The velocity-distribution data for gaseous rubidium atoms which confirmed the discovery of the Bose–Einstein condensate in 1995. Scientists have generated an exotic form of matter in the unique microgravity environment aboard the International Space Station and are using it to…
A lung x-ray from the patient before she received the transplant shows severe damage. In a first, a young COVID-19 patient in the U.S. has received a double-lung transplant after the coronavirus ravaged her lungs. The patient, a Hispanic woman…
The world’s largest atom smasher has “given birth” to a set of four ultraheavy particles — called top quarks. The formation of these chubby-but-tiny quadruplets, at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, has long been predicted by the Standard…
An artist’s impression of a fast radio burst (FRB) reaching Earth, with colors signifying different wavelengths. Astronomers have discovered an activity cycle in another fast radio burst, potentially unearthing a significant clue about these mysterious deep-space phenomena. Fast radio bursts,…
NASA recently launched the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative whose aim is to find the best future payloads to deliver to the surface of the moon. These payloads would include instruments for basic science investigations. Shown here, a Lockheed…
Physicists set a new record by linking together a hot soup of 15 trillion atoms in a bizarre phenomenon called quantum entanglement. The finding could be a major breakthrough for creating more accurate sensors to detect ripples in space-time called…
An image taken on June 3, 2020, shows the arm of the InSight lander gently pushing the heat probe into Mars. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel for the first mole to burrow into the surface of…
Mars may have once had a giant ring that eventually got smooshed to form one of its oddly-shaped moons, new research suggests. Mars has two small, lumpy moons, Phobos and Deimos. Phobos orbits closer to the Red Planet and follows…
Friday’s full moon, also known as the strawberry moon, will light up the night sky in most of the Western Hemisphere (including North America), but that’s not the case the world over. In much of the Eastern Hemisphere, the full…
Diligence, technological progress and a little luck have together solved a 20-year mystery of the cosmos. In the late 1990s, cosmologists made a prediction about how much ordinary matter there should be in the universe. About 5%, they estimated, should…
A blue and pink sequined dinosaur floats for the first time on board SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule after entering Earth orbit. The doll, chosen by the crew’s sons, served as the zero-g indicator. A stowaway aboard SpaceX’s first mission to…
On the upper left side of this image from May 29, 2020, from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory — shown here in the 171-angstrom wavelength, which is typically colorized in gold — one can see a spot of light hovering above…