NASA prepares to launch Parker Solar Probe, a mission to touch the Sun | Sarah Frazier

Parker Solar Probe will explore the corona, a region of the Sun only seen from Earth when the Moon blocks out the Sun's bright face during total solar eclipses. The corona holds the answers to many o ...

Did a rogue star change the makeup of our solar system? | Bob Yirka

Effect of a prograde, parabolic fly-by of a star with a) M=0.5 M, b) M2= 1, Mand c) M2= 5 M that is inclined by 60 degrees and has an angle of periastron equal zero. The perihelion distance is alwa ...

Speculative wormhole echoes could revolutionize astrophysics | Pablo Bueno and Pablo A. Cano

Instant of a simulation in which two black holes merge. The collision of two rotating wormholes would trigger a similar deformation of space-time, leaving 'echoes' in the signal. Credit: LIGO LabCalt ...

How a particle may stand still in rotating spacetime | Lisa Zyga

When a particle with a certain angular momentum is located at the critical distance rst, it remains at rest while the spacetime is rotating around it. The closer a particle is to this critical distan ...

Earth's orbital changes have influenced climate, life forms for at least 215 million years | Dennis V. Kent

Within ancient rocks in Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park, scientists have identified signs of a regular variation in Earth's orbit that influences climate. Here, one of the authors near the r ...

Kepler spacecraft nearing the end as fuel runs low | Charlie Sobeck

Credit: NASA March 14, 2018 (Phys.org) -- Trailing Earth's orbit at 94 million miles away, the Kepler space telescope has survived many potential knock-outs during its nine years in flight, from mech ...

Scientists use NASA data to study link between solar storms and animal beachings | Lina Tran

Illustration of an Atlantic White-sided Dolphin and a Long-finned Pilot Whale, two marine mammal species that strand in Cape Cod. Credit: NASA GSFC/CIL/Brian Monroe Dec. 8, 2017 (Phys.org) -- The age ...

Physicist explores the possibility of vestiges of a universe previous to the Big Bang | Peter Moon

Physicist publishes paper in General Relativity and Gravitation proposing to eliminate need for cosmological spacetime singularity and arguing that the current expansion phase was preceded by contrac ...

Aliens may be more like us than we think | Sam Levin

Picture an alien. These illustrations represent different levels of adaptive complexity we might imagine when thinking about aliens. (a) A simple replicating molecule, with no apparent design. This m ...

Astronomers capture first visiting object from outside our solar system | Alan Fitzsimmons

Credit: Queen's University Belfast Oct. 27, 2017 (Phys.org) -- A Queen's University Belfast scientist is leading an international team in studying a new visitor to our solar system -- the first known ...

Small asteroid or comet 'visits' from beyond the solar system | Rob Weryk

A/2017 U1 is most likely of interstellar origin. Approaching from above, it was closest to the Sun on Sept. 9. Traveling at 27 miles per second (44 kilometers per second), the comet is headed away fr ...