A bright supernova flares across the sky in this illustration. In 2006, researchers detected one of the brightest supernova explosions ever — and they may finally be able to explain it. In September 2006, an exploding star 50 billion times…
If extraterrestrials are living on alien worlds, what types of signals would they send us? Our human biases might limit what we can imagine. HONOLULU — Our hunt for aliens has a potentially fatal flaw — we’re the ones searching…
A mysterious cosmic event might have ever-so-slightly stretched and squeezed our planet last week. On Jan. 14, astronomers detected a split-second burst of gravitational waves, distortions in space-time … but researchers don’t know where this burst came from. The gravitational…
Close encounters with our future selves? Unidentified flying objects (UFOs) have captured the public’s attention over the decades. As exoplanet detection is on the rise, why not consider that star-hopping visitors from afar might be buzzing through our friendly skies…
This illustration shows the six strange objects (dubbed G1 through G6) that astronomers detected swirling around our galaxy’s central black hole. The mysterious blobs orbit the hole every 100 to 1,000 years, stretching out as they approach. Like most large…
A planetary system hiding out in the constellation Dorado, some 100 light-years from Earth, hosts an Earth-size planet orbiting within its star’s habitable zone. A few months ago, a group of NASA exoplanet astronomers, who are in the business of…
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Artist’s rendition of a binary neutron star merger. HONOLULU — For the second time ever, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) has spotted two ultradense stellar remnants known as neutron stars violently crashing together. The gravitational wave event seems to have…
If we discovered evidence of alien life, would we even realize it? Life on other planets could be so different from what we’re used to that we might not recognize any biological signatures that it produces. Recent years have seen…
The world of the teensy-tiny, the quantum realm, could have a favorite flavor. We’re not talking about itty-bitty ice cream cones, of course. The world of particles is split into three camps, called “flavors” (don’t ask why). For example, the…
No one really knows what happens inside an atom. But two competing groups of scientists think they’ve figured it out. And both are racing to prove that their own vision is correct. Here’s what we know for sure: Electrons whiz…
This animation shows how a black hole bends nearby light depending on the angle at which it is viewed. As the 2010s come to a close, it’s time to revisit how some of the biggest space science stories shaped the…