Stories by Sharmila Kuthunur

A new study suggests the universe's end could occur much sooner than previously thought. But don't worry, that ultimate cosmic conclusion would still be in the unimaginably distant future

A new way to measure the length of Uranus’s day could also help determine the rotation rates of other celestial objects—including exoplanets

Astronomers are racing to protect the dark skies as private companies seek to place large advertisements in Earth orbit

Material from asteroid Ryugu riddled with earthly microbes provides a cautionary tale for scientists seeking signs of alien life

An ambitious U.S. government program is working to detect and track millions of tiny space junk pieces—down to the size of a sand grain—throughout low-Earth orbit and beyond

Scientists have found signs of fresh flowing lava on Venus in decades-old data from NASA's Magellan spacecraft

Northern and southern lights produced by a recent bout of severe space weather may rival the most intense auroras of the past 500 years

Purple may be a likely color for extraterrestrial organisms, research suggests

Giant bubbles erupting across this red supergiant star’s surface could solve a lingering astrophysical mystery

The subsurface ocean of Jupiter’s moon Europa may have far less oxygen—and less potential for life—than previously believed, according to data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft

A ghostly giant galaxy called Nube may become a testbed for esoteric theories of dark matter

A new analysis finds that images from Voyager 2's close encounter with Neptune show the planet as being far too blue

Six “sub-Neptune” worlds locked in a delicate dance around a nearby star offer fresh insights for the orbital evolution of planetary systems

A surprisingly complex galaxy cluster suggests that in the search for dark matter, nothing is as simple as it seems