Lightning Strikes – Perhaps 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 of Them – May Have Sparked Life on Earth
Lightning strikes — perhaps a quintillion of them, occurring over a billion years — may have provided sparks of life for the early Earth. A…
Astrophysics
Gigantic, Scorching-Hot Planet May Be Orbiting Vega, One of the Brightest Stars in the Night Sky
Astronomers have discovered new hints of a giant, scorching-hot planet orbiting Vega, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. The research, published this…
Ghostly Particle Traced Back to a Shredded Star, Revealing a Gigantic Cosmic Particle Accelerator
From a black hole to the South Pole: Scientists identify first neutrino from a tidal disruption event. Tracing back a ghostly particle to a shredded…
Planetary Scientists Discover There May Be Many Planets With Water-Rich Atmospheres
University of Chicago study finds way that hot, rocky planets in other systems could form and keep atmospheres. An atmosphere is what makes life on…
On the Quest for Other Earths in the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
An international research team with members from ETH has developed a new method for directly imaging smaller planets in the habitable zone of a neighboring…
Massive X-ray Jet – Extending for 160,000 Light-Years – Spied From Supermassive Black Hole in Early Universe
Astronomers may have discovered the most distant jet emitting X-rays. The source of this jet is a rapidly growing supermassive black hole, or quasar, located…
Search for Alien Life: How the Habitability of Exoplanets Is Influenced by Their Rocks
The weathering of silicate rocks plays an important role to keep the climate on Earth clement. Scientists led by the University of Bern and the…
How the Tiniest Particles in Our Universe Saved Us From Complete Annihilation
Recently discovered ripples of spacetime called gravitational waves could contain evidence to prove the theory that life survived the Big Bang because of a phase…
Hubble Finds Earth-Sized Planet That May Be on Its Second Atmosphere
The Earth-sized exoplanet may have lost its original atmosphere but gained a second one through volcanism. Orbiting a red dwarf star 41 light-years away is…
60-Year-Old Physics Theory Proven by IceCube Detection of a High-Energy Particle
On December 6, 2016, a high-energy particle hurtled to Earth from outer space at close to the speed of light. The particle, an electron antineutrino,…
Tiny New Photonic Device Could Help Discover Exoplanets and Detect Diseases
Tiny photonic devices could be used to find new exoplanets, monitor our health, and make the internet more energy efficient. Researchers from Chalmers University of…
Not Science Fiction: German Physicists Say Traversable Wormholes Possible
German physicists explore the possibility of tunnels in spacetime. Wormholes play a key role in many science fiction films — often as a shortcut between…
Astronomers Detect a Supermassive Black Hole on the Move – Unusual Motion Thus Far Unexplained
Scientists have long theorized that supermassive black holes can wander through space—but catching them in the act has proven difficult. Now, researchers at the Center…
Discovery of Potential Cosmic-Ray Accelerator in the Galaxy Opens Window in Search for the “PeVatron”
The Tibet ASgamma experiment, a China-Japan joint research project, has discovered gamma rays beyond 100 TeV (tera electron volts) from G106.3+2.7, a supernova remnant (SNR)…
Highest-Energy Cosmic Rays Detected in Star Clusters – Energies Beyond Those From Supernovae Capable of Devouring Entire Solar Systems
For decades, researchers assumed the cosmic rays that regularly bombard Earth from the far reaches of the galaxy are born when stars go supernova —…
Breaking the Warp Barrier for Faster-Than-Light Travel: New Theoretical Hyper-Fast Solitons Discovered
Astrophysicist at Göttingen University discovers new theoretical hyper-fast soliton solutions. If travel to distant stars within an individual’s lifetime is going to be possible, a…
New Clues About Early Universe From Black Hole Powered Cosmic Jet 13 Billion Light-Years From Earth
Quasar also can serve as ‘beacon’ for studying closer objects. Astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and Very…
IceCube Detection of a High-Energy Particle – Antineutrino “Unmistakably of Extraterrestrial Origin”
The South Pole neutrino detector saw a Glashow resonance event, a phenomenon predicted by Nobel laureate physicist Sheldon Glashow in 1960 where an electron antineutrino…