Voyager makes an interstellar discovery

The solar system is passing through an interstellar cloud that physics says should not exist. In the Dec. 24th issue of Nature, a team of scientists reveal how NASA's Voyager spacecraft have solved the mystery.

What we know about Jupiter

Look towards the north-west after sunset (south-west in the northern hemisphere) and there is currently one bright point of light that easily stands out relative to everything around it. That is the planet Jupiter, shining ...

Found in space: Complex carbon-based molecules

Much of the carbon in space is believed to exist in the form of large molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Since the 1980s, circumstantial evidence has indicated that these molecules are abundant in space, ...

Fermi finds possible dark matter ties in Andromeda galaxy

NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has found a signal at the center of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy that could indicate the presence of the mysterious stuff known as dark matter. The gamma-ray signal is similar to ...

One of the Milky Way's arms might encircle the entire galaxy

Given that our Solar System sits inside the Milky Way Galaxy, getting a clear picture of what it looks like as a whole can be quite tricky. In fact, it was not until 1852 that astronomer Stephen Alexander first postulated ...

Complex organic molecules discovered in infant star system

For the first time, astronomers have detected the presence of complex organic molecules, the building blocks of life, in a protoplanetary disk surrounding a young star, suggesting once again that the conditions that spawned ...

Large simulation finds new origin of supermassive black holes

Computer simulations conducted by astrophysicists at Tohoku University in Japan, have revealed a new theory for the origin of supermassive black holes. In this theory, the precursors of supermassive black holes grow by swallowing ...

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