A Basketball-Player-Sized Asteroid
Planetary scientists have pinpointed the size of a near-Earth asteroid to be a mere 2 meters, one of the smallest ever characterized.
Radio Bursts Herald Future Science
For the first time, astronomers have discovered a (potential) high-energy counterpart to a fast radio burst, and also used a different burst to probe the cosmic web.
MAVEN’s Mars: in Ultraviolet
NASA’s youngest Mars orbiter has watched clouds grow and detected an ozone accumulation on the Red Planet.
Space Rocks Hit the Moon Often
Observations from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal that the Moon is being pockmarked by meteoroids at a higher rate that previously predicted.
Proxima Centauri Has Sun-Like Cycle
Observations confirm that the closest star to our solar system has a regular magnetic cycle similar to our Sun.
Does Dione Have a Subsurface Ocean?
A new analysis suggests that a subsurface ocean might lie deep beneath the crust of Saturn’s moon Dione.
Daily Alert for Asteroid Flybys
A new e-digest from the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center gives the public a head’s up on passing asteroids.
Why Galaxies Have Spiral Arms
Astronomers have found a unique trait of spiral arms that supports a longstanding idea about where these patterns come from.
Exoplanet Found Around Proxima Centauri
Astronomers have discovered a planet in the habitable zone of the closest star to the Sun.
Of Dwarf Galaxies and Voids
Living in voids might be tangentially responsible for three small galaxies’ recent flurries of starbirth.
Titan’s Flooded Canyons
Cassini radar observations reveal a channel system on Saturn’s biggest moon, Titan, that is drowned in liquid methane.
Cloud Punches Hole in Milky Way
An intergalactic cloud has slammed into the Milky Way Galaxy and left a big hole.
Missing Craters on Ceres
The dwarf planet has a paucity of big pockmarks because it has somehow erased them.
Exoplanet Found in Triple Star System
Astronomers have retracted the discovery of a giant planet with an exceptionally wide orbit in a young system of three suns.
Ceres Bright Spot is Salty
Spectral observations by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft reveal that the dwarf planet’s mysterious beacon is made of salt.
Missing Dwarf Galaxies Never Were
Astronomers may have solved the case of the Milky Way’s missing satellite galaxies. The solution? The galaxies never existed.
Clouds Rain Down on Black Hole
Astronomers have detected three cold gas clumps falling toward a galaxy's center — at odds with the prevailing idea for how black holes grow.
How Dead Galaxies Stay Dead
A galaxy in the midst of a merger isn’t forming stars, even though it could. Astronomers think the galaxy’s central black hole might be the reason why.
Where Big Bird Neutrino May Come From
Scientists might have found the source of an incredibly energetic particle that bored into the Antarctic ice sheet.
Did Fermi Detect LIGO’s Merging Black Holes?
NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope might have detected a burst from the same merging black holes that emitted the gravitational waves LIGO detected.