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Was the Milky Way set rippling by another galaxy? Buradaki/Alamy The Milky Way appears to have a vast ripple spreading out across at least a quarter of its disc. If confirmed, the structure might be a relic from a brush with another galaxy, but not all astronomers are convinced that it actually exists. While illustrations […]
A supernova remnant in the Milky Way galaxy Chandra X-ray Observatory After a star explodes in a supernova, the remnants can reform into more stars again and again. These subsequent generations could be full of elements heavier than helium that astronomers refer to as metals, which could explain why the cosmos is littered with puzzlingly […]
NASA’s Europa Clipper is setting off for one of Jupiter’s icy moons, Europa, to see if it could harbour life. It will perform dozens of close flybys gathering detailed measurements from its suite of sensors to understand the nature of this distant world’s ice shell and the ocean thought to lurk beneath it. Sam Howell […]
Jennifer Connelly in “Dark Matter” Apple TV+ To me, one of the best parts of a thriller is the moment when the twist hasn’t been revealed yet, but I have already figured it out. For that reason, I have to recommend Dark Matter, a new series on Apple TV+. Starring Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly […]
Chandra X-ray Observatory NASA/CXC & J. Vaughan On 23 July 1999, just months before I started university, NASA’s space shuttle Columbia launched with precious cargo on board. Not only was it carrying the first crew to be led by a woman, Eileen Collins, but its primary goal was to launch a new flagship space telescope, […]
Seen against the backdrop of Jupiter’s dramatic, swirling atmosphere, Europa might at first appear a bit drab. With its greyish-white surface, you might even say it resembles a well-worn cue ball in a run-down pool hall. On closer inspection, however, the Jovian system’s fourth-largest moon is shimmering with intrigue from deep within. From what we […]
The Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico detected radio signals similar to the Wow! signal NAIC/Arecibo Observatory/NSF An unexplained radio signal detected in 1977 known as the Wow! signal, which some have interpreted as an alien message, may have been the result of a natural galactic laser-like beam. On 15 August 1977, the Big Ear radio […]
Lightning can produce special waves of energy RooM the Agency/Alamy An overlooked mechanism lets energy from lightning reach the highest layers of the atmosphere, where it could threaten the safety of satellites and astronauts. When lightning occurs, the energy it carries sometimes gives rise to special electromagnetic waves called whistlers, so named because they can […]
An impact crater on Mars, with darker material exposed beneath the reddish dust NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona Six Martian meteorites have been traced back to the craters they were ejected from on Mars millions of years ago. Finding the original sources of these alien rocks will allow us to place them in context, yielding insights about […]
Space exploration has long been a staple of sci-fi films and TV, from the epic battles in Star Wars to gardening on the Red Planet in The Martian. However, many play fast and loose with the laws of physics, and scientific fact often couldn’t be further from the truth. Greg Brown is an astronomer at […]