydrogen atmosphere. (CREDIT: Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4. 0) Europa's faint glow in ultraviolet light once looked like a possible water plume punching through ice. After…...
Dark crater laser could standardize lunar navigation and timekeeping
4+ day, 15+ hour ago (1213+ words) A lunar laser locked to an ultrastable silicon cavity placed inside one of the Moon's permanently shadowed craters could provide the infrastructure for a lunar time scale, Earth-Moon optical communication, satellite-based space distance measurements and imaging, and a space-based optical…...
Scientists discover new state of matter inside Uranus and Neptune
5+ day, 15+ hour ago (1207+ words) New simulations reveal a bizarre superionic carbon-hydrogen phase that may exist deep inside giant planets. (CREDIT: Shutterstock) Far beneath the thick blue clouds of Uranus and Neptune, matter may behave in ways never before seen. Under crushing pressures and searing…...
Ancient supernova remnants found in Antarctic ice
5+ day, 17+ hour ago (954+ words) Earth is quietly collecting fallout from a blast that happened long before humans existed, and a new look at ancient Antarctic ice suggests that material has been riding inside the cloud of gas our Solar System is passing through. That…...
Astronomers discover the most chemically primitive galaxy in the universe
1+ week, 1+ day ago (710+ words) Revealing the Nature of the Ultra-Faint Galaxy LAP1-B through a Giant "Gravitational Lens" (CREDIT: NASA, ESA, CSA & K. Nakajima et al.) The light reaching JWST from LAP1-B began its trip about 13 billion years ago. By the time it arrived, it carried…...
Physicists just debunked the idea that we're living in a simulation
1+ week, 20+ hour ago (1003+ words) New physics research argues reality contains truths no algorithm can capture, challenging the simulation hypothesis. (CREDIT: Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 4. 0) For years, the idea that reality might be a giant computer simulation has lived comfortably in science fiction, philosophy, and parts…...