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The Sun Is Stranger Than Astrophysicists Imagined
The sun radiates far more high-frequency light than expected, raising questions about unknown features of the sun’s magnetic field and the possibility of even more exotic physics.
Dark Matter Gets a Reprieve in New Analysis
A strange glow coming from the Milky Way’s center was thought to be due to ordinary pulsars. But a new look at a years-old study shows that dark matter might still be responsible.
The Astronomer Who’d Rather Build Space Cameras
Jim Gunn shaped the theory of the evolution of the cosmos before building cameras and spectrographs for major observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope.
What the Sight of a Black Hole Means to a Black Hole Physicist
The astrophysicist Janna Levin reflects on the newly unveiled, first-ever photograph of a black hole.
How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Science
The latest AI algorithms are probing the evolution of galaxies, calculating quantum wave functions, discovering new chemical compounds and more. Is there anything that scientists do that can’t be automated?
Galaxy Simulations Offer a New Solution to the Fermi Paradox
Astronomers claim in a new paper that star motions should make it easy for civilizations to spread across the galaxy, but still we might find ourselves alone.
With a Second Repeating Radio Burst, Astronomers Close In on an Explanation
Brief cosmic blips called fast radio bursts have puzzled astronomers since their discovery earlier this decade. Now researchers appear to be close to understanding what powers them.
An Astrophysicist Who Maps the Universe’s Terra Incognita
Priyamvada Natarajan has pioneered the mapping and modeling of the universe’s invisible contents, especially dark matter and supermassive black holes.
How Nearby Stellar Explosions Could Have Killed Off Large Animals
Subatomic particles called muons are thought to have streamed through the atmosphere and irradiated megafauna like the monster shark megalodon.