Space

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- Planets
Noises sound totally different on Mars than on Earth. Here’s why
The Perseverance rover recorded the sound of laser pulses on Mars. Scientists used those recordings to determine the Martian speeds of sound.
- Space
Ancient volcanoes may have left ice at the moon’s poles
Volcanic eruptions billions of years ago may have produced several temporary atmospheres on the moon that held water vapor.
By Anna Gibbs - Planets
The InSight lander has caught a large ‘earthquake’ on Mars
This magnitude 5 quake is offering scientists a peek at what’s going on beneath the Martian surface.
- Space
The first plants ever grown in moon dirt have sprouted
This tiny garden shows farming on the moon may be difficult, although not impossible.
- Space
Behold: The biggest known comet in our solar system
This “dirty snowball” in space is about twice as wide as Rhode Island and darker than coal.
By Sid Perkins - Physics
A new clock shows how gravity warps time — even over tiny distances
This clock measured how gravity changes the passage of time in different places — even spots just one millimeter apart.
- 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.
By Liz Kruesi - Space
Gravitational waves ‘kicked’ a newborn black hole across space
Two black holes merged into one, and then sped off at around 5 million kilometers (3.1 million miles) per hour.
- 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.
By Liz Kruesi - 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.
By Trisha Muro