Space rocks may have bounced off baby Earth, but slammed into Venus

Squabbling sibling planets may have hurled space rocks when they were young. Simulations suggest that space rocks the size of baby planets struck both the newborn Earth and Venus, but many of the rocks that only grazed Earth went on to hit — and stick — to Venus. That difference in early impacts could help […]

Satellite swarms may outshine the night sky’s natural constellations

Fleets of private satellites orbiting Earth will be visible to the naked eye in the next few years, sometimes all night long. Companies like SpaceX and Amazon have launched hundreds of satellites into low orbits since 2019, with plans to launch thousands more in the works — a trend that’s alarming astronomers. The goal of […]

A supernova’s delayed reappearance could pin down how fast the universe expands

A meandering trek taken by light from a remote supernova in the constellation Cetus may help researchers pin down how fast the universe expands — in another couple of decades. About 10 billion years ago, a star exploded in a far-off galaxy named MRG-M0138. Some of the light from that explosion later encountered a gravitational […]

NASA’s Perseverance rover snagged its first Martian rock samples

The Perseverance rover has captured its first two slices of Mars. NASA’s latest Mars rover drilled into a flat rock nicknamed Rochette on September 1 and filled a roughly finger-sized tube with stone. The sample is the first ever destined to be sent back to Earth for further study. On September 7, the rover snagged […]

Astronomers may have seen a star gulp down a black hole and explode

For the first time, astronomers have captured solid evidence of a rare double cosmic cannibalism — a star swallowing a compact object such as a black hole or neutron star. In turn, that object gobbled the star’s core, causing it to explode and leave behind only a black hole. The first hints of the gruesome […]

UEFA Champions League draw: Date, teams qualified, seeds, rules for Round of 16

The complete field of 16 teams that will advance to the 2021-22 UEFA Champions League knockout rounds has not yet been finalized, but we already have several clubs that have booked their spots. European giants Liverpool, Ajax, Bayern Munich and Juventus were the first four teams to clinch on Matchday 4 of the group stage, […]