Space news stories

For several centuries now, scientists have known that light behaves like a wave, expanding out from its source until absorbed or reflected by objects, which are in turn illuminated.

In recent years, however, research has indicated that light can also behave like a liquid — flowing around objects and reconstituting on the other side.

Researchers have used an artificial atom to show it’s possible to keep Schrödinger’s cat alive indefinitely, but also accelerate its demise, all without needing to look inside its box.

Chinese physicists managed to demonstrate long-distance quantum entanglement in space, breaking previous records. This development, made possible by a novel method, could lead to improved information storage and transfer in the future.

Regular readers may have the same expectations of this column as they would a safari: something huge has to show up.

Greedy black holes. Giant lava lakes. Stars too big to exist. Even the comparatively small stuff in outer space, like asteroids or geologic features on a world’s surface, would effortlessly dwarf you if stood in front of them in a space suit.

Astronomers have recently identified a peculiar bubble-like structure associated with an energetic pulsar known as PSR J1015−5719. The newly found feature, designated G283.1−0.59, is most likely a polar wind nebula. The findings were presented June 9 in a paper published on the arXiv pre-print server.

An unknown Mars-to-Earth-mass planet may lurk in the outer reaches of the Solar System, according to new research on the orbits of minor planets to be published in the Astronomical Journal. This planet would be different from — and much closer than — the hypothetical Planet Nine.

The mystery of how jets of plasma explode from the surface of the sun and erupt into space thousands of times a day may finally be solved, a new study finds.

Long-term power cuts, destruction of electronic devices and increased cancer risk for aeroplane passengers are all potential effects of the Earth being hit by a powerful solar eruption.

One scientist is working on a novel solution for knocking dead, broken satellites out of orbit so they can’t cause any damage to other spacecraft: a magnetic grappling beam.

This Saturday at roughly 2:38 AM Eastern Time an asteroid bigger than a football stadium will whiz past Earth at 28,000 miles per hour and almost certainly not hit us. But that won’t be the end of it. The 755-foot-diameter projectile is set to return every year until 2022, during which time who knows what could happen.

The nearest star is Proxima Centauri, located a mere 4.25 light years away. Just for comparison, the Voyager spacecraft, the most distant human objects ever built by humans, would need about 50,000 years to make that journey.

Magnetic materials form the basis of technologies that play increasingly pivotal roles in our lives today, including sensing and hard-disk data storage. But as our innovative dreams conjure wishes for ever-smaller and faster devices, researchers are seeking new magnetic materials that are more compact, more efficient and can be controlled using precise, reliable methods.

Our bodies have an internal clock, called the circadian rhythm, which is in sync with the 24-hour cycle of day and night. It is regulated by the body’s core temperature and is linked to sunlight, insofar as the core temperature is affected by sunlight. The rhythm itself triggers important bodily functions like metabolism and the sleep cycle.

The billionaire entrepreneur and founder of SpaceX wants to make humanity a “multi-planetary species”

Musk’s Mars vision centers on a reusable rocket-and-spaceship combo that he’s dubbed the Interplanetary Transport System (ITS). Both the booster and the spaceship will be powered by SpaceX’s Raptor engine, still in development, which Musk said will be about three times stronger than the Merlin engines that power the company’s Falcon 9 rocket.

The planet Jupiter is a beast: Three-hundred-and-seventeen times the mass of the Earth, mostly made of metallic hydrogen, and at the center of an astonishing collective of orbiting natural bodies.

China says it has launched the world’s first quantum satellite, a project Beijing hopes will enable it to build a coveted “hack-proof” communications system with potentially significant military and commercial applications.