Astrophysics

The cosmos is full of surprises. Now astronomers have discovered a “heartbreak” star system where tidal waves, three times taller than the Sun, rise and crash on the surface of a giant star thanks to the motions of a smaller companion star.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has scored another first, detecting evidence of water in a planet-forming disc circling another star where at least two terrestrial-class proto-planets seem to be forming.

The very fabric of spacetime is constantly warping on unimaginably tiny scales, as ripples from past cataclysms wash over us. Astrophysicists have now detected a background sea of gravitational waves, using a galaxy-scale detector of dead stars.

Gravity is the only fundamental force that can’t currently be explained by quantum physics. Now scientists have outlined a plan to look for signs of quantum gravity out in the cosmos by listening in to the 'ringing' of colliding black holes.

NASA has confirmed that our solar system was struck by a gamma-ray burst originating 1.9 billion light-years away that was brighter than any since the beginning of human civilization in a "1 in 10,000 year" event that blinded space satellite sensors.

Is the evolution of our nearest planetary neighbor into a nightmarish hellscape typical? If it is, should Earthlings be worried? To find out, astronomers have proposed using the James Webb Space Telescope to look at five exoplanets in the Venus Zone.

Millions of planets have sides permanently bathed in the light of their star, and sides always cloaked in darkness. Between these two sides lies the "terminator zone," a logical place to search for extraterrestrial life, says a new study.

If you could zoom way out to look at the universe at its largest scale, you’d see that it’s made up of a colossal cosmic web. Now, astronomers have detected shockwaves moving through this web, providing new insights into large-scale magnetic fields.

A groundbreaking new study could answer a perplexing astrophysics mystery without complicating our current models. Physicists suggest that black holes could contain a strange form of energy that’s accelerating the expansion of the universe.

Astronomers have put together one of the most comprehensive maps of all the matter in the universe. The huge undertaking hints at a slightly smoother universe than we thought, suggesting that something might be missing from our models.

Dark matter remains elusive despite decades of searching. Now physicists have proposed a new experiment that would try to find signals by sending atomic clocks to where dark matter should be at its most dense – right near the Sun.

Wormholes are a sci-fi staple, and and it's possible that they exist in the real universe. But how would they work? Physicists have now used a quantum processor to simulate a traversable wormhole, teleporting information between two quantum systems.