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Optical gyroscope detects Earth’s rotation with the highest precision yet

With further improvements, the instrument could enable direct tests of relativistic effects

A photograph of the ring laser at the Geodetic Observatory Wettzell in Bavaria. It's mounted on a circular platform, which is itself mounted on a chunky-looking metal dais. There's a person in black clothing working on the laser at the back of the room, but most other things in the room are grey or white.

Imagining alien worlds: we explore the science and fiction of exoplanets

Keith Cooper chats about his new book in this podcast

Juno: the spacecraft that is revolutionizing our understanding of Jupiter

PI Scott Bolton talks about the mission’s discoveries and endurance in this podcast

Space ice reveals its secrets

Simulations and experiments indicate that the low-density amorphous ice found on comets and icy moons is not, in fact, entirely amorphous

Image showing chunks of white crystal interspersed with a blue amorphous background

This is what an aurora looks like on Mars

Image is the first taken on the surface of another planet, and the first visible-light aurora image from anywhere other than Earth

Solar wind burst caused a heatwave on Jupiter

New analysis of 2017 data suggest that the Jovian atmosphere is not as self-contained as scientists thought

White-to-black heat map of the planet Jupiter superimposed against a photograph of the planet and against a dark, starry background. The planet's north pole is bright white, the equatorial regions tend towards black, and most of the middle latitudes are red except for a wide arc of yellow about 1/3 of the way from north pole to equator. The southernmost latitudes are not included in the heat map. A scale at right indicates that white areas are 700 degrees Celsius, yellow areas are 600, red areas are 500-300, and black areas are 200. A note adds that these temperatures are measured 1000 km above the planet's surface.

The enigma of Trappist-1 b: a thick atmosphere or airless rock?

Thermal emission measurements from the exoplanet Trappist-1 b suggest two plausible yet contradictory scenarios

Artistic impression of the exoplanet Trappist-1 b

How would an asteroid strike affect life on Earth?

New simulations reveal that the climate, atmospheric chemistry and even global photosynthesis would be dramatically disrupted by an asteroid collision

Responses to dust injections of 400 million tonnes from a Bennu-type asteroid impact

Astronomers create a ‘weather map’ for a gas giant exoplanet

Supersonic winds and water vapour feature in new study of WASP-127b

Artist’s impression of supersonic winds on WASP-127b. The image shows a Jupiter-like gas giant planet with clouds that are blue-grey at the poles, reddish at medium latitudes, and white and windblown near the equator

Asteroid Bennu contains the stuff of life, sample analysis reveals

Rock and dust samples brought back to Earth from the asteroid Bennu contain organic matter and a variety of minerals crucial to the emergence of life

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