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Special Report
Life in the Cosmos
Exploring the mysteries of the universe
Life in the Cosmos
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How Astrophysicists Found a Black Hole Where No One Else Could
A new method could help scientists peer inside universe's densest star clusters to find undiscovered black holes
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The Story of the Astrolabe, the Original Smartphone
Prosperous times likely paved the way for this multifunctional device, conceptual ancestor to the iPhone 7
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Introducing the Global Effort to Map the Night Sky
How astronomers around the world are piecing together a patchwork quilt of celestial activity
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The Hidden Connections Between Darwin and the Physicist Who Championed Entropy
These magnificently bearded men both introduced a dose of randomness and irreversibility into the universe
The Search for Life
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While the celestial body seems to host three features that could make a livable environment—an atmosphere, a rocky composition and a temperature that could allow liquid water to sit on the surface—researchers have not currently detected any residents
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The Hillsborough meteorite belongs to a rare class of rocks from space, according to a new study. It holds amino acids and other organic compounds, as well as evidence of salty water
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Sugars are crucial components of RNA and DNA, the basis of all known organisms alive today. In a new study, the sugar erythrulose was detected in a gas- and dust-filled cloud near the center of our Milky Way galaxy
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Along with other recent discoveries, the new finding from Perseverance boosts the case that Mars once hosted conditions that could support living things—but it isn’t a definitive sign of ancient organisms
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The organic molecules discovered by NASA’s Curiosity rover could have been formed by life, but they could have also come from geologic processes or meteorites
Past, Present, Future
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Since the James Webb Space Telescope started collecting data in 2022, it has found puzzling objects dubbed little red dots. A new study suggests they might be giant black holes with some characteristics of stars
The Story of the Astrolabe, the Original Smartphone
Prosperous times likely paved the way for this multifunctional device, conceptual ancestor to the iPhone 7
The Hidden Connections Between Darwin and the Physicist Who Championed Entropy
These magnificently bearded men both introduced a dose of randomness and irreversibility into the universe
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Astronomers Have Found the Brightest Supernova Yet
The powerful blast is so weird that it could be a whole new kind of star explosion
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Watch the Universe Evolve Over 13 Billion Years
A new computer simulation, called Illustris, can take you on an epic journey through space and time
How We Explore
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India Lands a Spacecraft Near the Moon’s South Pole, a First in Lunar Exploration
No other mission has successfully touched down in this scientifically interesting moon region, which contains water ice in lunar craters
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NASA Releases First Breathtaking Images Taken by James Webb Space Telescope
The five pictures from the most powerful space observatory ever launched offer a deep look back in time and the promise of stellar things to come
Introducing the Global Effort to Map the Night Sky
How astronomers around the world are piecing together a patchwork quilt of celestial activity
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The Hunt for High-Energy Photons Takes Place From a Mountaintop in Mexico
A new telescope built from water tanks might help answer some of the biggest questions in astronomy
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The Detection of Gravitational Waves Was a Scientific Breakthrough, but What’s Next?
Scientists are sitting on top of the world after this monumental discovery and are eager to keep exploring the universe
Galaxies, Quasars, Clusters
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The idea that universes evolve like organisms sat on the fringes of theoretical physics for decades. Then, a Substack post and a 2022 find by the James Webb Space Telescope boosted the concept
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The galaxy’s light took about 12.5 billion years to reach the James Webb Space Telescope, meaning the instrument saw the black holes a little more than one billion years after the Big Bang. Two of the black holes seemed on track to merge, illustrating how the objects grow
Since the James Webb Space Telescope started collecting data in 2022, it has found puzzling objects dubbed little red dots. A new study suggests they might be giant black holes with some characteristics of stars
Understanding the Cosmos
The galaxy’s light took about 12.5 billion years to reach the James Webb Space Telescope, meaning the instrument saw the black holes a little more than one billion years after the Big Bang. Two of the black holes seemed on track to merge, illustrating how the objects grow
Since the James Webb Space Telescope started collecting data in 2022, it has found puzzling objects dubbed little red dots. A new study suggests they might be giant black holes with some characteristics of stars
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The Ten Best Science Books of 2025
From “experimental archaeology” to the mysterious appeal of exploration, the wide-ranging subjects detailed in these titles captivated Smithsonian magazine’s science contributors this year