New discoveries

Life is based on carbon chemistry. Without carbon, there would be no plants, animals, or people. Because carbon is so important for biology, all molecules that carry carbon atoms are called organic molecules. Simple organic molecules, like carbon monoxide (CO) and methane (CH4), are the very first building blocks...

Astronomers have found alcohol in a planet-forming disk. It’s not the regular form of alcohol that makes you drunk. Instead, it’s methyl alcohol, or methanol. Moreover, the methanol that has been found is not in the form of a liquid. Instead, it’s a gas.  Methanol consists of rather large...

A giant black hole in a distant galaxy is in for some heavy rain storms. Using ALMA, astronomers have discovered giant clouds of cold gas that shower down on the black hole. An umbrella doesn’t help – it would need to be hundreds of light-years across.  Most distant galaxies...

Adapted from Space Scoop – UNAWE. It takes nine months for a human baby to grow and 22-months for a baby elephant. But how long does it take to grow a planet? It turns out, it takes much less time than we thought. Previously, it was believed to take...

ALMA has imaged a broad band of dust and pebbles around a distant star. There’s one problem, though: the inner edge of the band lies further away from the star than expected. The discovery may hint at the presence of an as-yet-undiscovered planet. The star (HR 8799) is known...

By carefully looking at other people, you can guess how much they weigh. But if someone wears Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak, you have no idea – the invisible person could be a skinny boy or a fat lady.  Astronomers have a similar problem. By carefully looking at stars or...

We all know about stars, nebulae and galaxies. But these luminous objects are just the bright tip of a huge, dark cosmic iceberg. Most of the mass in the Universe consists of mysterious dark matter. Dark matter cannot be seen, and no one knows its composition.  Cosmologists believe that...

How did our Solar System look like when it was still forming? We don’t have a time machine to go back 4.6 billion years and take a look. But there’s another way to find out. We can look at another solar system that is forming right now. That will...

Here’s an easy experiment you can do at home. Fill the kitchen sink with water. Then pull out the plug, and carefully watch how the water flows down the drain. You will notice that it doesn’t disappear in a straight line. Instead, the water flows away in a rotating,...