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Physics

An 1894 film of a falling cat

How Do Cats Always Land on Their Feet? Researchers Examined Feline Spines to Find Out

Scientists determined that the upper part of a cat’s spine is more flexible than the lower part

An artist's conception of a magnetar surrounded by a wobbly accretion disk

Astronomers Witnessed the Birth of a Magnetar for the First Time. It Explains the Mysterious Flickering of an Ultrabright Supernova

New research suggests that the highly magnetized remnants of stars are responsible for powering some of the universe’s most brilliant supernova explosions

The Van Allen Probes spent seven years studying two donut-shaped rings of radiation around the Earth.

A 1,300-Pound Spacecraft Might Be Plummeting Through Our Atmosphere Right Now

The debris poses minimal risk of harming anyone

The physics behind shoe squeaks is surprisingly complex. 

Why Do Basketball Players’ Shoes Squeak on the Court? Here’s the Physics Behind the Iconic, High-Pitched Sounds

The screeches come from wave-like deformations of sneakers’ flexible soles

In laboratory studies, coronae emit a faint blue light from the tips of spruce needles. In nature, ambient light drowns out this glow, so researchers used a special camera to detect invisible, ultraviolet emissions. 

Treetops Emit Ultraviolet Sparkles During Thunderstorms. Researchers Just Filmed It in Nature for the First Time

The weather events probably cause the air around leaves to produce weak electrical discharges

New research suggests horses are singing and whistling at the same time when they whinny.

How Do Horses Whinny? Scientists Say They’ve Figured Out How the Majestic Animals Make This Distinctive Sound

An equine makes the low-pitched part of its whinny by vibrating its vocal cords—similar to how humans speak and sing—and the high-pitched part by whistling

An artistic rendering of the 'inside out' solar system

Astronomers Discover an Exoplanet in the Wrong Place, Hinting at a Planetary System That Was Born ‘Inside Out’

A rocky planet was found orbiting its host star in an unusual location

An artist's rendition of an imploding star, surrounded by expelled gas and dust shown in red

A Star Suddenly Brightened, Then Faded Into Darkness. Astronomers Say It May Have Turned Into a Black Hole

If confirmed, this disappearing act might provide the closest and best observational evidence for the birth of a black hole

The particle collider smashes together atomic nuclei—comprised of particles called protons and neutrons—to break them into their smaller components.

The U.S.’s Only Particle Collider Recreated Moments From the Early Universe. Now, It Has Closed—to Make Way for a New Instrument

The end of the facility’s 25-year run is “bittersweet”

Lab-made cosmic dust on a chip

Physicists Create Homemade Cosmic Dust, Which Could Help Them Figure Out How the Building Blocks of Life First Reached Earth

Cosmic dust normally comes from dying stars. The recipe for a lab-made version includes a few gases, vacuum tubes and electricity

An artist's impression of an asteroid

An Asteroid Might Slam Into the Moon in 2032—and Create a Fiery Flash That’s Visible to Earthlings, New Research Suggests

Currently, NASA estimates that asteroid 2024 YR4 has a 4.3 percent chance of hitting our lunar companion

The new map revealed tens of thousands of previously undiscovered landforms.

What’s Buried Beneath Antarctica’s Ice? A New Map Unveils the Continent’s Hidden Landscape Like Never Before

A better understanding of the bedrock can help researchers calculate how quickly the continent’s melting glaciers might affect sea-level rise

Researchers are using an instrument at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory to uncover the original text of reused parchments.

Medieval Monks Wrote Over a Copy of an Ancient Star Catalog. Now, a Particle Accelerator Is Revealing the Long-Lost Original Text

The parchments initially contained references to a star catalog and maps created during the second century B.C.E.

An image containing nearly 800,000 galaxies from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, overlaid with dark-matter clumps shown in blue

See the Most Detailed Map of Dark Matter Ever Made, Bringing Astronomers a Step Closer to Unraveling Its Mysterious Nature

The invisible stuff makes up about 85 percent of all matter in the universe, but researchers know little about it

Ice can take on more than 20 forms, or phases, depending on the temperature and pressure conditions as water crystallizes.

Researchers Discover a New Phase of Ice by Squeezing Water Between Diamonds

The new form, called Ice XXI, appeared at room temperature in the lab, and it may have a similar density to ice on distant moons in our solar system

An illustration of Procoptodon goliah, a giant kangaroo that weighed up to about 550 pounds and went extinct around 40,000 years ago

Giant Kangaroos That Lived During the Ice Age May Have Hopped—Despite Weighing Up to 550 Pounds

The extinct animals may have bounced from scary situations, such as coming face to face with hungry predators

Researchers were shocked to find a shock wave around a dead star. 

This Mysterious Gas Cloud Spotted Around a Dead Star Is Beautiful—but Astronomers Say It Shouldn’t Be There

The stellar corpse is spewing star stuff, which is heating and compressing surrounding gas, resulting in a multicolored display. But it’s missing a component thought to be necessary for this phenomenon

Some octopuses have incredible camouflaging abilities. 

Inspired by Octopus Skin, This Synthetic Material Can Change Color and Texture on Demand

The animals’ camouflaging capabilities have long inspired humans. The new material could one day help researchers improve robotics or electronic screens

An artistic representation of exoplanet PSR J2322-2650b, on the left, and the pulsar it orbits, on the right

This Lemon-Shaped Planet Has an Atmosphere Unlike Anything Astronomers Have Ever Seen

The James Webb Space Telescope detected an atmosphere rich with carbon and helium, which is unexpected on this hot planet roughly 2,000 light-years from Earth

Time passes by faster on Mars than on Earth.

How to Keep Time on Mars: Clocks on the Red Planet Would Tick a Bit Differently Than Those on Earth

On average, Martian time ticks roughly 477 millionths of a second faster than terrestrial clocks per Earth day. But the Red Planet’s elongated orbit causes the time difference to vary as Mars travels around the sun

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