Space

Results using data from the Gaia-ESO project has provided some evidence backing up theoretical divisions in the chemical composition of the stars that make up the Milky Way's disc – the vast…

A young star named HD 142527 in the constellation Lupus (the Wolf) has revealed that cosmic dust, which is component material of planets, is circling around the star in a form of asymmetric ring.…

In Trouble with Terraforming Mars, I looked at many things that could go wrong with such a project. But setting aside those issues, Mars terraforming takes us far into the realm of magical thinking…

We haven't found life on Mars yet. That's not too surprising, though disappointing. You can see its surface geology from orbit, plain to view, but any life is likely to be hidden inside rocks, under…

By observing a high-speed component of the massive galaxy cluster MACS J0717.5+3745, an extraordinarily dynamic cluster with a total mass greater than 1015 (a million billion) times the mass of the…

The surface of Venus is totally hostile to Earth life, a dim, hot furnace, with temperatures well over 400°C. But conditions are different at the Venus cloud tops. Temperatures are ideal, with plenty…

The near-infrared vision of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has given us a new view deep inside the Tarantula Nebula - and its more than 800,000 stars and protostars within. Also known as 30 Doradus,…

This idea dates back to the Russians in the 1970s. The surface of Venus is far too hot, and the atmosphere too dense, for Earth life. However, our air is a lifting gas on Venus, with about half the…

Messier 83, the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, is one of the largest and closest barred spiral galaxies to us.  At 15 million light-years away, it is one of the most conspicuous galaxies of its type…

The most scientifically interesting objects are not the bright blueish white ones in the center of the image, but the small reddish looking ones off to the sides.  Here's how and why. …