A new examination of a vast wave of cool gas rippling through a distant galaxy cluster has revealed a surprise about its shape, changing what we understand about cosmic weather.   This “cold front” is estimated to be roughly 5 billion years old, so was expected to be a little hazy at the edges by

Before humans can set foot on the surface of Mars, robots like the Curiosity Rover have been doing an exhaustive reconnaissance job for us. But now NASA has a new idea for sending over more mechanical explorers – and it’s weird, slightly terrifying, and amazing all at once.   We’re talking swarms of robot bees. On

Astronomers have detected 72 incredibly bright and quick events flashing across a recent sky survey – and they’re struggling to understand where they came from. The mysterious explosions are similar in brightness to supernovae – the final, gigantic explosions that extinguish stars.   But supernovae can be seen lighting up the sky for several months

Hubble has obtained an absolutely amazing photograph – a blue giant star called Icarus 9 billion light-years from our Solar System, the farthest individual star ever seen. And it’s all thanks to a rare alignment of cosmic objects called gravitational lensing.   Previously, Hubble has imaged some impressively distant galaxies. In April 2016, it snapped

Black holes are vast, matter-annihilating objects that seem to defy physics by their very existence. They’re so weird, that when Albert Einstein’s equations first predicted the existence of these beasts, he didn’t believe they could actually be real.   And you can’t really blame him, because the idea that we have these singularities of space-time

The most remote location on Earth has many names: It’s called Point Nemo (Latin for ‘no one’) and the Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility. Most precisely, its exact coordinates are 48 degrees 52.6 minutes south latitude and 123 degrees 23.6 minutes west longitude.   The spot is about 2,250 km (1,400 miles) from any spot of

The Chinese space station called Tiangong-1 is expected to crash to Earth within hours. The 9.4-ton spacecraft went up into space in 2011, but in 2016, the Chinese government lost communication with it due to an apparent technical malfunction.   It’s been difficult to predict the precise moment when Tiangong-1 will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere, and where it will break up into

On March 31, much of the world will get to see a rare event: A second blue moon in one year. It will be the second blue moon of 2018 – at least, according to one definition of the term. And our last until 2020.   Despite the name, as many of us have learned

The bus-sized Chinese space station Tiangong-1, known as “Heavenly Palace,” is whipping around our planet in the final hours before it burns into Earth’s atmosphere. In the very near future, it will break up, with some of its debris likely falling to Earth.   In these final hours, Maximilian Teodorescu, a scientific researcher with the

Newly obtained audio of a bizarre UFO incident that occurred in the skies above Arizona last month has been released online, providing first-hand evidence of a strange aerial encounter that nobody at the FAA has been able to explain.   The incident, which took place on the afternoon of February 24 in the airspace over

Dark matter is confusing at the best of times. But now astronomers have made an extraordinary and perplexing discovery – the first ever observation of a galaxy with almost no dark matter at all.   We still don’t know what exactly dark matter is, but it’s currently the most elegant explanation for some of the

Once it deploys, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be the most powerful and technically complex space telescope ever deployed. Using its powerful suite of infrared-optimized instruments, this telescope will be able to study the earliest stars and galaxies in the Universe, extra-solar planets around nearby stars, and the planets, moons and asteroids of

When Tiangong-1 rocketed into the sky in 2011, optimists hoped the space station – literal translation: “heavenly palace” – would be a model for a permanent fixture among the stars, a space laboratory that was among humankind’s first footsteps in the Cosmos.   So, when an out-of-control Tiangong-1 comes plummeting to earth in a superheated

By applying methods used to evaluate the chances of life on other planets, scientists have concluded that Earth is indeed inhabitable – but it’s also becoming increasingly polluted by levels of carbon dioxide and methane.   The inspiration for the new research is an experiment run by Carl Sagan and his team back in the

Once again, a distant star know for its bizarre, unexplained light fluctuations has kicked into action, this time dipping in brightness more dramatically than ever. KIC 8462852, also known as Tabby’s Star or ‘alien megastructure’ star as we like to call it, has dimmed by at least 5 percent – maybe even as much as 10

To glimpse a meteor shower, sometimes you’ve got to wake up in the middle of the night, bundle up against frigid cold, and wait many minutes or hours. All to see a streak of light, a piece of space that crosses briefly into our world.   Soon, though, all you may need is enough cash.

