Deep in the heart of Martu Country lies Karlamilyi National Park. Red rock and red sand stretch as far as the eye can see. Within some of these rocky outcrops, live a small population of wiminyji (northern quolls). But they haven’t always been restricted to such a small area.
Astronomers have captured the central region of our Milky Way in a striking new image, unveiling a complex network of filaments of cosmic gas in unprecedented detail. Obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), this rich dataset—the largest ALMA image to date—will allow astronomers to probe the lives of stars in the most extreme region of our galaxy, next to the supermassive black hole at its center.
We have known for several decades that the universe is expanding. Scientists use multiple techniques to measure the present-day expansion rate of the universe, known as the Hubble constant. These methods are internally consistent and based on the same physics, so all observed values of the Hubble constant should agree. But those that come from early-universe datasets disagree with those that come from late-universe datasets. This problem is known as the Hubble tension and is considered to be one of the most significant open questions in cosmology.
Indian astronomers have investigated an ultraluminous X-ray pulsar in the galaxy NGC 4631, designated X-8. The new study, described in a paper published Feb. 16 on the arXiv preprint server, provides essential information regarding the magnetic field evolution of this pulsar.
One of the largest known stars in the universe underwent a dramatic transformation in 2014, new research shows, and may be preparing to explode. A study led by Gonzalo Muñoz-Sanchez at the National Observatory of Athens, published in Nature Astronomy today, argues that the enormous star WOH G64 has transitioned from a red supergiant to a rare yellow hypergiant—in what may be evidence of an impending supernova.
How did the construction of the Subaru Telescope transform Japanese astronomy? A new study provides a quantitative answer by analyzing scientific publications and their citation impact during the telescope’s early years. Drawing on large-scale publication data, the research shows that the Subaru Telescope generated many internationally influential results and significantly enhanced Japan’s global visibility in astronomical research.
The nor’easter smacking much of the Northeast with nearly 3 feet of snow in places is as classic and powerful a blizzard as you can get, the strongest in a decade and up there with the most intense in history, meteorologists said.
NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this panorama of boxwork formations—the low ridges seen here with hollows in between them—using its Mastcam on Sept. 26, 2025, the 4,671st Martian day (sol) of the mission. These boxwork formations were created billions of years ago when water leaked through rock cracks. Minerals carried into the cracks later hardened; after eons of windblown sand eroding away the softer rock, the hardened ridges were left exposed.
For the first time, a much younger version of the sun has been caught red-handed blowing bubbles in the galaxy by astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The bubble—called an “astrosphere”—completely surrounds the juvenile star. Winds from the star’s surface are blowing up the bubble and filling it with hot gas as it expands into much cooler galactic gas and dust surrounding the star. The sun has a similar bubble around it, which scientists call the heliosphere, created by the solar wind. It extends far beyond the planets in our solar system and protects Earth from damaging particles from interstellar space.
Southwest Research Institute was part of an international team that demonstrated how complex organic molecules (COMs), key chemical precursors to life, could have been incorporated into Jupiter’s Galilean moons during their formation. The team’s findings have resulted in complementary studies published in The Planetary Science Journal and Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, offering new insights into the potential for life in the Jovian system.
For about six months, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has been exploring a region full of geologic formations called boxwork, low ridges standing roughly 3 to 6 feet (1 to 2 meters) tall with sandy hollows in between. Crisscrossing the surface for miles, the formations suggest ancient groundwater flowed on this part of the red planet later than scientists expected. This possibility raises new questions about how long microbial life could have survived on Mars billions of years ago, before rivers and lakes dried up and left a freezing desert world behind.
New observations of Ganymede reveal a striking similarity between the auroras on the largest moon in the solar system and those on Earth. The international team of astrophysicists, led by researchers from the University of Liège, has produced new results indicating that, despite different conditions, the fundamental physical processes that generate auroras are common to different celestial bodies, and not just planets.
Using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers has discovered a new exoplanet orbiting a distant star known as TIC-65910228. The newfound alien world is slightly larger and nearly five times more massive than Jupiter. The discovery was reported in a paper published Feb. 13 on the arXiv pre-print server.
Grounded until at least April, NASA’s giant moon rocket is headed back to the hangar this week for more repairs before astronauts climb aboard.
An international team of astronomers has discovered a distant planetary system that challenges long-standing theories of how planets form. Across our galaxy, astronomers routinely observe a characteristic pattern in planetary systems: rocky planets orbiting close to their host star with gas giants farther away. Our own solar system follows this rule, with the inner planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, composed of rock and iron, and the outer planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune being predominantly gaseous.
NASA’s new moon rocket suffered another setback Saturday, putting next month’s planned launch with astronauts in jeopardy.
Drawing together leading experts from across the field, an international collaboration of cosmologists has created a unified approach for measuring the value of the Hubble constant. Published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, the milestone could bring us a step closer to understanding why the universe appears to be expanding faster than our standard cosmological model predicts.
The moon crossed the sun’s path on February 17, causing what is known as an annular solar eclipse. The sun was not covered completely, but the moon blocked enough of its light to leave a fiery ring. Unless you’re deep in the southern hemisphere, you won’t have noticed.
As space agencies prepare for human missions to the moon and Mars, scientists need to understand how the absence of gravity affects living cells. Now, a team of researchers has built a rugged, affordable microscope that can image cells in real time during the chaotic conditions of zero-gravity flight—and they’re making the design available to the broader scientific community.
Inspired by the simple mechanism of a seesaw—when one side goes up, the other side goes down—researchers asked an intriguing question: Could a single molecule switch between two different roles like a seesaw? This idea led to the creation of a new type of artificial protein called the “seesaw protein.”
