Scientists studying soil samples returned from asteroid Ryugu have confirmed that the near-Earth object is home to a slew of organic compounds, most importantly one that is essential to the formation of DNA, along with the metabolically-essential vitamin B3. This discovery suggests that life on our planet may not haveread more
Despite expert predictions for a period of prolonged quiet for the Sun, solar cycle 25 has proven to be an active one, with 143 sunspots appearing on the Sun’s surface during February alone, and numerous solar flares erupting from the star’s surface—15 of them powerful X-class events—since the current cycleread more
Ripples on Mars, rings around Quaoar and a vortex circling the Sun: it’s time for another roundup of news from around the Solar System! On February 2, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded a large solar prominence erupting in Sun’s far north, but instead of simply arcing back to the surfaceread more
The spin of the Earth’s core appears to have reversed direction; but don’t be alarmed, it’s still spinning in the right direction, it only appears to be running in reverse from our vantage point here on the surface of the planet. A study of deep-penetrating seismic data collected between 1964read more