Mercury is a small, rocky planet about which researchers know relatively little. Two missions, taking readings as they passed over the planet, have revealed that Mercury is covered by an iron-poor and sulfur-rich crust. It is also reduced, a chemical state in which...
Luminous fast blue optical transients (LFBOTs) are among the universe’s brightest and fastest explosions but their origin is not completely understood. A new study takes a closer look at the galaxies they occur in, offering two important clues about their...
The Perseus Cluster is a massive galaxy cluster located in the constellation Perseus. It is one of the largest structures in the observable universe, comprising more than a thousand galaxies—equivalent to roughly a thousand trillion times the mass of the sun. Hot...
Blue Origin, the U.S. space company of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, successfully reused and recovered a booster for its New Glenn rocket on Sunday, confirming its mastery of a technical feat that could boost its launch cadence and expand its rivalry with SpaceX. Go to...
Picture two materials sandwiched together. The boundary between them may appear flat, but, in reality, it is full of tiny bumps and dents. Suddenly, the materials are hit with a shockwave. If that wave hits a bump in the material interface, it slows down. If it hits a...