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First look at Jupiter's poles show strange geometric arrays of storms

With NASA's Juno spacecraft, scientists have gotten a good look at the top and bottom of the planet for the first time. What they found astounded them: bizarre geometric arrangements of storms, each arrayed around one cyclone over the north and south poles - unlike any storm formation seen in the universe.

Mar 7th, 2018

Chemical sleuthing unravels possible path to the formation of life's building blocks in space

Experiments reveal how a hydrocarbon called pyrene could form near stars.

Mar 7th, 2018

Physicists lay groundwork to better understand the birth of the universe

New research extends fundamental thermodynamic theories to describe microscopic systems at high energies, like the universe at the Big Bang.

Mar 6th, 2018

Unprecedentedly wide and sharp dark matter map

A research team of multiple institutes released an unprecedentedly wide and sharp dark matter map based on the newly obtained imaging data by Hyper Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope. The team located the positions and lensing signals of the dark matter halos and found indications that the number of halos could be inconsistent with what the simplest cosmological model suggests.

Mar 2nd, 2018

Can strongly lensed type 1a supernovae resolve cosmology's biggest controversy?

Astrophysicists discovered how to control the 'micolensing' effects of strongly lensed Type 1a Supernovae with supercomputers. Armed with this knowledge they believe they will be able to find 1,000 strongly lensed Type Ia supernovae in realtime from LSST data - that's 20 times more than previous expectations.

Mar 1st, 2018

NASA finds a large amount of water in an exoplanet's atmosphere

Much like detectives study fingerprints to identify the culprit, scientists used NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to find the 'fingerprints' of water in the atmosphere of a hot, bloated, Saturn-mass exoplanet some 700 light-years away.

Mar 1st, 2018

Astronomers detect ancient signal from first stars in universe

Within 180 million years of the Big Bang, stars were born.

Feb 28th, 2018

Black holes from small galaxies might emit gamma rays

Researchers have discovered seven galaxies that could shake up what astrophysicists thought they knew about how the size of a galaxy - and the black hole at its center - can affect its behavior.

Feb 28th, 2018

Pulsar watchers close In on galaxy merger history

For the past twelve years, a group of astronomers have been watching the sky carefully, timing pulses of radio waves being emitted by rapidly spinning stars called pulsars, first discovered 50 years ago.

Feb 28th, 2018

Stars around the milky way: Cosmic space invaders or victims of galactic eviction?

An international team of astronomers has made a surprising discovery about the birthplace of groups of stars located in the halo of our Milky Way galaxy.

Feb 26th, 2018

New research reveals clearest infrared image yet of the center of our galaxy

A new study reveals a new high resolution map of the magnetic field lines in gas and dust swirling around the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.

Feb 26th, 2018

Improved Hubble yardstick gives fresh evidence for new physics in the universe

Astronomers have made the most precise measurements of the expansion rate of the universe since it was first calculated nearly a century ago. Intriguingly, the results are forcing astronomers to consider that they may be seeing evidence of something unexpected at work in the universe.

Feb 22nd, 2018

Amateur astronomer captures rare first light of massive exploding star

Thanks to lucky snapshots taken by an amateur astronomer in Argentina, scientists have obtained their first view of the initial burst of light from the explosion of a massive star.

Feb 21st, 2018

Astronomers reveal secrets of most distant supernova ever detected

An international team of astronomers has confirmed the discovery of the most distant supernova ever detected - a huge cosmic explosion that took place 10.5 billion years ago, or three-quarters the age of the Universe itself.

Feb 19th, 2018

Supermassive black hole model predicts characteristic light signals at cusp of collision

A new simulation of supermassive black holes uses a realistic scenario to predict the light signals emitted in the surrounding gas before the masses collide.

Feb 15th, 2018

New models give insight into the heart of the Rosette Nebula

A hole at the heart of a stunning rose-like interstellar cloud has puzzled astronomers for decades. But new research offers an explanation for the discrepancy between the size and age of the Rosetta Nebula's central cavity and that of its central stars.

Feb 13th, 2018