An illustration showing the newly discovered dwarf nova system, a finding detailed in the October 2019 issue of the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. A “vampire” dwarf star is sucking the life force from its partner star,…
A scene from Walmart’s new “space-y” Super Bowl commercial. This year’s Super Bowl commercials promise to be out of this world. This upcoming Sunday (Feb. 2), a number of cosmic commercials are scheduled to run during the 2020 Super Bowl.…
Artist’s illustration of Lense-Thirring frame-dragging resulting from a rotating white dwarf in the PSR J1141-6545 binary star system. The way the fabric of space and time swirls in a cosmic whirlpool around a dead star has confirmed yet another prediction…
Exoplanet KELT-9b orbits its local sun once every day and a half. This close proximity makes KELT-9b the hottest exoplanet ever detected. When planning your next interstellar vacation, avoid planet KELT-9b. This hot Jupiter (so named because it is roughly…
An illustration shows a comet passing in front of a star. A pair of Harvard astrophysicists have proposed a wild theory of how life might have spread through the universe. Imagine this: Millions or billions of years ago, back when…
Black holes are infinitely dense objects surrounded by smooth event horizons. When two neutron stars slammed together far off in space, they created a powerful shaking in the universe — gravitational waves that scientists detected on Earth in 2017. Now,…
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…