Category: Science

“A rare cosmic phenomenon.” Space is phantasmagorical. Astronomers using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope to survey distant galaxies spotted an unusual, chance phenomenon called an “Einstein ring.” It’s not an actual object, but a warped, mind-bending optical illusion. “The picture features a rare cosmic phenomenon — an Einstein ring. …

And Hubble helped. Even at Neptune‘s incredible distance from the sun, astronomers have long suspected it has auroras, though they had never seen them until now. The James Webb Space Telescope, a collaboration of NASA and its Canadian and European <a href="https://me.mashable.com/space" …

No other instrument can see this. Scientists are still unraveling the mysteries behind our torrid star. The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter — which makes a relatively close approach to the sun every six months — has captured an unparalleled view of the solar wind, a stream of charged particles the sun constantly streams into …

“We are ready to take the next big step.” NASA’s Curiosity rover made a compelling find on Mars‘ irradiated surface. The car-sized robot’s molecule-sleuthing instrument, called Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, identified the longest-ever-found organic compounds on Mars. They could be fragments of “fatty acids,” a building block of earthly life that can …

Improved viewing through a new telescope. On the back end of a telescope, looks can be deceiving. Two decades ago, astronomers spied something strange with NASA‘s Spitzer Space Telescope that they dubbed the “cosmic tornado” because of its corkscrew shape. Even more baffling was the fuzzy object at its tip. The tornado …

Take a look at this map. It may come as a shock that the depths of Earth’s oceans are more alien to scientists than the surface of the moon, 240,000 miles away in space. But it’s true: With cameras and sensors, spacecraft have mapped lunar landscape features over the decades. Meanwhile, …

Extraterrestrial desert. Tens of millions of miles beyond Earth, a nuclear-powered, car-sized rover is climbing a Martian mountain. NASA’s Curiosity rover, while investigating Mars‘ past, has snapped over 683,790 pictures as it’s rumbled over 21 miles of unforgiving desert terrain since 2012, and a recent view shows the <a …

“A mysterious sight indeed.” We know the ocean is strange. Even so, it still surprises us. Biologists aboard a University of Auckland vessel spotted a large mako shark in December 2023. But there was something orange on top of it, which they filmed and recently posted on …

Prior theories said it shouldn't be there. Scientists using two enormous telescopes — one on Earth and the other in space — have detected oxygen in the most ancient known galaxy, a star-scape beaming light just 300 million years after the Big Bang. The galaxy, discovered with NASA‘s <a href="https://mashable.com/article/webb-space-telescope-first-image-targets" rel="noopener" …

Small robots could be the next big step for deep sea exploration.