Science

The powerful eye of the James Webb Space Telescope has spotted vital chemicals around two youthful stars. Astronomers focused the space observatory, which orbits 1 million miles from Earth, on cosmic regions around these protostars, which are so youthful they haven’t yet formed planets. But they almost certainly will: NASA suspects nearly every star has...

NASA plunged a refrigerator-sized spacecraft into a stadium-sized asteroid in 2022, with hopes of simply nudging it. It was an unprecedented, successful test — proving humanity could alter the path of a menacing asteroid, should one ever be headed our way. Now, the space agency revealed that the DART mission didn’t simply vastly exceed expectations...

One day, when a dusty Mars rover peers up at the Martian sky, it might spot a plane swooping overhead. NASA is in the early stages of investigating the prospect of an extraterrestrial aircraft that can explore the Red Planet’s vast desert. It’s funded by the space agency’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, which encourages...

Just seven years ago, Americans emptied their homes for a chance to witness a total solar eclipse, an astronomical event hailed as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Back then, you might have heard this was the first to cut across the United States from coast to coast in a century — and it was. But lately, you...

Thankfully, it’s rare for supervolcanoes to erupt — the last one exploded 26,500 years ago. Yet even when such a potent geologic event happens again (there’s no sign of any supervolcanoes like Yellowstone stirring, and we’d have at least many years of volcanic notice), different lines of evidence suggest global catastrophe wouldn’t ensue. Humanity wouldn’t...

During a total solar eclipse, the moon lines up in front of the sun so perfectly, it would put most posts from Reddit’s r/perfectfit community to shame. The perfection of the alignment is a big part of an eclipse’s beauty. But why is it so perfect? Instant noodles and sistema bowl byu/Snyppy inPerfectfit Why do...

Mars is a desolate, irradiated, lifeless, windswept land. But it’s also the site of dramatic activity, as space rocks pummel the Martian surface. Asteroids or chunks of comets often scar Mars’ desert, in part because the Red Planet orbits near our solar system’s asteroid belt, a region teeming with millions of asteroids. And when they...

A total solar eclipse will be on display over a swath of North America on April 8, allowing an estimated 31 million people a chance to step outside and see the sun’s corona in space. Experts have put together maps that show the so-called “path of totality,” where the moon’s shadow will cross the continent....

An enchanting solar eclipse is imminent. Are you ready? Witnessing a total solar eclipse — wherein the moon completely blocks out the sun — is a rare opportunity. But on April 8, 2024, millions of Americans will be in the “path of totality” (shown below), allowing many to experience something that’s at once astonishing, unsettling,...

At the heart of our Milky Way galaxy lies a giant. It’s a massive black hole, dubbed Sagittarius A* (pronounced “Sagittarius a star”), weighing as much as 4.3 million suns. After taking an unprecedented image of the object in 2022, astronomers have now captured a remarkable new view of the black hole, revealing its powerful,...