Topic description and stories

 ̽»¨Ö±²¥moon

Graphene heads to the moon

30 Nov 2022

Cambridge researchers are part of a European project testing graphene’s ability to protect spacecraft against the sticky, sharp dust on the moon’s...

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Observations by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have taken advantage of gravitational lensing to reveal the largest sample of the faintest and earliest known galaxies in the universe.

Non-detection of key signal allows astronomers to determine what the first galaxies were – and weren’t – like

28 Nov 2022

Researchers have been able to make some key determinations about the first galaxies to exist, in one of the first astrophysical studies of the period...

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Artist's impression of planet formation

Study of ‘polluted’ white dwarfs finds that stars and planets grow together

14 Nov 2022

A team of astronomers have found that planet formation in our young Solar System started much earlier than previously thought, with the building...

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Dust plumes observed being ‘pushed’ into interstellar space by intense starlight

12 Oct 2022

Astronomers have observed directly for the first time how intense light from stars can ‘push’ matter. Researchers from the universities of Cambridge...

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Liquid water beneath Martian polar ice cap

29 Sep 2022

An international team of researchers has revealed new evidence for the possible existence of liquid water beneath the south polar ice cap of Mars.

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H1821+643, a quasar powered by a supermassive black hole

Chandra Observatory shows black hole spins slower than its peers

30 Jun 2022

Astronomers have made a record-breaking measurement of a black hole’s spin, one of two fundamental properties of black holes. NASA’s Chandra X-ray...

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Venus, from Mariner 10

No signs (yet) of life on Venus

14 Jun 2022

̽»¨Ö±²¥unusual behaviour of sulphur in Venus’ atmosphere cannot be explained by an ‘aerial’ form of extra-terrestrial life, according to a new study.

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Messier 101 ( ̽»¨Ö±²¥Pinwheel Galaxy)

Supermassive black holes put a brake on stellar births

21 Mar 2022

Black holes with masses equivalent to millions of suns do put a brake on the birth of new stars, say astronomers. Using machine learning and three...

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Venus from Mariner 10

Could acid-neutralising life-forms make habitable pockets in Venus’ clouds?

20 Dec 2021

A new study shows it’s theoretically possible. ̽»¨Ö±²¥hypothesis could be tested soon with proposed Venus-bound missions.

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Bright red and yellow sun

Have we detected dark energy? Cambridge scientists say it’s a possibility

15 Sep 2021

Dark energy, the mysterious force that causes the universe to accelerate, may have been responsible for unexpected results from the XENON1T...

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Artist's impression of a Hycean planet

New class of habitable exoplanets 'a big step forward' in search for life

26 Aug 2021

A new class of exoplanet very different to our own, but which could support life, has been identified by astronomers, which could greatly accelerate...

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Artist’s impression of the planet around Alpha Centauri B

Astronomers show how planets form in binary systems without getting crushed

27 Jul 2021

Astronomers have developed the most realistic model to date of planet formation in binary star systems.

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