Astrophysics

The Year in Physics

Quanta Magazine: One of the first articles Quanta Magazine published in 2021 described a cosmic surprise: A long-puzzling smudge of X-ray light was not, as most believed, a nearby cloud of gas, the remnant of some long-ago stellar explosion. Instead, it was the edge of a truly enormous structure, a…

Earth Is Spinning Faster Now Than It Was 50 Years Ago

Discover Magazine: Ever feel like there’s just not enough time in the day? Turns out, you might be onto something. Earth is rotating faster than it has in the last half-century, resulting in our days being ever-so-slightly shorter than we’re used…

Hubble telescope spots a complex cloud of gas expanding into space

Space.com: This serene cloud of gas belies a lot of activity deep within the nebula. NGC 6891 glows brightly in a new image from the Hubble Space Telescope, as the observatory assists scientists in learning more about how these gas…

Did the solar wind create Earth’s water?

Physics World: Earth might have received a large amount of its water from interplanetary dust grains interacting with the solar wind, according to new research that has picked apart the atoms in water molecules found in samples brought back to Earth…