With the help of ALMA's dust-penetrating gaze, researchers got this snapshot of a young stellar pair in action. (Credit:ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Alves et al.)
Astronomers recently imaged two budding stars locked in a gravitational waltz that twisted their planet-forming disks into a pretzel-shaped knot.
The stars, recently imaged with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), are giving astronomers a unique look at a nascent binary system. The discovery sheds new light on ...read more
Tiny black holes are thought to speckle the universe, and new research posits the solar system may have captured one. (Credit: nagualdesign/Tom Ruen/Wikimedia Commons)
Something strange may be lurking in the outer solar system. The odd orbits of distant space rocks suggest there’s a giant, elusive world dubbed Planet Nine waiting out there to be discovered. But now, in a new research paper, a team of scientists suggest something far stranger may be influencing the orbits of these distan ...read more
One of the study participants walking with a prototype of the new prosthetic leg. (Credit: Federica Barberi)
A new prosthetic leg integrates with a wearer's nervous system to give real-time feedback about their environment. Users can report they can "feel" where their artificial leg is in space, giving them the ability to complete a range of tasks previously out of reach.
Researchers described tests with the new prosthetic in Science Translational Medicine this week in three patients with ...read more
The space agency is dishing out almost $20 million to research creating rocket fuel from material found on the Moon and Mars. (Credit: NASA Goddard)
NASA has awarded a total of $17.4 million to
four private aerospace companies to study and produce technologies that could help
future space missions create fuel on the Moon and Mars.
The companies include Jeff Bezo’s spaceship company, Blue Origin, as well as Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The other two recipients are OxEon Energy, a Utah- ...read more
Potential dads should lay off the alcohol before conceiving a child, new research says. (Credit: G-Stock Studio/Shutterstock)
We’ve known for decades that pregnant women who drink alcohol put their baby at risk of developmental problems. New research out today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology examined a connection that gets less attention — dad’s drinking habits.
Paternal drinking in the three months before conception was associated with a 44 percent incre ...read more
Younger cellphone users are closing the gap between how fast they type on a mobile device and how fast the average keyboard user can type. (Credit: Jacob Lund/Shutterstock)
Texting on a flip phone keyboard in the early 2000s wasn't a speedy affair. But fast-forward almost two decades later, and we can type out everything from texts to emails on our smartphones. And as time goes on, scientists say our typing speeds are increasing — possibly more than previous studies predicted.
New r ...read more
The Andromeda Galaxy, located some 2.5 million light-years from Earth, burns brightly in ultraviolet light in this image taken by NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are the big fish in our corner of the universe, surrounded by dozens of smaller dwarf galaxies. Together, this cosmic community makes up what scientists call the "Local Group."
Astronomers believe that the largest galaxies grow by attracting and consuming the ...read more
A test of the first hydrogen bomb by the U.S. in 1952 as part of Operation Ivy. (Photo courtesy of National Nuclear Security Administration/Nevada Site Office)
Skies darkened by smoke worldwide. Cities in ruins, leaving millions dead. Droughts and crop failures spreading famine for years. The realities of nuclear war are difficult to imagine. But, says a team of researchers, they deserve our attention.
New research in Science Advances spells out the potential ramifications of nuclear warf ...read more
The first in a planned series of 10 spacewalks will kick off on October 6. (Credit: NASA)
NASA announced a series of 10 spacewalks happening over the next three months. The complex spacewalks are part of a marathon effort which NASA scheduled to complete repairs and upgrades to the International Space Station. The events could ultimately set a new record for the most spacewalks in a time since 2011, when the ISS was completed.
The first spacewalk is scheduled for Sunday, October 6, at 7 ...read more
Rogue planets, like the one shown in this artist’s concept, drift through interstellar space alone and are thought to be prevalent throughout the Milky Way. Two upcoming space telescopes could help find many more of these faint objects. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Our Milky Way galaxy is home to billions of planets orbiting billions of stars in billions of planetary systems. But lurking in the spaces between, not bound to any star, are free-floating worlds. Astronomers refer to these as ...read more
