Need to Test a Space Suit? Head to Iceland
The country’s unearthly landscapes have caught the attention of scientists planning for future missions to Mars and the moon.
A Failed Star Called ‘The Accident’ Puzzles Astronomers
The brown dwarf isn’t a star and it’s not a planet. But it’s illuminating the murky borderlands that separate the two.
What Causes Gamma-Ray Bursts? Their ‘Afterglows’ Hold Clues
These high-energy explosions, brighter than billions and billions of suns, have recently been tracked for days, upending ideas about the cataclysms that create them.
A New Kind of Space Explosion Reveals the Birth of a Black Hole
A supernova-like explosion dubbed the Camel appears to be the result of a newborn black hole eating a star from the inside out.
Don’t Tell Einstein, but Black Holes Might Have ‘Hair’
The general theory of relativity states that black holes have only three observable properties; additional ones, or “hair,” do not exist. Or do they?