A team of researchers say they have found the “strongest statistical evidence yet that Planet 9 is really out there” in the solar system after studying a population of distant, unstable objects that cross Neptune’s orbit. When it comes to discovering planets, finding them around other stars is actually a little easier than locating them…

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have made the surprising discovery of methane emissions coming from a brown dwarf, or “failed star.” The find suggests that the brown dwarf features aurorae, and might even be orbited by an undiscovered exomoon, researchers said. The JWST brown dwarf discovery is surprising, because these cold and…

The proposed new dark matter detection method would look for frequent interactions between nuclei in a detector and low-energy dark matter that may be present in and around Earth. (Right) A conventional direct detection experiment looks for occasional recoils from dark matter scattering. Courtesy: Anirban Das, Noah Kurinsky and Rebecca Leane Dark matter makes up…

An external pallet packed with old nickel-hydrogen batteries is pictured shortly after its release into space in 2021. Credit: NASA. Early last month, a hunk of metal crashed into a Florida home and tore through two floors before it punctured the floor, missing the homeowner’s son by two rooms. A home security camera recorded the…

Rock collector: the Mars Sample Return mission aims to return samples of soil and rocks that Perseverance has gathered since 2021 at Mars’s Jezera crater (courtesy: NASA/JPL-Caltech) NASA is seeking alternative designs for its Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, which is meant to bring back soil and rocks gathered by the agency’s Perseverance rover. But…

Astronomy and stargazing apps are a great option for beginners who are getting to know the night sky for the first time, and indeed seasoned observers who would love to be able to fit their substantial star chart in their back pocket! One aspect of stargazing that puts beginners off is the prospect of looking…

Every new generation of eyes sees a new version of our galaxy, the Milky Way. This Impressionistic swirl of color represents the churning magnetic fields in giant dust clouds near the center of the galaxy. The map, painted in infrared wavelengths, reveals new details in a stretch of our galactic home 500 light-years wide. The…

Time travel, sadly, is still not available at the time of publishing, but if you’re itching to know what will happen at the end of the Universe, this book breaks down all the possible outcomes. Astrophysicist Katie Mack pulls readers along on a swift, mindbending forecast of the cosmos’ possible finales, making intricate concepts, like…

image:  This artist concept portrays the brown dwarf W1935, which is located 47 light-years from Earth. Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope found infrared emission from methane coming from W1935. This is an unexpected discovery because the brown dwarf is cold and lacks a host star; therefore, there is no obvious source of energy…