How Earth and the other planets of the solar system formed and evolved over the eons is a hot question for planetary scientists like me. One of the best ways to find out is by looking at rocks in space or meteorites on Earth. Getting the rocks is the hard part. Sending spacecraft to asteroids ...
After a decade of silence, one of the most powerful magnets in the universe suddenly burst back to life in late 2018. The reawakening of this “magnetar,” a city-sized star named XTE J1810-197, born from a supernova explosion, was an incredibly violent affair. The snapping and untwisting of the tangled magnetic field released enormous amounts ...
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a health alert after the first case of H5N1 avian influenza, or bird flu, seemingly spread from a cow to a human. A farm worker in Texas contracted the virus amid an outbreak in dairy cattle. This is the second human case in ...
If you’ve ever been taught about how Earth orbits around the Sun, you might well think our planet travels along an oval-shaped path that brings it much closer to the Sun at some times of the year than at others. You’d have a good reason to think that, too: It’s how most textbooks show things. ...
So, you got your eyesight tested and found out you need your first pair of glasses. Or you found out you need a stronger pair than the ones you have. You put them on and everything looks crystal clear. But after a few weeks, things look blurrier without them than before your eye test. What’s ...
Stars are born from huge clouds of mostly hydrogen gas floating in space. Astronomers like me study this gas because it helps us understand how stars and galaxies form and grow. Hydrogen gas gives off a faint glow that is invisible to human eyes but can be observed with a telescope tuned to detect radio ...
Our digital world is bigger and more connected than ever. Social media isn’t just a daily habit — with more than 5 billion users globally, it’s woven into the very fabric of our existence. These platforms offer entertainment, connection, information, and support, but they’re also battlegrounds for misinformation and online harassment. Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, ...
How fast can a neutron star drive powerful jets into space? The answer, it turns out, is about one-third the speed of light, as our team has just revealed in a new study published in Nature. Energetic cosmic beams known as jets are seen throughout our universe. They are launched when material — mainly dust ...
For decades, the pursuit of quantum computing has struggled with the need for extremely low temperatures, mere fractions of a degree above absolute zero (0 Kelvin or –273.15°C). That’s because the quantum phenomena that grant quantum computers their unique computational abilities can only be harnessed by isolating them from the warmth of the familiar classical ...
How stable are planetary systems? Will Earth and its seven siblings always continue in their steady celestial paths, or might we one day be randomly ejected from our cosmic home? Physicists understand the rules that govern the orbits of two celestial bodies, but as soon as a third is added (let alone a fourth, fifth, ...
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