SPACE

Keen-eared observers sometimes report hearing popping, whistling or buzzing at the same time they see meteors pass far overhead, a perplexing phenomenon called the electrophonic effect. What causes the effect — or if it’s even real — has been discussed for centuries; famed astronomer Edmond Halley is said to have dismissed it as a figment of people’s imaginations. In a new study in Geophysical Research Letters, researchers suggest that not only is it real, but that it is caused by radio waves induced by meteors and converted to sound waves near Earth’s surface.

With two rovers patrolling the surface of Mars, six spacecraft orbiting above it, and scientists here on Earth studying the Red Planet from afar, new findings are announced often. Here are a few of the latest updates.

A recently discovered exoplanet 40 light-years from Earth appears to orbit its home star at a distance suggesting it could support liquid water. The planet, dubbed LHS 1140b and reported in a study in Nature, is located in the constellation Cetus and orbits a red dwarf star. The rocky planet is 10 times closer to its star than Earth is to the sun, but the red dwarf only puts out a fraction of the light that the sun does, meaning LHS 1140b lies in the middle of the habitable zone around the star.

A complex system of river-like channels on Mars widely thought to have been formed by flowing water could instead have been carved by a huge lava flow, according to a new study. The findings could affect our understanding of how supportive Mars might have been for life in the past.