Category Astronomy/Space

Researchers provide the first plausible explanation to why one of the most massive black hole pairs observed to date by gravitational waves also seemed to merge on a non-circular orbit. Their suggested solution, now published in Nature, involves a chaotic triple drama inside a giant disk of gas around a super massive black hole in a galaxy far, far away.

Black holes are one of the most fascinating objects in the Universe, but our knowledge of them is still limited — especi...

A RIKEN physicist and two colleagues have found that a wormhole—a bridge connecting distant regions of the Universe—helps to shed light on the mystery of what happens to information about matter consumed by black holes.

Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicts that nothing that falls into a black hole can escape its clutches...

A tiny experiment launching to the International Space Station later this year could set the stage for a future global quantum network. Called the Space Entanglement and Annealing QUantum Experiment (or SEAQUE), the milk-carton-size technology demonstration will test two communications technologies in the harsh environment of space.

Quantum computers hold the promise of operating millions of times faster than conventional computers, and distributed quantum sensors may lead to new understandings of Earth and our place in the u...

On Feb. 4, 2022, SpaceX launched 49 satellites as part of Elon Musk’s Starlink internet project, most of which burned up in the atmosphere days later. The cause of this more than US$50 million failure was a geomagnetic storm caused by the sun.

Geomagnetic storms occur when space weather hits and interacts with the Earth. Space weather is caused by fluctuations within the sun that blast electrons, protons and other particles into space. When space weather reaches Earth, it triggers many complicated processes that can cause a lot of trouble for anything in orbit. And engineers are working to better understand these risks and defend satellites against them.

What causes space weather?

The sun is always releasing a steady amount of charged particles into space...