Earth's Place in the Universe
- Planets
Jupiter’s stormy weather runs deep
Jupiter is covered in swirling storms. A new 3-D map of the planet’s atmosphere shows those storms start far, far below the clouds.
- Physics
Cool Jobs: Solar sleuthing
No star is closer than the sun, and yet there’s much science still don’t know about how it actually works. These scientists are helping solve the mysteries.
- Physics
Spinning black holes may ‘sing’ during a collision
The massive black hole in the movie Interstellar would create a unique gravity-wave signal when gobbling a smaller partner.
- Climate
This planet’s lightning storms are like nothing on Earth
Radio waves from a faraway exoplanet could signal intense lightning storms there.
- Chemistry
Key sugar for life on Earth could have formed in space
Ribose, a sugar in RNA, may have formed in space and then rained down on a young Earth, a new study suggests.
- Chemistry
Dwarf galaxy spawned heavy elements
A study of nine stars in the dwarf galaxy Reticulum II found heavy elements. They had been produced after a violent stellar event sparked a chemical chain reaction.
- Space
Hurricane at this galaxy’s center is wicked fast
The gale-force winds around one quasar whip by at almost 200 million kilometers per hour. That’s 625,000 times faster than the strongest hurricanes on Earth.
- Earth
Cool Jobs: Mapping the unknown
Scientists find different ways of exploring places humans will never visit — and drawing maps to help us better understand such mysterious places.
- Physics
Scientists Say: Yottawatt
On Earth, scientists measure energy use in watts. When you have lot of those watts — one million billion billion — you have a yottawatt.
- Chemistry
Smash hit: Making ‘diamond’ that’s harder than diamonds
Scientists had suspected extreme meteorite impacts might turn graphite into an unusual type of diamond. Now they’ve seen it happen — in under a nanosecond.
- Physics
Black hole smashup sent out ‘yottawatts’ of power
When two black holes collided, they released a lot of energy in gravity waves. How much? How about 36 septillion yottawatts of power!
- Physics
Gravity waves detected at last!
Albert Einstein predicted gravitational waves 100 years ago. Now scientists have detected them coming from the collision of two black holes.
