On the hunt for primordial black holes
The theory that dark matter could be made of primordial black holes a fraction of a millimetre in size has been ruled out by a team of researchers.
Jan 9th, 2020
Read more
Space Exploration News – Latest Headlines
Subscribe to our Space Exploration News feed
Stellar heavy metals can trace history of galaxies
Astronomers have cataloged signs of 9 heavy metals in the infrared light from supergiant and giant stars.
Jan 9th, 2020
Read moreHubble detects smallest known dark matter clumps
Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and a new observing technique, astronomers have found that dark matter forms much smaller clumps than previously known. This result confirms one of the fundamental predictions of the widely accepted 'cold dark matter' theory.
Jan 8th, 2020
Read moreAstronomers uncover first world with two stars
The TOI 1338 system lies 1,300 light-years away in the constellation Pictor. The two stars orbit each other every 15 days. One is about 10% more massive than our Sun, while the other is cooler, dimmer and only one-third the Sun's mass.
Jan 7th, 2020
Read moreNASA planet hunter finds its 1st Earth-size habitable-zone world
NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered its first Earth-size planet in its star's habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be just right to allow the presence of liquid water on the surface.
Jan 7th, 2020
Read moreFast radio burst observations deepen astronomical mystery
Astronomers have pinpointed the origin of a repeating Fast Radio Burst to a nearby spiral galaxy, challenging theories on the unknown source of these pulses.
Jan 6th, 2020
Read moreAstronomers find wandering massive black holes in dwarf galaxies
Astronomers seeking to learn about the mechanisms that formed massive black holes in the early history of the Universe have gained important new clues with the discovery of 13 such black holes in dwarf galaxies less than a billion light-years from Earth.
Jan 6th, 2020
Read moreMassive gas disk raises questions about planet formation theory
Astronomers found a young star surrounded by an astonishing mass of gas. The star, called 49 Ceti, is 40 million years old and conventional theories of planet formation predict that the gas should have disappeared by that age.
Dec 23rd, 2019
Read moreFermi Mission links nearby pulsar's gamma-ray 'halo' to antimatter puzzle (w/video)
NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a faint but sprawling glow of high-energy light around a nearby pulsar. If visible to the human eye, this gamma-ray 'halo' would appear about 40 times bigger in the sky than a full Moon. This structure may provide the solution to a long-standing mystery about the amount of antimatter in our neighborhood.
Dec 20th, 2019
Read moreNew space image reveals cosmic 'candy cane'
Deep in our Milky Way galaxy's center, a candy cane emerges as the centerpiece of a new, colorful composite image from a NASA camera, just in time for the holidays.
Dec 19th, 2019
Read moreOf harps, Christmas trees, a wandering star and the mysterious streams of cosmic rays
Astronomers have investigated galactic radio objects that adopt shapes such as Christmas trees and harps. They were able to answer the old question of the transport of cosmic rays.
Dec 19th, 2019
Read moreThe 'cores' of massive galaxies had already formed 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang
A distant galaxy more massive than our Milky Way -- with more than a trillion stars -- has revealed that the 'cores' of massive galaxies in the Universe had formed already 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang.
Dec 19th, 2019
Read moreDistant Milky Way-like galaxies reveal star formation history of the universe
Thousands of galaxies are visible in this radio image of an area in the Southern Sky, made with the MeerKAT telescope. The numerous faint dots are distant galaxies like our own Milky Way, that have never been observed in radio light before.
Dec 17th, 2019
Read moreCHEOPS, the profiler of exoplanets
A quarter of a century after the discovery of the first extrasolar planet, the CHEOPS space telescope will finally enable researchers to determine what exoplanets are made of.
Dec 16th, 2019
Read moreCarbon cocoons surround growing galaxies
ALMA spots earliest environment pollution in the universe.
Dec 16th, 2019
Read moreA galactic dance
Galaxies lead a graceful existence on cosmic timescales. Over millions of years, they can engage in elaborate dances that produce some of Nature's most exquisite and striking grand designs. Few are as captivating as the galactic duo known as NGC 5394/5, sometimes nicknamed the Heron Galaxy.
Dec 13th, 2019
Read moreSimulations attempt to reconstruct one of the most explosive events in the universe: A neutron star merger
Scientists are getting better at modeling the complex tangle of physics properties at play in one of the most powerful events in the known universe: the merger of two neutron stars.
Dec 12th, 2019
Read moreInterstellar comet 2I/Borisov swings past sun
This mysterious visitor from the depths of space is the first identified comet to arrive here from another star. We don't know from where or when the comet started heading toward our Sun, but it won't hang around for long.
Dec 12th, 2019
Read more