When a star goes supernova, it’s such a gargantuan process that it usually lasts for months. So when astronomers caught one lasting just a few weeks, they sat up and paid attention – and found a totally new type of supernova never observed before.   The supernova is called KSN 2015K, and it peaked in

On 19 October 2017, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System-1 (Pan-STARRS-1) telescope in Hawaii announced the first-ever detection of an interstellar asteroid – I/2017 U1 (aka. ‘Oumuamua).   Since that time, no effort has been spared to study this object before it leaves our Solar System. These include listening to it for signs

Mike Hughes, a California man who is most known for his belief that the Earth is shaped like a Frisbee, finally blasted off into the sky in a steam-powered rocket he had built himself.   The 61-year-old limo driver and daredevil-turned-rocket-maker soared about 1,875 feet (571.5 metres) above the Mojave Desert on Saturday afternoon, the

When Tiangong-1 rocketed into the sky in 2011, optimists hoped the space station – literal translation: “heavenly palace” – would be a model for a permanent fixture among the stars, a space laboratory that was among humankind’s first footsteps in the Cosmos.   So, when an out-of-control Tiangong-1 comes plummeting to earth in a superheated

As we celebrate 2000 days of Curiosity’s exploration, we should remember it’s just one of an army of robotic eyes throughout space exploration history. You’d think NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has seen everything there is to see on the Martian surface in the 12 years it’s orbited our nearest neighbour, but a snapshot taken

Since its deployment in March of 2009, the Kepler space telescope has been a boon for exoplanet-hunters. As of March 8th, 2018, a total of 3,743 exoplanets have been confirmed, 2,649 of which were discovered by Kepler alone.   At the same time, the telescope has suffered its share of technical challenges. These include the

Sometimes you think you’ve stumbled across a ground-breaking astronomical discovery, only to find out that you were actually looking at Mars. Usually, this kind of blunder can be hidden, buried and promptly forgotten, but unfortunately for Peter Dunsby, a cosmologist at the University of Cape Town, he published his hilarious mistake on The Astronomers Telegram

Roughly 70,000 years ago, as humanity migrated out of Africa, a star brushed past our Solar System. It’s known as Scholz’s star, and at a mere 9 percent of our own Sun’s mass, it isn’t all that big.    So in 2015, when astronomers discovered this neighbour had passed us by, they assumed it wouldn’t

Antarctica. The name evokes images of bitter extremes, an environment unkind to humans. Stories of polar explorers battling with the weather and perishing on their way back to safety.   Why would astronomers choose to go there? To get the best views of space, space itself is the best place to be. Here on Earth,

For some time, scientists have known that the Moon and Mars have some fascinating similarities to Earth. In addition to being similar in composition, there is ample evidence that both bodies had active geological pasts.   This includes stable lava tubes which are very similar to those that exist here on Earth. And in the

In November 2014, an intense signal was picked up by telescopes all around the world – a black hole 300 million light-years away captured a passing star and tore it apart, devouring its matter.   An analysis of radio signals following the event has revealed a close relationship between the rate at which the black

NASA has expanded its image catalogue for Messier deep-sky objects by 12 objects, bringing the total to 76 – and showcasing how far we’ve come since 18th century French astronomer Charles Messier started cataloguing strange, fuzzy objects in the sky.   Messier was a comet-hunter – the pursuit and discovery of comets was, at the

There’s a lot we can learn by looking at all those voids making space between galaxies – and now, for the first time, astronomers have used a new method to peer inside these mysterious pockets of nothingness.   Voids in space are due to the expansion of the Universe – this results in a web

Stephen Hawking submitted the final version of his last scientific paper just two weeks before he died, and it lays the theoretical groundwork for discovering a parallel universe.   Hawking, who passed away on Wednesday aged 76, was co-author to a mathematical paper which seeks proof of the “multiverse” theory, which posits the existence of

We have nanobots that swim inside our bodies and monitor our vital organs. We have autonomous robots that work alongside human doctors to perform complex surgeries. There are rovers driving across the surface of Mars and, as you read this, thee humans are orbiting high above you, living in the cold vacuum of space.  

