Astronomers have discovered strong evidence for the closest supermassive black hole outside of the Milky Way galaxy. This giant black hole is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, one of the nearest galactic neighbors to our own.
A privately owned lunar lander touched down on the moon Thursday, but as the minutes dragged on, flight controllers could not confirm its condition or whether it was even upright near the south pole.
Interstellar material has been discovered in our solar system, but researchers continue to hunt for where it came from and how it got here. A new study led by Western astrophysicists Cole Gregg and Paul Wiegert recommends Alpha…
Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket successfully carried out its first commercial mission on Thursday, placing a French military satellite into orbit to give the continent a new independent access to space.
When astronauts walk on the moon, they'll serve as the eyes, hands, and boots-on-the-ground interpreters supporting the broader teams of scientists on Earth. NASA is leveraging virtual reality to provide high-fidelity, cost-effective…
New research by Curtin University has achieved a breakthrough in eco-friendly display technology, creating highly efficient and stable blue quantum dot LEDs (QLEDs) that could power the next generation of televisions, smartphones, VR…
Within the next decade, space agencies plan to bring samples of rock from Mars to Earth for study. Of concern is the possibility these samples contain life, which could have unforeseen consequences. Therefore, researchers in this field…
Ice may be present a few centimeters below the moon's surface in more areas of the lunar polar regions than was previously thought due to large, yet highly localized, variations in surface temperatures. The results, published in…
For decades, people have been trying to directly detect dark matter: the missing mass in our universe. Now, there's a new, super-sensitive detector on the case—and even though it's still in the research and development phase, it's already…
After several false starts, Europe's new rocket Ariane 6 is aiming to finally blast off on its first commercial mission Thursday, carrying with it the continent's hopes of bolstering its security and independent access to space.
Curtin University researchers have discovered the world's oldest known meteorite impact crater, which could significantly redefine our understanding of the origins of life and how our planet was shaped.
A type of artificial intelligence that mimics the functioning of the human brain could represent a powerful solution in automatically detecting wildfires, plummeting the time needed to mitigate their devastating effects, a new study finds.
A fresh look at past data reveals that exoplanets with masses similar to Jupiter formed much sooner than previously thought, according to new research. The Ohio State University study's results provide new information about the timing of…
How can we produce clean hydrogen without burning fossil hydrocarbons or other non-renewable energy sources? We can do so through photoelectrochemistry, or artificial photosynthesis, a method that—just like photosynthesis—uses sunlight and…
Mission engineers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California turned off the cosmic ray subsystem experiment aboard Voyager 1 on Feb. 25 and will shut off Voyager 2's low-energy charged particle instrument on March 24. Three…
Online threats, hatred and harassment have led people who feel discriminated against to create digital spaces where they can feel safe. According to a new thesis from the University of Gothenburg, these spaces are characterized by clear…
Our ancestors were making tools out of bones 1.5 million years ago, winding back the clock for this important moment in human evolution by more than a million years, a study said Wednesday.
Dust and rocks residing on the surface of the moon take a beating in space. Without a protective magnetosphere and atmosphere like Earth's, the lunar surface faces continual particle bombardment from solar wind, cosmic rays, and…
Binary neutron star mergers occur millions of light-years away from Earth. Interpreting the gravitational waves they produce presents a major challenge for traditional data-analysis methods. These signals correspond to minutes of data from…
The shape of a planet's orbit is one of its fundamental properties, along with its size and distance from its host star. Earth has a nearly circular orbit, but some planets outside our solar system, called exoplanets, have very elliptical…
Scientists from UNSW Sydney have located a potential new exoplanet—a planet that orbits a star outside of our solar system—using a technique known as "transit timing variation."
During NASA's SpaceX Crew-10 mission to the International Space Station, which is scheduled to launch in March, select members of the four-person crew will participate in exercise and medical research aimed at keeping astronauts fit on…
We don't just have sex to reproduce—new research suggests that using sex to manage social tension could be a trait that existed in the common ancestor of humans and apes six million years ago.
An international team of marine biologists have published research in Molecular Ecology that shows the benefits of gene flow between geographically distant and genetically different killer whale populations. The paper is titled "Admixture…
Paranthropus robustus was a species of prehistoric human that lived in South Africa about 2 million years ago, alongside Homo ergaster, a direct ancestor of modern people. Fossils of Paranthropus robustus are found in abundance at…
Analysis of sedimentary ancient DNA has illuminated 6,000 years of the lives of Adélie penguin colonies on Antarctica's Ross Sea coast, showing how animals in the region responded to climate and environmental change events over millennia.
New research from the University of St Andrews has used a database of Loch Ness Monster reports to translate anecdotes into data, shedding light on statistical biases and the importance of defining the right information for analysis.
When a mudflat crumbles on Earth, or an ice sheet splinters on one of Jupiter's moons (Europa), or an ancient lakebed breaks on Mars, do these fractures follow a hidden geometric script? Could similar patterns on another planet hint that…