Alien life could face threats from passing stars and supernovae
Astronomers examined 84 of the closest known stars with potentially habitable exoplanets and found that 3 face possible extinction-level…
Category: Astrobiology & Space Science
How did supermassive black holes form?
An astronomer analyzed ancient supermassive black holes with mathematical models and found they likely grew exponentially after light,…
Citizen scientists and AI help astronomers find galaxies
Scientists trained an AI algorithm to categorize distant galaxies using volunteer classifications. Their model could improve the accuracy of…
Astronomers simulate hidden minor planets across the Galaxy
Researchers modeled how planets smaller than Earth formed and changed over the first billion years of their existence. They found these…
Searching for the first supernovae in the universe
Astronomers developed new theoretical models for how stars evolve that suggest the JWST could glimpse the oldest stars in the universe…
Why do galaxies shrink?
An astronomer studying the 3 main processes that cause galaxies to lose mass found that the dominant process depends on the size and age of…
Lightning reacts with minerals to create the building blocks of life
Scientists stimulated atmospheric gases with electricity and found they reacted with common salts and minerals to form complex chemicals…
Why the Milky Way is shaped like a spiral
A team of astronomers reconstructed a 3-part history of the Milky Way Galaxy by comparing the physics and chemistry of 10 million red giant…
Exoplanets with weird orbits might be more habitable
Astronomers modeled the ideal climatic and atmospheric conditions for exoplanets and found that planets with non-circular orbits had more…
Could life survive in the plumes of Enceladus?
Researchers showed that simple microorganisms could survive rapid boiling in conditions mimicking the geysers of water shooting out of…