Astrophysics

Unexplained gamma rays streaming from the galactic center may have been produced by dark matter, but more mundane explanations are also possible
 

Is complex life rare in the cosmos? The idea that it could be rests on the observation that the existence of life like us – with large, energy hungry, complicated cells – may be contingent on a number of very specific and unlikely factors in the history of the Earth.

Wired has a fun piece about physicist and black-hole guru Kip Thorne's work on the film Interstellar, which comes out November 7. We've known the premise of the film for a long time: Earth is a disaster, the human race is on the verge of extinction, and mankind must find a new home.

Hubble spots a star in our galaxy’s halo that likely predates its oldest star clusters

Think you know about the Moon? I did, but then I started reading ‘The New Moon: Water, Exploration, and Future Habitation‘ (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and realized that my knowledge amounted to a teensy scrap of lunar dust.

In 2007 Garrett Lisi was a 39-year-old physicist, unaffiliated with any institution, toiling in obscurity on what he called "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything,” which could account for all of nature’s forces.

X-ray data hinting at axion particles draw interest and cautionary warnings

Take part in a citizen-science project by helping researchers track high-energy cosmic rays via a network of smartphone users. Clara Moskowitz reports    

 

Sound waves imitate famed Hawking radiation, energy spit out from the great cosmic sinkholes

NASA's rovers and orbiters at Mars will witness a close encounter with a comet on October 19, an event that happens once every million years

Nine scientists became new Nobel Laureates this week when the 2014 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry, Physics and Physiology or Medicine were announced.

Astronomers have discovered one of the largest and most complex organic molecules yet in a gaseous star-forming region of interstellar space. Clara Moskowitz reports