Science Daily

By probing chemical processes observed in the Earth's hot mantle, scientists have started developing a library of basalt-based spectral signatures that not only will help reveal the composition of planets outside of our solar system but could demonstrate evidence of water on those exoplanets.

Scientists using observations from NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory have discovered, for the first time, the signal from a pair of monster black holes disrupting a cloud of gas in the center of a galaxy.

Astronomers have identified three ultra-massive galaxies -- nearly as massive as the Milky Way -- already in place within the first billion years after the Big Bang. This surprising discovery was made possible by the James Webb Space Telescope's FRESCO program, which uses the NIRCam/grism spectrograph to measure accurate distances and stellar masses of galaxies. The results indicate that the formation of stars in the early Universe was far more efficient than previously thought, challenging existing galaxy formation models.

The chances of intelligent life emerging in our Universe -- and in any hypothetical ones beyond it -- can be estimated by a new theoretical model which has echoes of the famous Drake Equation. This was the formula that American astronomer Dr Frank Drake came up with in the 1960s to calculate the number of detectable extraterrestrial civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy. More than 60 years on, astrophysicists have produced a different model which instead focuses on the conditions created by the acceleration of the Universe's expansion and the amount of stars formed.

The standard model for how galaxies formed in the early universe predicted that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) would see dim signals from small, primitive galaxies. But data are not confirming the popular hypothesis that invisible dark matter helped the earliest stars and galaxies clump together.

A team combined compositional data of primitive bodies like Kuiper Belt objects, asteroids and comets with new solar data sets to develop a revised solar composition that potentially reconciles spectroscopy and helioseismology measurements for the first time. Helioseismology probes the Sun's interior by analyzing the waves that travel through it, while spectroscopy reveals the surface composition based on the spectral signature produced by each chemical element.

Like the Earth, the Sun likely has swirling polar vortices, according to new research. But unlike on Earth, the formation and evolution of these vortices are driven by magnetic fields.

Why is the expansion of our Universe accelerating? Twenty-five years after its discovery, this phenomenon remains one of the greatest scientific mysteries. Solving it involves testing the fundamental laws of physics, including Albert Einstein's general relativity. Researchers compared Einstein's predictions with data from the Dark Energy Survey. Scientists discovered a slight discrepancy that varies with different periods in cosmic history. These results challenge the validity of Einstein's theories for explaining phenomena beyond our solar system on a universal scale.

Researchers have developed an innovative technique to search for black hole light echoes. Their novel method, which will make it easier for the mass and the spin of black holes to be measured, represents a major step forward, since it operates independently of many of the other ways in which scientists have probed these parameters in the past.

Tiny grains from asteroid Ryugu are revealing clues to the magnetic forces that shaped the far reaches of the solar system over 4.6 billion years ago. The findings suggest the distal solar system harbored a weak magnetic field, which could have played a role in forming the giant planets and other objects.

The temperature of elementary particles has been observed in the radioactive glow following the collision of two neutron stars and the birth of a black hole. This has, for the first time, made it possible to measure the microscopic, physical properties in these cosmic events. Simultaneously, it reveals how snapshot observations made in an instant represents an object stretched out across time.

Astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang that is consuming matter at a phenomenal rate -- over 40 times the theoretical limit. While short lived, this black hole's 'feast' could help astronomers explain how supermassive black holes grew so quickly in the early Universe.

Teams of astronomers used the combined power of NASA's Hubble and James Webb space telescopes to revisit the legendary Vega disk.

For Halloween, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) reveals a spooktacular image of a dark nebula that creates the illusion of a wolf-like silhouette against a colourful cosmic backdrop. Fittingly nicknamed the Dark Wolf Nebula, it was captured in a 283-million-pixel image by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) at ESO's Paranal Observatory in Chile.

New research in our Milky Way has revealed a neutron star that rotates around its axis at an extremely high speed. It spins 716 times per second, making it one of the fastest-spinning objects ever observed.

Researchers have pored over more than two decades' worth of data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory to show there's new knotty science to discover around black holes.

Researchers have strengthened the case that matter becomes dark energy when massive stars collapse and become black holes.

A distant interstellar cloud was found to contain an abundance of pyrene, a type of large carbon-containing molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). This suggest pyrene may have been the source of much of the carbon in our solar system.

A historical supernova documented by Chinese and Japanese astronomers in 1181 has been lost for centuries, until very recently. Yet, the newly found remnant shows some stunning characteristics that are puzzling astronomers. Now, it surrenders its secrets. A team provides the first detailed study of the supernova's structure and speed of expansion in 3D.

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) imaging instruments on three sun-orbiting observatories have captured sequences of comet C/2023 A3, known as Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, as it passed between the Earth and the Sun during the beginning of October 2024.