Category: Science

The final chapter for Kosmos 482. A Cold War-era spacecraft is heading home after a half-century adrift. Back in the 1970s, the Soviet Union had its sights set on Venus, sometimes known as Earth’s evil twin. A thick atmosphere traps heat in a runaway greenhouse effect, making it the hottest planet in the solar …

Giant ripples in space? Astronomers have spotted a pair of exotic features believed to be the aftermath of a colossal cosmic smackdown — not between two galaxies, but two groups of galaxies. These glowing arcs of radio energy are known as “radio relics,” faint clouds resulting from powerful shockwaves surging through hot …

No haze. No clouds. Just vibes. A sweltering planet circling a star much like the sun is delivering something scientists rarely get when studying distant worlds — clarity. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, a collaboration of NASA and its European and Canadian counterparts, a team of astronomers zoomed in …

That's not going to heal right. Near the center of the Milky Way are enormous filaments of radio energy that sometimes look like bones, and one in particular has astronomers playing orthopaedists. If the new picture at the top of this story reminds you of an X-ray, well, that’s because it is. Scientists used …

It's an enormous natural laboratory. At Jupiter‘s north pole, powerful storms the size of Australia or bigger are wrapped in 100 mph winds. After analyzing years of data from NASA‘s Juno mission, scientists have observed the long-term movements of its huge polar cyclone, along with the eight others surrounding it. Meanwhile, …

“You see a beautiful planet and a borderless world.”

The drill is free at last. NASA‘s Perseverance rover almost had to let go of a precious drill bit on Mars after an attempt to collect a rock sample went awry. For the past week, the car-sized lab on wheels seemed to remain in its location on the rim of …

“I'm willing to fall on my sword.” In the summer of 1995, Robert Williams, then director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, which manages the Hubble Space Telescope‘s research program, was paid two visits by the renowned astronomer John Bahcall, considered one of Hubble’s founding fathers. Bahcall had, in hindsight, a strange request. He urged …

These Milky Way stars are soon-to-be estranged. Astronomers poring through a now-retired space telescope’s data have spotted a bizarre family of fledgling stars breaking all the rules of how they’re expected to behave. The star group, which scientists have recently named Ophion, consists of more than 1,000 stars that formed together but are now <a href="https://me.mashable.com/space/45443/a-star-like-thing-is-flying-1-million-mph-in-space-what-the-heck" …

It's not just churning out stars. Scientists have found an unusual neon glow near the center of the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy for the first time. This gas needs an enormous amount of energy to shine — more than normal stars can supply. The discovery, based on data from NASA‘s James Webb …