After more than a decade of research, scientists have discovered what may be the first known complete protein molecule in a meteorite, the first discovery of its kind confirmed to be from an extraterrestrial source. Although simpler amino acid molecules, such as glycine, have been found in meteorites before, compoundsread more
Data collected from the New Horizons space probe’s 2019 flyby of a snowman-shaped object at the edge of the solar system has settled a debate about how the early solar system formed. Previously, there had been two prevailing theories regarding how this happened: either the matter in the proto-planetary disk smashed together violently—eventually forming the Sun, planets and other bodiesread more
For the past month the star Betelgeuse has been acting strangely, having dimmed to a luminosity lower than at any point in history, prompting speculation that the supergiant star might be about to explode into a supernova. Although astronomers point out that this is an unlikely event, a strange gravityread more
A recent comparison of star catalogues taken nearly two-thirds of a century apart have revealed that our local stellar neighborhood has lost at least 100 stars since the 1950s. The team of researchers that conducted the survey are at a loss as to how such massive objects could simply… disappear.read more