It’s the 21st century, yet these days it’s feeling an awful lot like the frosty bite of the Cold War is, somehow, back from the dead. We’ve got Russian attacks on American institutions (well, cyberattacks, but still) and meddling in our elections, we’ve got former Russian spies getting killed on what is likely Putin’s orders

By our best estimates, the huge Bennu asteroid has around a 1-in-2,700 chance of slamming into Earth sometime in the 22nd century. Slim as those odds may be, plans are already underway to try and put the rock off course, should it get too close.   What scientists are proposing is a rocket called HAMMER,

It’s been a big puzzle for more than two decades – if something emits X-rays, it’s going to be very hot. But comets? They’re balls of ice and rock, yet still emit X-rays. It’s been a tricky one, but researchers think they have finally figured out why.   The discovery that comets emit X-rays is relatively

On 1 March 2016, American astronaut Scott Kelly returned to Earth after spending a total of 340 days aboard the International Space Station (ISS). As part of NASA’s goal to send astronauts on long-duration space flights to Mars and beyond, this record-setting stay in space was designed to test the limit of human endurance in

There’s a surprising amount of order in this chaotic Universe of ours, but this is a pretty weird one – astronomers have found that all galaxies, regardless of their size, take around one billion years to complete a full rotation.   This means that the material on the outer edge of a galaxy takes approximately

According to a straightforward interpretation of general relativity, the Big Bang wasn’t the start of ‘everything’. Taking Einstein’s famous equations at face value and making as few assumptions as possible, a team of researchers has rewound the clock on our Universe to find it wouldn’t lead to a stopping point at all, but would take

Three more of the mysterious fast radio burst (FRB) signals have been detected this month, and one of them is a real record-breaker, coming in with the highest signal-to-noise ratio ever recorded. That makes it the “brightest” FRB that’s ever been observed.   The signals came in on March 1, March 9 (that’s the really

Last April, amateur aurora-chasers stumbled across a strange light in the northern skies that was a little different to the usual shimmering curtains of colours. They named it Steve.   A chance alignment in space and ground imagery helped astronomers piece together exactly what causes the phenomenon, adding a bright new element to a decades

You may have seen some buzz about a “massive” or “huge” solar storm about to hit Earth in the days ahead, but there’s no need to run for your bunker. Although a geomagnetic storm is coming to the northern hemisphere, it sounds like a pretty mild one.   According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

The search for alien life goes on, but our chances of hearing from extraterrestrial beings that are still alive are very slim, according to new research. The problem is that civilisations likely don’t last as long as signals travelling through space.   These latest calculations are an update of the legendary Drake equation, first proposed in

Astronomers have found that a strange excess of gamma rays coming from the heart of the Milky Way isn’t the product of dark matter after all. They argue it’s actually coming from a profusion of very old stars that we have yet to identify.   Dark matter can’t be detected, and its hypothetical presence can

Just because you can do something, it doesn’t mean you should. In December, a government agency denied the Silicon Valley startup Swarm Technologies a license to send four tiny satellites into orbit – but they are now listed on the manifest of a rocket launched from India in January.   The SpaceBee satellite was intended

Recently declassified footage purports to show a new instance of the military tracking an unidentified flying object. The footage was recorded in 2015 on a Raytheon ATFLIR pod, a targeting pod mounted underneath aircraft that’s equipped with a camera with a laser rangefinder and a laser-spot tracker.   The pod was mounted underneath a US

The Air Force already faces extensive operational obligations on Earth, but the service is shifting focus to prepare for what many see as the growing potential for conflict in space.   In a speech at the Air Force Association’s air-warfare symposium in Florida in late February, Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein said

As of March 1st, 2018, 3741 exoplanets have been confirmed in 2794 systems, with 622 systems having more than one planet. Most of the credit for these discoveries goes to the Kepler space telescope, which has discovered roughly 3500 planets and 4500 planetary candidates. In the wake of all these discoveries, the focus has shifted from

We might have to add a brand new category of star to the textbooks: an advanced mathematical model has revealed a certain ultracompact star configuration could in fact exist, when scientists had previously thought it impossible.   This model mixes the repulsive effect of quantum vacuum polarisation – the idea that a vacuum isn’t actually

The world now has a rocket thruster that uses air instead of fuel – and it could change how satellites fly in the lowest orbits around Earth. The new thruster can collect, compress, electrically charge and then release air molecules, removing the need for chemical fuel. All that’s needed is some electricity, which can usually