Physics | Science News for Students

Physics

a telescopic image of the moon

Water molecules near the moon hint that our natural satellite has water under its soil.

NASA

Astronomy
 
May 22, 2019
Meteorites may be excavating lunar water
Afghan minefield

This sign in English and Arabic warns pedestrians that live land mines still litter this field in Afghanistan.

manxman/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Physics
 
Apr 30, 2019
Heat signatures help track down old and still deadly land mines
the first ever photo of a black hole, an orange and red aura surrounding a dark round spot

The first image of a black hole shows a bright ring with a dark, central spot. That ring is a bright disk of gas orbiting the supermassive behemoth in the galaxy M87. The spot is the black hole’s shadow.

Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

Astronomy
 
Apr 10, 2019
Here’s the first picture of a black hole
a photo of the ALMA array, a group of radio telescopes with large dishes

A network of telescopes across the globe — including ALMA in Chile (partially shown here) — teamed up to create the Event Horizon Telescope. It’s a virtual radio dish almost as big as Earth.

Carlos Padilla/AUI/NRAO

Astronomy
 
Apr 10, 2019
It took a ‘virtual’ telescope to actually picture a black hole
an illustration of a black hole with stars in the background, a dark black circle with a white ring and aura around the outside of the hole

The story of how black holes (one illustrated) came to be accepted in science is a tale worth recounting.

Vchal/Istock/Getty Images Plus

Astronomy
 
Apr 10, 2019
A short history of black holes
a photo of a slingshot spider and its web

To catch its prey, the slingshot spider sends itself and its web flying at extreme accelerations. The motion makes this the fastest known arachnid.

Lawrence E. Reeves

Animals
 
Apr 10, 2019
This spider slingshots itself at extreme speeds to catch prey
a photo of a grape and water-soaked bead side by side in a microwave, a plasma fireball has sparked where they are touching

Microwaving two grapes creates a hotspot where the fruit pieces touch, sparking a plasma fireball. The trick also works with a grape and a water-soaked bead (shown).

Slepkov Biophotonics Lab/Trent Univ.

Physics
 
Apr 2, 2019
Scientists now know why microwaved grapes make plasma fireballs
An artist’s interpretation of what the black hole named Cygnus X-1 might look like. A large horizontal spinning disk is pulling in mass from a nearby blue star. Light shoots straight out from the top and the bottom of the middle of the disk.

This is an artist’s interpretation of what the black hole named Cygnus X-1 might look like. It formed after a large star imploded on itself. The intense gravity of this black hole is drawing in mass from a nearby blue star.

NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

Astronomy
 
Mar 27, 2019
Explainer: What are black holes?
a photo of a thunderstorm over a city in the distance, there are two lightning strikes in the middle of the photo

A thunderstorm like this one might store a huge electric potential — more than a billion volts.

Ian Froome/Unsplash

Weather & Climate
 
Mar 25, 2019
Thunderstorms hold stunningly high voltage
a long exposure of a meteor shower at night

Space dust rains down on Earth all the time. Most of these specks are too small to see. But when one the size of a sand grain hits the atmosphere, it blazes with visible light, becoming a micrometeor, or “shooting star.”

x-reflexnaja/istockphoto

Space
 
Mar 7, 2019
On the lookout for micro-missiles from space