Identifying Rocks: Humans vs. Mars Rovers
Would human-collected data lead us to the same conclusions as rover-collected data? Since we can’t (yet) send human geologists to Mars, scientists used human “rovers” on Earth to find out.
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Finding Ways to Catch Collapsars Making Heavy Metals
Massive stars that collapse to form black holes might be one way to make heavy metals. Now, astronomers have explored ways to identify heavy-metal creation from supernova light curves.
Dotting the i’s, Crossing the t’s: Follow-Up of an Exo-Venus
Fortune favors astronomers who take meticulous follow-up observations: sometimes you set out to confirm one planet candidate and end up authenticating two.
JWST Reveals Star-Formation Details in a Dusty Galaxy
The interacting galaxies of VV 114 have been observed with many space- and ground-based telescopes, but astronomers have never seen them quite like this before.
Understanding Magnetic Knots in Delta Sunspots
Researchers study rare, flare-producing sunspots to understand what makes them different from sunspots that don’t produce flares.
Sizing Up Galaxies at Cosmic Noon
JWST observations might make astronomers rethink established “rules” that govern how galaxies of different masses and star-formation rates evolve.
Four Perspectives on Neutron Stars, Pulsars, and Magnetars
Four recent articles give different perspectives on the ultra-dense, rapidly spinning, highly magnetized remnants of massive stars.
Four Stars, Many Eclipses
A flurry of eclipses, then back to eclipsing binary business as usual: what could cause such a strange light curve?
Planets May Have More Time to Form Than Previously Thought
A new study loosens the constraints on planet formation, suggesting that most protoplanetary disks stick around for at least 5 million years.
A Disruptive New Way to Form Galactic Center Stars
How did the stars at the center of our galaxy attain their curious arrangement? A new theory suggests that a shredded star paved the way for new stars to form in a narrow disk.