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astrophysics

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An illustration of a hand holding a pair of orange, planetlike objects that orbit one another. Behind it is a box full of reddish planets and green stars. There are two slots at the top of the box. One is shaped like a star, and the other is round, like a planet. The pair of planets doesn’t fit into either slot.
astrophysics

Rogue Worlds Throw Planetary Ideas Out of Orbit

By Charlie Wood
November 13, 2023
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Scientists have recently discovered scores of free-floating worlds that defy classification. The new observations have forced them to rethink their theories of star and planet formation.

An illustration. Four scientists are standing around a spherical table. An illuminated, partially built spiral galaxy hovers above the table. The scientists are adding curved, glowing pieces to the galaxy. On the floor beside them are additional galactic building blocks including stars and star clusters.
Milky Way

In the Milky Way’s Stars, a History of Violence

By Rebecca Boyle
September 28, 2023
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Our galaxy’s stars keep a record of its past. By reading those stories, astronomers are learning more about how the Milky Way came to be — and about the galaxy we live in today.

Cynthia Chiang on the McGill University campus. She is perched on a concrete wall, wearing a purple shirt and gray jeans, and the Montreal skyline is in the background.
Q&A

The Experimental Cosmologist Hunting for the First Sunrise

By Sarah Scoles
September 20, 2023
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To catch even a whiff of the universe’s earliest epochs — an age of darkness, and one of new light — Cynthia Chiang builds her own equipment. Then she deploys it at the ends of the Earth.

explainers

How Scientists Are Tackling the Tricky Task of Solar Cycle Prediction

By Javier Barbuzano
September 7, 2023
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Scientists have struggled to accurately forecast the strength of the sun’s 11-year cycle — even after centuries of solar observations.

dark matter

In a Monster Star’s Light, a Hint of Darkness

By Joshua Sokol
August 29, 2023
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Astronomers are scouring the cosmos for fingerprints of the invisible — tiny clumps of pure dark matter that might solve a long-standing cosmic mystery.

astrophysics

Quaking Giants Might Solve the Mysteries of Stellar Magnetism

By Jackson Ryan
August 21, 2023
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In their jiggles and shakes, red giant stars encode a record of the magnetic fields near their cores.

A composite of 15 images from the James Webb Space Telescope. Each image has a glowing red dot — a young galaxy — in its center.
astrophysics

JWST Spots Giant Black Holes All Over the Early Universe

By Charlie Wood
August 14, 2023
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Giant black holes were supposed to be bit players in the early cosmic story. But recent James Webb Space Telescope observations are finding an unexpected abundance of the beasts.

astronomy

Exoplanets Could Help Us Learn How Planets Make Magnetism

By Jonathan O'Callaghan
August 7, 2023
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New observations of a faraway rocky world that might have its own magnetic field could help astronomers understand the seemingly haphazard magnetic fields swaddling our solar system’s planets.

cosmology

How (Nearly) Nothing Might Solve Cosmology’s Biggest Questions

By Lyndie Chiou
July 25, 2023
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By measuring the universe’s emptiest spaces, scientists can study how matter clumps together and how fast it flies apart.


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