space sciences

Scientists using a state-of-the-art UCLA instrument have witnessed a planetary-scale “tug-of-war” of life, deep Earth and the upper atmosphere that is expressed in atmospheric nitrogen.

Astronaut and alumna Anna Lee Fisher will receive UCLA’s first Science and Education Pioneer award at Young Hall at 2 p.m.

Titan’s liquid methane rain appears to play a major role in shaping its icy surface, and the downpours are much more common than researchers expected.

The astronomers identified a “special comet” called K2 traveling from beyond Saturn’s orbit — the farthest active inbound comet ever seen.

Andrea Ghez is an astronomy professor and pre-eminent scholar on the role of black holes in the evolution of galaxies.

The new hypothesis doesn’t rely on the “unlikely coincidences” that underpin other theories explaining primordial black holes.

More than 1,000 people filled the Court of Sciences on Monday to view the partial eclipse of the sun.

Public event, featuring filtered solar telescopes for safe viewing, will be held from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. on Aug. 21.

Scientists had assumed the core was rotating at about the same speed as the surface, but this surprising observation might reveal what the sun was like when it formed.

Jessica Watkins earned her Ph.D. in geology from UCLA in 2015.

UCLA Ph.D. student Andy Tay writes about a crucial a challenge to long-distance space travel — overcoming the long-term effects of microgravity on our bodies.

An international team of astronomers has observed a striking spiral pattern in the gas surrounding a red giant star called LL Pegasi and its companion star 3,400 light-years from Earth.

A “baby” solar system 300 light-years away has given astrophysicists from UCLA and the Carnegie Institution for Science a rare peek at the formation of a planet.

A UCLA-led team of scientists discovered a white dwarf star in the constellation Boötes whose atmosphere is rich in carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen.

UCLA’s Jonathan Aurnou and collaborators in Marseille, France, demonstrated that the planet’s jets likely extend thousands of miles below its visible atmosphere.

A UCLA-led research team reports that the moon is at least 4.51 billion years old and probably formed only about 60 million years after the birth of the solar system — 40 million to 140 million years earlier than had been thought.

The new observations confirm a long-standing theory that stars are copious producers of heavy elements.

Scientists from the Institute for Planets and Exoplanets will offer free views of the moon from the roof of the Mathematical Sciences Building.

New findings by a UCLA-led team of researchers answer a question about our space environment and will help scientists protect telecommunication and navigation satellites.

The team, led by a UCLA researcher, used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to gather data on Comet 332P as it broke apart 67 million miles from Earth.

COSMOS-1908 is 12 billion light years away, which is “by far” the most distant galaxy scientists have accurately measured oxygen abundance in.

Kepler-62f could have atmospheric compositions that allow it to be warm enough to have surface liquid water, which would make it possible for the planet to support life.

The researchers made the discovery using an effect called gravitational lensing to see the incredibly faint object, which was born just after the Big Bang.

Viewers will have the rare opportunity to watch Mercury glide slowly across the sun.

The violent impact with a “planetary embryo” called Theia occurred approximately 100 million years after the Earth formed, UCLA geochemists and colleagues report.