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New calculations confirm that immense, energy-harvesting structures like Stellar Engines and Dyson Bubbles can theoretically remain stable without active control. For decades, astronomers have imagined alien civilizations deploying vast structures to harvest stellar energy. These concepts range from Stellar Engines (turning a star system into a spaceship) to Dyson Bubbles (energy collection swarms).

A 60-meter asteroid might strike the Moon in 2032. It could be a scientific goldmine—or a satellite-destroying nightmare. If Asteroid 2024 YR4 hits, it won't be a pebble in a pond. It will release energy equivalent to a medium-sized thermonuclear weapon.

Why do our tiny "cell factories" fail in space? A new Naval Research Laboratory study reveals that zero-g rewires microbial metabolism, prioritizing survival over production. As humanity prepares for long-duration missions to Mars and beyond, we cannot carry everything with us. We will need to manufacture medicines, materials, and life-support components on the fly. The solution? Bio-manufacturing using engineered microbes.

The James Webb Space Telescope has created the sharpest map of dark matter ever, revealing the "invisible scaffolding" that holds the universe together. Scientists have created the highest resolution map of the dark matter that threads through the universe. The research, led by Durham University, NASA's JPL, and EPFL, shows exactly how this invisible substance pulls ordinary matter into galaxies like our own Milky Way.

Astronomers have discovered five rare "Carbon-Enhanced Metal-Poor" (CEMP) stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud for the first time. Using the BOSS spectrograph, a team led by Madeline Lucey (University of Pennsylvania) analyzed data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). They were looking for something that shouldn't be there—or at least, hadn't been found yet.

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) has released its final results after six years of scanning the southern sky. We are one step closer to understanding the force tearing the cosmos apart. For all the time, money, and telescopes humanity has used, scientists are still asking a fundamental question: What is dark energy?

Buried deep in the early universe, "monster galaxies" churned out stars at furious rates. New high-resolution imaging reveals there is no single way to build a giant. Between 10 and 12 billion years ago, some galaxies were absolute powerhouses. These ancestors of today's giant ellipticals formed stars at rates that dwarf our Milky Way. But what drove them to grow so violently?

As the Dark Energy Survey releases its final results, we discuss the legacy of the project and the future of cosmology with pioneers Josh Frieman and Risa Wechsler.

Like a recording artist with a legendary history, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has released its definitive collection of cosmic hits. The richness of the Chandra Source Catalog is illustrated in this image of the region around Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. Spanning just 60 light-years across—a pinprick on the sky—Chandra detected over 3,300 individual X-ray sources.

For a long time, scientists assumed that Earth's water was delivered by asteroids and comets billions of years ago. New analysis of lunar rocks casts doubt on this old theory. This coincided with the Late Heavy Bombardment (ca. 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago), a period when planets and bodies in the solar system experienced a much higher rate of impacts.

Between the birth of a star and the settling of a solar system lies a chaotic "teenage" phase. ALMA has just captured the sharpest family album of these violent, dusty years. A faint, sparse ring of icy debris beyond Neptune. It's the quiet aftermath of a chaotic youth.

The universe is breaking our models. Two methods of measuring expansion give two different answers. A new theory suggests ancient magnetic fields are the missing key. Early Universe (CMB): When we look at the oldest light (Planck satellite), the math says the universe expands at 67 km/s/Mpc.