Astrophysics

For the first time, atmospheric chemistry and 3D climate modeling have been combined in a way that could help identify planets beyond our solar system which could host life.

Scientists generally agree that the universe is expanding, but how fast is up for debate. Now, astrophysicists have come up with a new figure for the Hubble Constant by studying how gamma rays interact with the background radiation of the universe.

The Kamioka Gravitational-wave Detector (KAGRA) in Japan will join LIGO in the US and Virgo in Italy to triangulate where any waves are coming from.

Astronomers have studied the ringing tones of a newly-created black hole for the first time, proving Einstein right once again.

In NGC 6946, better known as the Fireworks galaxy, an extremely bright flare of X-rays was seen to appear and disappear within a matter of weeks.

The first polarized light from a gamma ray burst billions of light years away is helping astronomers gain a better understanding of collapsing stars and other high-energy phenomena. Originating in the constellation of Fornax, the light brighter than a billion suns came from massive jets of plasma.

An international team of physicists has finally found proof of circumplanetary disks, adding substantial weight to current theoretical models of planet formation. These disks of gas surrounded by dust have eluded detection, until now.

In a pair of studies published this week, astronomers have shed new light on dark matter through close observation of a galaxy previously found to have very little of the stuff, while the same team found a new example of a similar oddball galaxy.

Images taken by NASA's Spitzer Space telescope are providing insight into the phenomenon of "killer" galaxies that, when they merge, shut down star formation within the new united galaxies.

NASA has selected the newest space mission for its Explorer program: the Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx). The spacecraft will search for the ingredients of life in the Milky Way, and peer as far as 10 billion years back in time.

An astrophysicist from Oxford has put forward a new theory that suggests that dark matter and dark energy are actually part of the same phenomenon: a “dark fluid” with negative mass that fills the universe.

Our Sun may live a pretty lonesome life nowadays, but when it was born it was the middle child in a family of thousands. Now astronomers in Portugal have found not just a solar sibling but a “twin,” more or less identical to the Sun, meaning it’s a great place to look for extraterrestrial life.