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�鶹��ý. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

In November 2019, researchers were astonished when they viewed its image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. Dark matter is an invisible substance that astronomers believe plays an important role in the formation of galaxies and is thought to comprise 85 percent of the universe?s mass. This discovery not only challenges the ideas of how galaxies form, but also provides evidence that dark matter is real. It shows that dark matter is not always coupled with regular matter in galaxies and that it has its own separate existence. In addition to lacking dark matter, galaxy NGC 1052-DF2 is an anomaly because you can see straight through it. This is called an ultra-diffuse galaxy because it has an extremely low density. As a result of these findings, a team of researchers are hunting for more dark-matter deficient galaxies to better understand the nature of dark matter and the formation of galaxies.

Space

Earth’s surface may be teeming with trillions of dark matter particles

When dark matter is captured inside a planet or star, much of it sinks to the middle – but if it sometimes bounces off regular matter, there may be huge amounts of it lurking just beneath the surface

News

Some of the first images revealed of the asteroid impact taken by LICIACube.

Space

First images show aftermath of NASA's DART asteroid collision mission

News

Surface of asteroid Dimorphos

Space

NASA's DART mission successfully smashed into asteroid Dimorphos

News

How NASA's DART spacecraft will divert asteroids

Video

How NASA's DART spacecraft will divert asteroids

Video

Red dwarf star

Space

Deadly stellar radiation blasts 'habitable' exoplanets every few days

News

This shows a still image of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, as seen by the Event Horizon Collaboration (EHT), with an artist???s illustration indicating where the modelling of the ALMA data predicts the hot spot to be and its orbit around the black hole.

Space

Bubble of hot electrons seen hurtling around our galaxy’s black hole

News

Fireball

Space

Astronomers trace fireball in Earth's skies to space rock that made it

News

Webb?s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image of Neptune, taken on July 12, 2022, brings the planet?s rings into full focus for the first time in more than three decades. The most prominent features of Neptune?s atmosphere in this image are a series of bright patches in the planet?s southern hemisphere that represent high-altitude methane-ice clouds. More subtly, a thin line of brightness circling the planet?s equator could be a visual signature of global atmospheric circulation that powers Neptune?s winds and storms. Additionally, for the first time, Webb has teased out a continuous band of high-latitude clouds surrounding a previously-known vortex at Neptune?s southern pole.

Space

JWST has captured an astonishing view of Neptune and its rings

News

Artist's impression of three planets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star

Space

Earth's algae and moss could survive under the light of another star

News

Saturn's moon Enceladus

Space

Enceladus shown to have all six of the essential elements for life

Reanalysis of icy rock grains from a ring of Saturn – fed by ice plumes from its moon Enceladus – has revealed the presence of phosphorus, the only key essential element for life that hadn’t already been spotted

News

Space

NASA is ready to knock an asteroid off course with its DART spacecraft

News

Space

James Webb Space Telescope captures its first pictures of Mars

News

Space

Closest black hole to Earth is just 1500 light years away

News

Space

Astronomy Photographer of the Year photos are out of this world

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