Earth's Place in the Universe
- Space
A star called ‘Earendel’ could be the most distant ever seen
A thin red arc found in an image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows starlight from nearly 13 billion years ago.
- Physics
Muons reveal the inner worlds of pyramids, volcanoes and more
Tracking these subatomic particles can uncover surprising hidden structures.
- Space
Some of the sun’s iconic coronal loops may be ghostly illusions
Wrinkles in the sun’s outer atmosphere might trick the eye into seeing glowing arches, scientists now report.
- Space
We finally have an image of the black hole at the heart of our galaxy
New observations from the Event Horizon Telescope reveal the chaotic region around the Milky Way’s central black hole, Sagittarius A*, in extreme detail.
- Planets
Analyze This: Some 5,000 planets orbit stars other than our sun
A new cache of confirmed exoplanet discoveries marks a milestone in planets found beyond our solar system.
- Space
Explainer: All about orbits
A handful of rules can describe the route some object repeatedly takes around another in space. Calculating that path, however, can be quite complex.
- Earth
Scientists Say: Atmosphere
An atmosphere is an envelope of gas around a planet, dwarf planet or moon.
- Space
Scientists Say: Constellation
Constellations are clusters of related things, especially the stars that form patterns in the night sky — some of which date back to ancient times.
- Planets
Mercury’s surface may be studded with diamonds
Billions of years of meteorite impacts may have transformed much of Mercury's graphite crust into precious gemstones.
- Planets
Let’s learn about Pluto
Once known as a pipsqueak planet, Pluto is now the solar system’s best known dwarf planet.
- Physics
Scientists Say: Doppler effect
The Doppler effect is a perceived change in the frequency of light or sound waves due to the wave source moving relative to an observer.
- Animals
The end of the dinosaurs appears to have come in springtime
Fish fossils from North Dakota suggest when the Chicxulub asteroid devastated Earth, triggering the mass extinction of dinosaurs and other species.
