Science

  Spotting exoplanets isn’t as simple as pointing a telescope at the sky and picking out the planet-shaped things. The worlds orbiting distant stars are too dim and tiny for that, but we can detect them with the help of planet-hunting satellites like TESS and the dearly departed Kepler. These …

An international team of marine biologists has described two new species of the polychaete worm genus Melinnopsis from deep waters off the east coast of Australia. Light microscope images of Melinnopsis gardelli: (A) holotype, lateral view of complete specimen; (B) holotype, dorsal view of anterior region, arrow indicates postbranchial dorsal …

The inner core of our planet is between 1 and 1.3 billion years old, according to new research led by the University of Texas at Austin and Carnegie Institution for Science. Earth’s internal structure: dense solid metallic core, viscous metallic outer core, mantle and silicate based crust. Image credit: NASA. …

  Our old friend FRB 121102 is back, and right on time. Earlier this year, astronomers identified a distinct 157-day cycle in the activity of FRB 121102, one of many so-called “fast radio bursts” emanating from deep space. The mysterious signal has switched back on, potentially confirming the previous findings …

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have uncovered the ruins of a 3,200-year-old Canaanite fortress near Gal On, a kibbutz in central Israel. An aerial photo of the Canaanite fortress near Gal On in central Israel. Image credit: Emil Aladjem, Israel Antiquities Authority. “The fortress we found provides a …

An international team of archaeologists has found and studied 104 enigmatic stone structures called ‘mustatils’ in the southern part of the Nefud Desert in northern Arabia. They’ve also provided the first chronometric age estimate for this type of structure — a radiocarbon date of 5000 BCE — and described their landscape …

  The Hubble Space Telescope has provided some amazing views of the universe. It’s easy to become complacent after seeing so many remarkable images, but Hubble can still wow us after 30 years. In a recent observation, the aging space telescope captured the expanding edge of a supernova blast wave. …

A team of archaeologists and volunteers has unearthed a hoard of 1,100-year-old Islamic gold coins near the city of Yavne in the Central District of Israel. A hoard of Islamic gold coins dating from the 9th century CE, found near Yavne in Israel. Image credit: Emil Aladjem / Israel Antiquities …

  The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) recently passed its 15th anniversary leaving Earth behind to observe the red planet, and NASA is celebrating by recapping some of the robot’s best images. You’ve probably seen some of them pop up over the last few years but maybe never stopped to appreciate …

A team of paleontologists and mechanical and biomedical engineers has compared CT scans of the fossilized bones of hadrosaurs and other dinosaurs with bones of extinct and living mammals and found that the dinosaur trabecular bone architecture was uniquely capable of supporting large weights (up to 47,000 kg) and different …