NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is the world's first full-scale planetary defense test against potential asteroid impacts on Earth. Researchers now show that instead of leaving behind a relatively small crater, the impact of the DART spacecraft on its target could leave the asteroid near unrecognizable.

Astrophysicists have developed the first 3D simulation of the entire evolution of a jet -- from its birth by a rotating black hole to its emission far from the collapsing star. Simulation shows that as the star collapses, its material falls on the disk that swirls around the black hole. This falling material tilts the disk, and, in turn, tilts the jet, which wobbles as it struggles to return to its original trajectory. The wobbling jet explains the longstanding mystery of why gamma ray bursts blink and shows that these bursts are even rarer than previously thought.

To solve a long-standing puzzle about how long a neutron can 'live' outside an atomic nucleus, physicists entertained a wild but testable theory positing the existence of a right-handed version of our left-handed universe. They designed a mind-bending experiment to try to detect a particle that has been speculated but not spotted. If found, the theorized 'mirror neutron' -- a dark-matter twin to the neutron -- could explain a discrepancy between answers from two types of neutron lifetime experiments and provide the first observation of dark matter.

Liquid water is an important prerequisite for life to develop on a planet. As researchers report in a new study, liquid water could also exist for billions of years on planets that are very different from Earth. This calls our currently Earth-centred idea of potentially habitable planets into question.

Using light-capturing proteins in living microbes, scientists helped reconstruct what life was like for some of Earth's earliest organisms. These efforts could help us one day recognize signs of life on other planets.

A formidable space tourism industry may have a greater climate effect than the aviation industry and undo repair to the protective ozone layer if left unregulated, according to a new study.

An innovative scientific instrument, the Compact Color Biofinder may change the game in the search for signs of extraterrestrial life.

Specifications from an asteroid that made headline news in 2019 because it appeared to come out of nowhere and was traveling fast has just been published.

Researchers have shown in a single model the full story of how gas travels in the center of the Milky Way -- from being blown off by stars to falling into the black hole.

A team has used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe Jupiter's moon, Europa, at ultraviolet wavelengths, filling in a 'gap' in the various wavelengths used to observe this icy water world. The team's near-global UV maps show concentrations of sulfur dioxide on Europa's trailing side.

Scientists combined data from NASA's New Horizons mission with novel laboratory experiments and exospheric modeling to reveal the likely composition of the red cap on Pluto's moon Charon and how it may have formed. This first-ever description of Charon's dynamic methane atmosphere using new experimental data provides a fascinating glimpse into the origins of this moon's red spot as described in two recent articles.

A new study describes how unique populations of craters on two of Saturn's moons could help indicate the satellites' age and the conditions of their formation. Using data from NASA's Cassini mission, researchers have surveyed elliptical craters on Saturn's moons Tethys and Dione for this study.

Microbes taken from surface sediment near Lost Hammer Spring, Canada, about 900 km south of the North Pole, could provide a blueprint for the kind of life forms that may once have existed, or may still exist, on Mars.

The European Gaia space mission has produced an unprecedented amount of new, improved, and detailed data for almost two billion objects in the Milky Way galaxy and the surrounding cosmos. The Gaia Data Release 3 on Monday revolutionizes our knowledge of the Solar System and the Milky Way and its satellite galaxies.

Astronomers identify a new class of stellar system. They're not quite galaxies and only exist in isolation.

Extreme supergiant stars known as hypergiants are very rare, with only a few known to exist in the Milky Way. By tracing molecular emissions in the outflows around the red hypergiant star VY Canis Majoris, astronomers obtained the first detailed map of the star's envelope, which sheds light on the mechanisms involved in the final stages of extreme supergiant star.

A new study of an old meteorite contradicts current thinking about how rocky planets like the Earth and Mars acquire volatile elements such as hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and noble gases as they form.

The violent death throes of a nearby star so thoroughly disrupted its planetary system that the dead star left behind -- known as a white dwarf -- is sucking in debris from both the system's inner and outer reaches, astronomers report.

Astronomers using data from the VLA Sky Survey have discovered one of the youngest known neutron stars -- possibly as young as only 14 years. The dense remnant of a supernova explosion was revealed when bright radio emission powered by the pulsar's powerful magnetic field emerged from behind a thick shell of debris from the explosion.

Space scientists have discovered a 'super Jupiter' orbiting a white dwarf, detected using direct observations with the European Space Agency (ESA)'s Gaia mission.

A detailed analysis of the composition and motion of more than 500 stars revealed conclusive evidence of ancient a collision between Andromeda and a neighboring galaxy. The findings improve our understanding of the events that shape galaxy evolution.

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will study wispy streams of stars that extend far beyond the apparent edges of many galaxies. Missions like the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes would have to patch together hundreds of small images to see these structures around nearby galaxies in full. Roman will do so in a single snapshot. Astronomers will use these observations to explore how galaxies grow and the nature of dark matter.

Astronomers have imaged the debris disk of the nearby star HD 53143 at millimeter wavelengths for the first time, and it looks nothing like they expected. Based on early coronagraphic data, scientists expected ALMA to confirm the debris disk as a face-on ring peppered with clumps of dust. Instead, the observations took a surprise turn, revealing the most complicated and eccentric debris disk observed to date.

Scientists have observed a significant amount of cold, neutral gas in the outer regions of the young galaxy A1689-zD1, as well as outflows of hot gas coming from the galaxy's center. These results may shed light on a critical stage of galactic evolution for early galaxies, where young galaxies begin the transformation to be increasingly like their later, more structured cousins.

A research team has observed the fastest nova ever. They hope to find answers to not only the nova's many baffling traits, but to larger questions about our solar system and the universe.