A Boeing satellite orbits the Earth. In February, a similar satellite named Spaceway-1 will likely explode as soon as its batteries kick on. Following an unexplained accident, a satellite built by Boeing and operated by DirecTV is at risk of…
Scientists tested Galileo and Einstein’s theories by dropping two objects inside this satellite named MICROSCOPE (artist’s impression). In the 17th century, famed astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei is said to have climbed to the top of the Tower of Pisa…
Researchers prepare to launch the Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) experiment, which picked up signals of impossible-seeming particles as it dangled from its balloon over Antarctica. Our best model of particle physics is bursting at the seams as it struggles…
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…