Paul Sutter

In a recent contest, teams of researchers competed to see who could train an AI model to best pilot a spaceship. The results suggest that an era of autonomous space exploration may be closer than we think.

Unfortunately, any work you do in the universe will have to be done the old-fashioned way.

The vast, seemingly empty spaces between galaxies are not entirely empty. So what's in these cosmic voids?

New research suggests that the largest magnetic fields in the universe originated through some exotic mechanism that absolutely soaked the early cosmos.

New research suggests there may be a narrow window of possibility for life to persist on the icy moons of the outer solar system.

There is a set of very special numbers, known as the fundamental constants of nature, that cannot be explained. Where do they come from?

The physical constants of the universe appear to favor the existence of life. So why are we here?

New research has found that lightning, while not very common, can occur on tidally locked exoplanets like our nearest neighbor, Proxima b.

Structures known as "zippers" and "twisters" in the early universe may explain why dwarf galaxies tend to line up with each other, as well as hint at how dark matter operates in the universe.

Neutron stars are some of the weirdest cosmic objects, and the greatest mysteries lie deep in their hearts.

While it's much smaller than the largest supermassive black holes detected, it's still a whopper considering how early in the history of the universe it appeared.

The infant universe's population of huge black holes could owe itself to ultralight dark matter, scientists say.

In the early universe, primordial black holes could acquire a "dark charge," giving them an unnaturally long lifetime, new research suggests. This makes them an interesting candidate for dark matter.

Famed physicist Stephen Hawking took gravity to its ultimate limits. In doing so, he made a number of significant advancements in our understanding of black holes, cosmology and quantum gravity.

For over a century, astronomers have marveled at the beauty and complexity of spiral galaxies, which feature arms covered in a multitude of small-scale features known as feathers.

Despite a brief panic, asteroid 2024 YR4 isn't likely to hit us anytime soon, but we can still study the asteroid up close to help us understand these space rocks.

The moon is unlike anything else in the solar system. So how did our planet end up with such a special moon?

To construct a warp drive, we would need negative mass, which doesn't appear to exist in the universe and would violate everything we know about motion, momentum and energy.

Astronomers have discovered that sulfur may be a key to helping us narrow down our search for life on other planets.

Hunting for alien civilizations isn't a matter of just waiting around for them to show up; it's the business of combing through enormous volumes of data to look for peculiar signals.

The skies may be full of invisible "boson stars" that could have a connection to dark matter.

If parallel universes exist, can we access them? Let's explore the possibility.

Dark matter can't be too heavy or it might break our best model of the universe, new research suggests.

For decades, scientists assumed that the expansion of the universe was powered by a new entity, known as the inflaton, but new research suggests that it may have been possible without it.