Space
Newfound clouds of missing ‘ordinary’ matter sit outside galaxies
Dark matter isn’t the universe’s only “missing” matter. Distant bursts of radio waves have now turned up vast, faint gas clouds surrounding galaxies.
Earth's Place in the Universe
More Stories in Earth's Place in the Universe
- Space
‘Superpuff‘ planets are as dense as cotton candy
The puffiest planets known in our galaxy orbit a sunlike star more than 1,000 light-years from Earth.
- Space
Scientists Say: Event horizon
Past this boundary, nothing that enters a black hole can ever leave — not even light.
- Space
A small object beyond Pluto may have a thin atmosphere
A brief stellar eclipse hints that this 2002 XV93 has a thin atmosphere. It would be a first for any solar-system body farther from the sun than Pluto.
- Space
NASA’s DART spacecraft changed 2 asteroids’ orbit around the sun
In 2022, NASA smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid. New data show how that impact changed the orbit around the sun of this space rock — and its partner.
- Space
The lives of black holes, from birth to death
After more than a century, scientists are just beginning to understand black holes — the most bizarre and powerful things in the universe.
- Physics
Exploding black holes could solve a big cosmic mystery
Tiny black holes in the early universe could explain why matter is common and antimatter is not.
- Space
Scientists Say: Observable universe
No light will ever reach Earth from beyond this distant horizon of space.
- Space
Do multiple universes exist?
Some branches of physics hint that our universe is just one of many in a vast “multiverse.”
- Planets
Massive underground lava tube found on Venus
A collapsed structure, which turned up in 30-year-old radar data from Venus, may be one of many underground caves.
