Space

What do you imagine the first settlers on Mars will look like? Maybe they’ll be the best and brightest our world has to offer: people from countries around the world with multiple degrees and decades of training in astrophysics. Or maybe the first Earthlings on Mars will be a bunch of microbes. A paper published

Time, as far as we know, moves only in one direction. But last year, researchers found events in some gamma-ray burst pulses that seemed to repeat themselves as though they were going backwards in time. Now, new research suggests a potential answer for what might be causing this time reversibility effect. If waves within the

At the edge of our Solar System, some unknown object is manipulating the paths of chunks of ice as they circle the Sun. These objects’ oval-shaped orbits all point in the same direction and tilt the same way, suggesting that an unseen force is herding them. At first, scientists thought the culprit was a mysterious

Elon Musk, the founder and CEO of SpaceX, addressed planet Earth on Saturday night about his latest plans to “extend consciousness beyond Earth” using a towering steel spaceship. Standing between two rockets that represented both the future of SpaceX and its nail-biting past, Musk delivered his talk to more than 100 people from the company’s

Astronomers have spotted three supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at the center of three colliding galaxies a billion light years away from Earth. That alone is unusual, but the three black holes are also glowing in x-ray emissions. This is evidence that all three are also active galactic nuclei (AGN,) gobbling up material and flaring brightly.

For all our perception of supermassive black holes as gravitational vortices ravenously devouring stars, it doesn’t actually happen that often. For instance, our galaxy’s own black hole might only do it a handful of times every 100,000 years. So it’s quite a special occasion for the astronomers who have just observed the immediate aftermath of

These days we’re used to jaw-dropping photos getting snapped from the International Space Station, but the latest one NASA astronaut Christina Koch recently posted to Twitter comes with a special message, too. The image shows the Soyuz MS-15 spaceflight taking three people to the ISS: Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka and NASA astronaut Jessica Meir as part

The first-ever direct image of a black hole‘s event horizon was a truly impressive feat of scientific ingenuity. But it was extremely difficult to achieve, and the resulting image was relatively low-resolution. Techniques and technology will be refined, and it’s expected that future direct images of black holes will improve with time. And a new

It’s hard living in a relativistic Universe, where even the nearest stars are so far away and the speed of light is absolute. It is little wonder then why science fiction franchises routinely employ FTL (Faster-than-Light) as a plot device. Push a button, press a petal, and that fancy drive system – whose workings no

The verdict is in: after conducting a thorough round of observations, the comet suspected of being an interstellar alien has been ratified. According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the comet is “unambiguously” interstellar in origin, and it has now been given a name: 2I/Borisov. Previously, the comet had been going by the provisional name

When KIC 8462852 – affectionately known as Tabby’s Star – arrived on the scene in 2015, it made one heck of a bang. We’d never seen a star like it before. It kept growing dimmer, erratically, in a manner that defied explanation. It still does – but it’s looking like KIC 8462852 isn’t quite unique.

The second-fastest pulsar ever discovered has been caught spitting out gamma rays, and this surprise discovery could help astronomers better understand the properties of these strange and extreme stars. The gamma radiation of millisecond pulsar PSR J0952−0607 is so faint, detecting it required some clever new search methods – and these made it possible to

Venus is not a nice place, by human standards. For a world named after a Roman goddess of love and beauty, it really is quite the toxic, super-heated hellscape. But it wasn’t always this way. In a new study, scientists make the case for how ancient Venus could have once supported life alongside oceans of

The tiny hole aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that caused so much drama in August of last year is still producing controversy, over a year later. According to new reports, Russia now knows the source of the hole, but it doesn’t look like NASA has been informed. While talking to the participants of a

On 27 June 2018, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency‘s (JAXA) Hayabusa2 spacecraft reached asteroid 162173 Ryugu. As part of JAXA’s program to study Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs), this mission has spent over a year conducting landing operations, shooting up the surface with “bullets” and an anti-tank warhead, and collecting samples from the surface and interior that

In the most extreme regions of the Universe, galaxies are being killed. Their star formation is being shut down and astronomers want to know why. The first ever Canadian-led large project on one of the world’s leading telescopes is hoping to do just that. The new program, called the Virgo Environment Traced in Carbon Monoxide

