Latest articles by Keith Cooper
Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is blasting out a bunch of methane. Here's why that's weird
The James Webb Space Telescope observed a large amount of methane around 3I/ATLAS, revealing just how different it is from comets from our solar system.
Most exoplanets might be 'soot factories,' scientists say: 'Like you have a natural diesel engine'
A chemical engineer noticed that the spectra of the hazy atmosphere of mini-Neptune planets looked like the soot produced by combustion engines.
This star system creates a rare triple eclipse. Here's what that would look like
A triple star system in which the stars all eclipse one another from our vantage point is standing out as one of the best studied stellar trios.
Scientists locate source of mysterious radio signals after 20 year search: A vampire star and its victim
The origin of enigmatic long-period radio bursts has been shown to be from the clash of magnetic fields as a white dwarf steals matter from a close red dwarf star.
An ancient solar storm left clues in tree rings and a famous poet's diary: 'Red lights in the northern sky'
A Japanese poet wrote in his diary that "red lights" appeared in the sky over Kyoto. An analysis of tree rings suggests a powerful solar storm created the sight.
This exoplanet weather forecast by the James Webb Space Telescope calls for sandy skies and a clear (alien) sunset
Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have witnessed a cloudy morning dissipating to leave a clear sky by dusk on a distant hot Jupiter.
Scientists just solved a tricky asteroid-hopping spacecraft riddle
Plotting the optimal trajectory to visit multiple asteroids is a fiendishly difficult take on the Traveling Salesperson problem, but a new mathematical approach has succeeded in solving it.
Astronomers find interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS hiding in images taken before its official discovery
If the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory had begun its science validation phase a few weeks earlier, it might have been up and running in time to discover 3I/ATLAS first.
Scientists propose new way to find aliens — and we may already have a spacecraft that can help
Scientists say amino acids produced by life are distributed differently and more diversely than amino acids produced by non-living chemical reactions, thereby providing a truer signature of life.
30-mile-high clouds of acid on Venus are made by the largest 'hydraulic jump' in the solar system
A 3,700-mile-long cloud bank on Venus forms through the same phenomenon that describes how water spreads out in your kitchen sink, scientists say.
Does Dante's Inferno from the 14th century depict an asteroid impact?
Dante's description of the fall of Lucifer to Earth from heaven seems to sport many of the hallmarks of an impact, forming a multi-ringed crater with a central peak.
How an exoplanet odd couple survived by traveling in from the cold together
The TOI-1130 system features a rare example of a hot Jupiter exoplanet joined by another world rather than being on its own.
Mexico City is sinking up to 14 inches per year, satellite images show
Mexico City is one of the fastest subsiding cities in the world, dropping by up to 14 inches every year.
A tiny 'plutino' world beyond Neptune has grown a mysterious atmosphere, and we don't know how
A trans-Neptunian object was found to possess a surprising thin atmosphere after astronomers witnessed the object occult a distant star.
NASA is making a powerful new ion engine to send astronauts to Mars — and it just passed its 1st test
A prototype ion engine that uses lithium metal vapor as a propellant has aced its first tests, achieving 25 times more power than the ion engine on the Psyche mission.
Our Milky Way's 'Zone of Avoidance' holds a galaxy supercluster with 30,000 trillion times the sun's mass
The Vela Supercluster, in our Milky Way's Zone of Avoidance, is competing gravitationally with other superclusters for the attention of local galaxies.
Is Venus volcanically active? Big Hawaiian eruption in 2022 could help scientists find out
Evidence suggests that Venus is still volcanically active, and new data about a big eruption in Hawaii a few years ago could help scientists find out for sure.
James Webb Space Telescope's strange little red dots may really be 'black hole stars', X-ray data suggests
Finding X-rays coming from one of the little red dots discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope could be the key to answering what these weird objects truly are.
Starbirth shuts down 40,000 light-years from the Milky Way's core — and astronomers don't know why
Astronomers have found the boundary of star formation in the Milky Way's spiral disk — and it's not as far out from the center of our galaxy as you might imagine.
Scientists learn how much baby stars in Orion weigh — by watching their dance moves
"These measurements vastly expand our understanding of how stellar neighborhoods like our own are built."
Hubble Telescope celebrates 36th anniversary with gorgeous new image of famous Trifid Nebula
This latest image from Hubble forms just one of more than 1.7 million observations that the space telescope has made over the past 36 years since it launched on April 24, 1990.
Ancient volcanic ash seen blowing across Mars in new spacecraft images
New images from the Mars Express spacecraft show ancient volcanic ash spreading across the Red Planet.
Mysterious rings around Uranus point to hidden moons orbiting the ice giant
The two most puzzling rings around Uranus are gradually giving up their secrets, only to deepen the mystery of the Uranian system.
'Tall waves moving in slow motion': Here's how oily oceans on Saturn's giant moon Titan may behave
The size of waves on alien worlds will depend as much on the characteristics of the liquid as well as the gravity.
This giant telescope could discover habitable exoplanets and secrets of our universe — if it gets its funding
Things are gearing up in the development of the Giant Magellan Telescope in Chile, as its developers enter the final design phase before the project goes before Congress for funding.