Astronomy

Why Venus is so parched

Artist's impression of the process by which HCO+ ions react with electrons, causing hydrogen atoms (orange) to escape. © Aurore Simonnet / Atmospheric...

A super-Earth atmosphere in sight

Artist's impression of the exoplanet 55 Cancri e, which is about twice the size of Earth and orbits closely around its host star. ...

Food trail discovered on cannibalistic star

Artist's impression of the white dwarf WD 0816-310, its magnetic field and the disk made of debris from the former planetary system. ©...

Neighboring stars can blow away planet-building material

Image of the Orion Nebula and zoom on the protoplanetary disk d203-506, taken with the James Webb Space Telescope. © Background image: NASA/ESA/CSA/S....

How much oxygen is there on the ocean moon?

Charged particles from Jupiter split frozen water molecules on Europa into oxygen and hydrogen. Some O₂ could then be bound in the ice...

Not every supposed northern light is a real aurora

A normal aurora (left) consists of glowing curtains of red, green and blue. An “enhanced aurora” (right) contains a thin, brighter layer that...

CO₂ poverty could reveal the ease of living

Compared to its neighboring planets, the Earth has a low CO₂ content in the atmosphere, which is mainly due to the binding of the...

Supernovae provide new data on dark energy

The Dark Energy Survey measured the distance and redshift of almost 1,500 supernovae. This provides information about the cosmic expansion and the effect...

Supernova explosion with dense results

Artist's impression of the supernova in astronomers' sights. © ESO/L. Calcada A look at the formation of a super-compact celestial body: Astronomers have observed a...

Astronomers find oldest black hole

Galaxy with an active black hole at the center (illustration). © Pitris/ iStock Since the James Webb Space Telescope became operational, astronomers have been able...

Water in the gas shell of a nearby planet

This is what the exoplanet GJ 9827d could look like, the smallest exoplanet to date where water vapor has been detected in the atmosphere....

Cosmic particle puzzle

There are some extremely energetic phenomena in the cosmos. But where the most energetic portion of cosmic rays comes from is still unknown....

Disk discovered around extragalactic star

Artist's impression of the young star in the Large Magellanic Cloud drawing material from a dusty disk and ejecting some of it in jets....

Previously hidden “naked stars” discovered

Artist's impression of the withdrawal of the hydrogen shell in a binary star system. © Navid Marvi, courtesy of the Carnegie Institution for...

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