How can astronomers pierce through the interstellar fog of the Milky Way—not to study distant objects, but to understand the fog itself? It just takes a little light. On January 12, 2003, NASA ...

Molecules containing noble gases shouldn’t exist. By definition, these chemical elements — helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon and radon — are the party poopers of the periodic table, huddling in the ...

The Milky Way's interstellar medium—that is, the dust and gas that threads between our galaxy's billions of stars—is an abundant yet elusive material. That means the latest image from NASA's James ...

It has been known for many years that magnetic fields exist in the interstellar medium (ISM), although their role in shaping ...

The heliosphere—made of solar wind, solar transients, and the interplanetary magnetic field—acts as our solar system's personal shield, protecting the planets from galactic cosmic rays. These ...

Astronomers have developed a groundbreaking computer simulation to explore, in unprecedented detail, magnetism and turbulence in the interstellar medium (ISM) -- the vast ocean of gas and charged ...

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft made history in 2012 by entering interstellar space, leaving the planets and the solar wind behind But observations from the pioneering probe were puzzling with regard to ...

What to the solar wind at the boundary between the solar system and the interstellar medium? This is what a recent study ...

The interstellar medium (ISM) is permeated by microscopic solid particles—dust grains—whose sizes span from a few nanometres to several micrometres. These grains originate primarily in the outflows of ...