Astronomers with the Event Horizon Telescope have developed a new way to observe the radio sky at multiple frequencies, and it means we will soon be able to capture color images of supermassive black holes.

Researchers have found fresh evidence that Africa is breaking apart because of a deep mantle superplume of hot rock beneath the East African Rift System.

Around 2,000 years ago, fraternal twin infants were buried facing each other in a cemetery. But it's still unknown why they died.

Raman spectroscopy uses scattered to identify a substances chemical ingredients and is one of the most widely used scientific methods in space exploration. It is used for lunar exploration to identify volcanic minerals, water ice, and space weathering, and has been limited to obtaining data from lunar orbiters. But how can Raman spectroscopy be conducted on the lunar surface to help us better understand our nearest celestial neighbor? This is what a recent study presented at the 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference hopes to address as a team of NASA and academic researchers discussed the Raman Cube Rover (R3R), which would be delivered to the lunar surface via the private space company, Astrobotic.

People always want to know what will happen to Earth when the Sun eventually swells up as a red giant. For one thing, the expanding Sun will turn the inner planets into cinders. It will almost certainly spell the end of life on our planet. Mars might become more temperate and hospitable to life. In addition, it could well be a boon for the gas giant Jupiter and its moons. That's because the habitable zone of the Solar System will move outward from where it is now, to a spot encompassing the Jovian system and forcing changes on all of those worlds.

SpaceXs Starship super-rocket got off to a great start for its ninth flight test, but the second stage ran into a host of issues and made an uncontrolled re-entry.

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) has stood as a promising potential alternative propulsion technology for decades. Chemical rockets have begun to reach their theoretical maximum efficiency, and their developers have switched their focus to making them cheaper rather than more efficient. NTP should answer that by offering high thrust and specific impulse. NASA's DRACO Program, the standard-bearer for NTP systems, provides a specific impulse of around 900 seconds, about double a traditional chemical rocket, but half that of most ion thrusters. To increase that number even further, researchers at the University of Alabama at Huntsville and The Ohio State University have been working on a novel configuration of NTP called the Centrifugal Nuclear Thermal Rocket (CNTR) that promises almost to double the specific impulse of traditional NTP systems while maintaining similar thrust levels. However, the system has some engineering challenges to overcome, and a new paper coming out in Acta Astronautica describes some incremental progress on making this improved engine a reality.

Modern ground-based telescopes rely on adaptive optics (AO) to deliver clear images. By correcting for atmospheric distortion, they give us exceptional pictures of planets, stars, and other celestial objects. Now, a team at the National Solar Observatory is using AO to examine the Sun's corona in unprecedented detail.

Flip to any chapter in the human story, and you'll find that peace and prosperity are the exception, not the norm. However, of all the times to be alive, one year is particularly prominent in the history of misery: 536 CE.

JWST has broken its own record and seen even farther away into the past of the cosmos.