An analysis by Dark Energy Survey physicists yields more precise estimates of the average density of matter as well as its propensity to clump together -- two key parameters that help physicists probe the nature of dark matter and...
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is "seeing double." Peering back 10 billion years into the universe's past, Hubble astronomers found a pair of quasars that are so close to each other they look like a single object in ground-based telescopic...
A new study shows a correlation between the end of solar cycles and a switch from El Nino to La Nina conditions in the Pacific Ocean, suggesting that solar variability can drive seasonal weather variability on Earth.
If the connection...
Carbon on Earth, the ultimate journey. We are made of stardust, the saying goes, and a pair of studies including University of Michigan research finds that may be more true than we previously thought.
The first study, led by U-M...
Astronomers found a number of stellar eggs containing baby stars around the center of the Milky Way using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Previous studies had suggested that the environment there is too harsh to form stars. These...
New observations with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) indicate that the rogue comet 2I/Borisov, which is only the second and most recently detected interstellar visitor to our Solar System, is one of the most pristine...
Uranus and Neptune both have a completely skewed magnetic field, perhaps due to the planets' special inner structures. But new experiments by ETH Zurich researchers now show that the mystery remains unsolved.
The two large gas planets Uranus and Neptune...
The permanent rise of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere, which fundamentally changed the subsequent nature of Earth's habitability, occurred much later than thought, according to new research.
And the study, from an international team led by the University of Leeds...
A new black hole breaks the record—not for being the smallest or the biggest—but for being right in the middle.
The recently discovered 'Goldilocks' black hole is part of a missing link between two populations of black holes: small black holes...
In the recent past, space missions dedicated to the study of astrophysical signals in the high-energy spectrum revealed a series of enigmatic excesses not predicted by the theoretical models. In order to find an explanation for these anomalies, many...
"A great fire appeared in the sky to the North, and lasted three nights," wrote a Portuguese scribe in early March, 1582. Across the globe in feudal Japan, observers in Kyoto noted the same fiery red display in their...
