Jessica Watkins is a self-described “rock nerd” with a doctorate in geology. So when she boarded her first mission to space as a member of NASA’s astronaut corps, she brought along photos of family and friends — and some rocks. “Of course, I had to,” Watkins, 34...

Physicists have discovered a remarkable correspondence between dense states of gluons — the gluelike carriers of the strong nuclear force within atomic nuclei — and enormous black holes in the cosmos. The dense walls of gluons, known as a color glass condensate (CGC), are generated in...

Like hurricane categories, a scale for atmospheric river storm severity could help communities around the globe compare and prepare. Atmospheric rivers – vast airborne corridors of water vapor flowing from Earth’s tropics toward higher latitudes – can steer much-needed rain to parched lands. But in...

African aviation started the year with the weight of COVID still hanging over it. After the emergence of the Omicron variant in late 2021, airlines had been forced to unwind their recently reinstated international flights, as governments added hotel quarantines back to the agenda in a bid to stem...

In a first, scientists have seen direct evidence of active volcanism on Earth’s twin, setting the stage for the agency’s VERITAS mission to investigate. Direct geological evidence of recent volcanic activity has been observed on the surface of Venus for the first time. Scientists made the discovery...

  The research uses archival NASA data to show that Venus may be losing heat from geologic activity in regions called coronae, possibly like early tectonic activity on Earth. Earth and Venus are rocky planets of about the same size and rock chemistry, so they should be losing their internal...

We have long been fascinated with the idea of alien life. The earliest written record presenting the idea of “aliens” is seen in the satiric work of Assyrian writer Lucian of Samosata dated to 200 AD. In one novel, Lucian writes of a journey to the Moon and the bizarre life he imagines...

The Exoplanet Watch project invites you to use your smartphone or personal telescope to help track worlds outside our solar system. More than 5,000 planets have been confirmed to exist outside our solar system, featuring a wide array of characteristics like clouds made of glass and twin suns...

An international team of researchers under the leadership of Dr Florian Peißker at the University of Cologne’s Institute of Astrophysics has discovered a very young star in its formation phase near the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) at the centre of our Milky Way. The star is...