The JunoCam onboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft continues to provide we Earthbound humans with a steady stream of stunning images of Jupiter. We can’t get enough of the gas giant’s hypnotic, other-worldly beauty. This image of Io passing over Jupiter is the latest one to awaken our sense of wonder. This image was processed by Kevin

China’s Yutu-2 lunar lander just sent back new images of a strange substance it found near a small crater on the far side of the Moon. Last month, the team behind the lunar rover claimed it had found a “colored mysterious substance” as described in the rover’s diary, which claimed that the material’s “shape and color

Compared to our brief human lives, we tend to think of events on galactic scales as ones that happen extremely slowly. But that’s not always the case. In a spectacular fashion, six galaxies have just undergone a huge transformation in a matter of mere months. They’ve gone from relatively peaceful galaxies to active quasars –

The time has come. We’re going to smash a spacecraft into an asteroid. The asteroid is Didymos B, the smaller of the two objects in the Didymos binary asteroid system. The spacecraft is NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). The reason: to test whether a spacecraft impact can deflect an asteroid’s trajectory, as a means

We’re yet to make a conclusive detection of an exomoon. But if such moons are out there, orbiting planets outside the Solar System, one of them could be responsible for the peculiarities of KIC 8462852 – AKA Tabby’s star. New research suggests that the strange brightening and dimming fluctuations of the star’s light that have

The biggest volcano on Jupiter’s moon Io could be about to blow. Decades of observation have revealed a periodic cycle in the volcano’s eruptions; according to past behaviour, it’s due for the next one any day. That potential burst of activity – or lack thereof – could help us to better understand the volcano and

Last month, we got the exciting news of a rare flash of light on Jupiter, bright enough to be seen through telescopes. According to a new analysis, the cause of this smash was a small asteroid, with a density consistent with meteors that are equal parts stone and iron. The meteor exploded in Jupiter’s upper

Astronomers have identified what could be the most massive neutron star to date.  It’s a pulsar, named J0740+6620, and discrepancies in the timing of its pulses has allowed its mass to be calculated to 2.14 times that of the Sun, packed into a star just 30 kilometres (19 miles) across.  To put that into perspective,

Springtime on Earth can be a riotous affair, as plants come back to life and creatures large and small get ready to mate. Nothing like that happens on Mars, of course. But even on a cold world like Mars, springtime brings changes, though you have to look a little more closely to see them. Lucky

Getting spacecraft into orbit is incredibly costly and difficult, and so scientists keep returning to the idea of a space elevator that can lift people and equipment out of Earth’s atmosphere more easily. Now researchers have come up with a twist on the concept that – in theory at least – is doable with today’s

In the Solar System, there are over 6,300 known comets. There are millions of asteroids. And of all those objects, only ‘Oumuamua – a red, cigar-shaped asteroid – is known to have come from elsewhere. Until now. A new discovery, revealed just last week, has astronomers excited. A comet named C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), discovered on

On August 30, amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov spotted a comet of extrasolar origin passing through our Solar System. This is the second time in as many years that an interstellar object has been observed (the last being ‘Oumuamua 2.0 in 2017). Thanks to the Gemini Observatory, we now have pictures of this comet, making it

The supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*, is usually relatively quiet. It’s not an active nucleus, spewing light and heat into the space around it; most of the time, the black hole’s activity is low key, with minimal fluctuations in its brightness. Most of the time. Recently, astronomers caught

Astronomers have found a supermassive black hole (SMBH) with an unusually regular feeding schedule. The behemoth is an active galactic nucleus (AGN) at the heart of the Seyfert 2 galaxy GSN 069. The AGN is about 250 million light years from Earth, and contains about 400,000 times the mass of the Sun. The team of

SpaceX just posted dramatic footage of its commercial space taxi Crew Dragon undergoing rigorous tests of its emergency abort system. The idea is that if something goes wrong with the rocket carrying the Crew Dragon to orbit, the module can engage its own thrusters to quickly escape the danger – and then coast down safely

A new discovery relating to a rogue star may have just given astronomers a clue towards one of the weirdest mysteries associated with black holes: Where are the middle-sized ones? We know that stellar-mass black holes exist at up to 100 times the mass of the Sun, and supermassive black holes exist that are over 100,000

