Phosphorus is one of six key elements necessary for life on Earth. When combined with hydrogen, phosphorus forms the molecule phosphine (PH 3), an explosive, highly toxic gas. Found in the atmospheres ...

When astronomers pointed the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) at a faint object orbiting a distant star system, they weren’t expecting to find one of the universe’s strangest chemical ...

A faint blip on a telescope readout can set off a wave of excitement. Maybe it is a molecule tied to life. Maybe it is ...

An orange, striated sphere hangs in space with stars behind it with a line from it drawn to a box that contains a space-filling model of phosphine where phosphorus is orange and hydrogen is white.

The finding suggests phosphine—a potential biosignature—shouldn’t be viewed as evidence of alien life until natural, non-biological sources are ruled out. Reading time 5 minutes For scientists, the ...

A detection of phosphine in the atmosphere of a brown dwarf 54 light-years from Earth deepens the mystery of phosphorus chemistry throughout the Milky Way. An ancient object more than 10 billion years ...

Brown dwarfs: too small to be stars, too big to be planets. Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest sci-tech news updates. Only discovered in the 1990s, these in-between cosmic objects aren't big ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Researchers have found ...

If a radio telescope records all of the expected signals for a given molecule its spectrum then astronomers can confidently ...

The Nature Index 2025 Research Leaders — previously known as Annual Tables — reveal the leading institutions and countries/territories in the natural and health sciences, according to their output in ...

Schematic of the Wolf 1130ABC triple system, composed of the red dwarf star Wolf 1130A (l), its close and compact white dwarf companion Wolf 1130B (c), and the distant brown dwarf tertiary Wolf 1130C ...