Charles Q. Choi

Strange, never-before-seen movements in the East Africa Rift Valley appear to be driven by super-heated rock from deep beneath Earth's surface.

Astronomers have now deduced what alien scientists might see when they gaze at the Milky Way from afar. Our home galaxy is unusual but not unique, at least when it comes to chemistry.

Astronomers have detected high-energy neutrinos coming from within our Milky Way galaxy, potentially opening up an exciting new window of research.

The core of Jupiter's ocean moon Europa might have formed billions of years after the rest of it did, if indeed it has formed at all, a new study finds.

The discovery of the new planet BEBOP-1c confirms the 2nd-ever known planetary system orbiting twin stars similar to the fictional planet Tatooine of Star Wars fame.

Long spaceflights can cause astronauts' ventricles — cavities in the brain that hold cerebrospinal fluid — to enlarge by up to 25%. And it apparently takes years for the swelling to go down.

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have detected the oldest known examples of complex organic molecules in the universe, a new study reports.

The January 2022 eruption of a Tonga undersea volcano was powerful enough to generate plasma bubbles that disrupted radio communications in outer space.

A warp in the fabric of space and time that acted like a giant magnifying glass may help solve a celestial mystery about the rate of the universe's expansion.

The action 12,000 light-years away may presage what happens to Earth about 5 billion years from now.

Medieval tomes that recorded how the moon changed color during lunar eclipses could help reveal vital clues about the volcanic eruptions that may have triggered the Little Ice Age in Europe.

The robots currently exploring Mars may not be capable of detecting potential traces of life on the Red Planet, a new study finds.

A proposed NASA mission to Uranus would shed light on the mysterious ice giant as well as a type of exoplanet that's among the most common in the universe, researchers say.

An enhanced in-space diet augmented with fruits, vegetables and fish could help boost astronaut health and performance, a new study finds.

Space probes that fly close to the sun may help reveal the nature of dark matter, which makes up about five-sixths of all matter in the universe but remains a mystery.

Researchers may be able to explain the origin of these enigmatic worlds and also that of other rocky planets and moons, including Earth and its siblings.