Hubble has captured a new image of Saturn that makes you wonder if it’s even real. The image is so crisp it makes it look like Saturn is just floating in space. Which it is. This image of the ringed-planet was captured when Saturn was at its closest to Earth, some 1.36 billion km away

Advances in astronomical observation over the past century have allowed scientists to construct a remarkably successful model of how the cosmos works. It makes sense – the better we can measure something, the more we learn. But when it comes to the question of how fast our Universe is expanding, some new cosmological measurements are

When you strike a bell with a hammer, it rings for some time after, as the vibrating metal continues to resonate. And, as it turns out, when you strike a black hole with another black hole, something similar occurs – only instead of sound waves, the newly formed black hole sends gravitational waves rippling out

The region at the centre of our galaxy is still full of mysteries, but astronomers have just found a clue to its past: Huge, radio-emitting bubbles, extending 700 light-years either side of the galactic plane. They could be, the researchers believe, the result of a huge eruption from our galaxy’s supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*.

Astronomers may have spotted the second object ever to visit our Solar System from another star system. The object may even fly near Mars later this year, though it’s still far away. The scientists’ hunch is strong but not yet certain: Right now, the chances are much higher that the object, known as comet “C/2019

In the atmosphere of an exoplanet just 111 light-years away, astronomers have just made a highly exciting discovery: they’ve detected water. As much as 50 percent of the atmosphere of K2-18b could be water vapour. But unlike other giant exoplanets on which atmospheric water has been detected, K2-18b is a super-Earth. It could be rocky,

All the comets in our Solar System may share the same origin story – and it could help explain how life on Earth came to exist. A team of American and European scientists found that 14 different comets originated at the same time and place: a protoplanetary disk orbiting near our newly-formed Sun, according to

Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, might have a more violent past than astronomers realised. A new study suggests that the liquid methane lakes that dot Titan’s surface may have formed when pockets of warming nitrogen exploded below the moon’s surface. This idea would solve a mystery that emerged when NASA’s Cassini mission to Saturn – which

Remember the spectacle of that gigantic telescope unveiled in a mountain-ringed valley in China just a few years ago? Well, the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) has now picked up a mysterious space signal known as a fast radio burst. Fast radio bursts or FRBs are brief but powerful pulses of energy from distant

Earth’s magnetic poles drift over time. This is something that every airplane pilot or navigator knows. They have to account for it when they plan their flights. They drift so much, in fact, that the magnetic poles are in different locations than the geographic poles, or the axis of Earth’s rotation. Today, Earth’s magnetic north

The Milky Way could be teeming with interstellar alien civilizations, according to a new study. We just don’t know about it because they haven’t paid us a visit in 10 million years. The study, published last month in The Astronomical Journal, posits that intelligent extraterrestrial life could be taking its time to explore the galaxy,

ScienceAlert editor’s update 08/09/2019: ISRO has reportedly found the location of the Vikram lander, after losing contact with it on its descent to the lunar surface on Saturday. They’re yet to determine what condition the lander is in. In an exclusive interview, ISRO Chairman K. Sivan told India Today TV that the Chandrayaan 2 orbiter

Mars is well-known for being a dry and arid place, where dusty red sand dunes are prevalent and water exists almost entirely in the form of ice and permafrost. An upside to this, however, is the fact that these conditions are the reason why Mars’ many surface features are so well preserved. And as missions

About 10,000 light years away, in the constellation Centaurus, is a planetary nebula called NGC 5307. A planetary nebula is the remnant of a star like our Sun, when it has reached what can be described as the end of its life. This Hubble image of NGC 5307 not only makes you wonder about the

The heart of every major galaxy is thought to contain a supermassive black hole – a place where gravity is so strong that anything, including light, gets devoured. Like all black holes, supermassive ones form when stars collapse in on themselves at the end of their life cycles. On average, they’re millions of times more

After 14 years of staring at a dead star, astronomers have once again confirmed Einstein’s theory of general relativity. PSR J1906+0746, a pulsar 25,000 light-years away, slightly wobbles as it spins – an effect that could see its pulses disappear from our sky in less than a decade. It’s called precession, a phenomenon predicted by