Science News for Students • 23rd December 2020 Rogue planets wander the galaxy all alone Not all planets orbit stars. Some zip through our galaxy all on their own. And now astronomers have found the smallest of these rogue planets yet.
Sky & Telescope • 1st December 2020 Specks Between the Stars When thinking about cosmic wonders, we often sweep interstellar dust under the rug. But these humble particles play a huge role in the universe.
Science News • 28th September 2020 A ‘lake’ on Mars may be surrounded by more pools of water New radar data add to evidence of water under Mars’ south pole, but it’s not “a slam dunk yet”
Science News • 27th August 2020 Earth’s building blocks may have had far more water than previously thought Meteorites suggest that H2O in the mantle comes from local origins, contrary to expectations
Knowable • 5th June 2020 Jupiter revealed The Juno spacecraft has been circling Jupiter since 2016. Here are four things we’ve learned so far about the biggest planet in the solar system.
Science News • 11th May 2020 Salty water might exist on Mars, but it’s probably too cold for life Salty liquids may last for several hours on the Red Planet but be too chilly for any known microorganisms from Earth to survive, simulations suggest.
Science News • 20th April 2020 Interstellar comet Borisov has an unexpected amount of carbon monoxide The second known visitor from outside the solar system has three times as much CO relative to H2O than any comet seen in the inner solar system.
Science News • 16th April 2020 New images of the sun reveal superfine threads of glowing plasma The sharpest images yet taken of the sun’s atmosphere reveal superfine threads of hot plasma draped across small regions that have appeared rather bland until now.
Science News • 13th April 2020 ‘Oumuamua might be a shard of a broken planet Simulations led to this new origin story for the first known visitor to our solar system.
Sky & Telescope • 30th March 2020 How Amateurs Could Help Future Exoplanet Observations Large observatories will require precise timing info to measure as many exoplanet atmospheres as possible. Backyard astronomers have the power to keep that intel fresh.
Science News • 12th March 2020 New fleets of private satellites are clogging the night sky Global internet satellites are photobombing telescopes and messing with astronomers’ research
Science News • 28th February 2020 A black hole eruption marks the most powerful explosion ever spotted Hundreds of millions of years ago, a black hole blasted out roughly 100 billion times as much energy as the sun is expected to emit in its lifetime.
Science News • 27th February 2020 An ancient magma ocean may have once driven Earth’s magnetic field Computer simulations of molten silicate under extreme temperature and pressure may have just filled in a gap in the history of Earth’s magnetism.
Science News • 24th February 2020 4 things we’ve learned so far about Mars from NASA’s InSight lander In its first 10 months, the InSight lander detected Marsquakes and an unexpectedly strong magnetic field at its landing site on the Red Planet.
Science News • 11th February 2020 An ancient galaxy grew massive — then oddly stopped making stars Something abruptly tossed star-making gas from this galaxy or stopped it from falling in.
Science News • 10th February 2020 ESA’s Solar Orbiter will be the first spacecraft to study the sun’s polar zones A new sungazing spacecraft has launched on a mission to chart the sun’s unexplored polar regions and to understand how our star creates and controls the vast bubble of plasma that envelops the solar system.
Science News • 7th February 2020 This is the first fast radio burst known to have a steady beat A periodic flurry of radio waves from some unknown object in deep space could help astronomers figure out what’s triggering similar radio bursts in other galaxies.
Science News • 30th January 2020 The wobbling orbit of a pulsar proves Einstein right, yet again Astronomers have found a pulsar’s orbit being rocked to and fro as a neighboring white dwarf whips up spacetime, in accordance with general relativity.
Science News • 29th January 2020 These are the most detailed images of the sun ever taken First images from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope reveal details on the surface of the sun three times as small as ever seen.
Science News • 28th January 2020 NASA’s Spitzer telescope is shutting down. Here’s a look back at some of its discoveries For more than 16 years, the Spitzer Space Telescope has witnessed the births and deaths of stars, charted the Milky Way, found faraway worlds and more.
