Space News & Blog Articles

Now that we have tools to find vast numbers of voids in the universe, we can finally ask…well, if we crack em open, what do we find inside?

There is a limit to how big we can build particle colliders on Earth, whether that is because of limited space or limited economics. Since size is equivalent to energy output for particle colliders, that also means there’s a limit to how energetic we can make them. And again, since high energies are required to test theories that go Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) of particle physics, that means we will be limited in our ability to validate those theories until we build a collider big enough. But a team of scientists led by Yang Bai at the University of Wisconsin thinks they might have a better idea - use already existing neutrino detectors as a large scale particle collider that can reach energies way beyond what the LHC is capable of.

How could the principle of “radical mundanity” proposed by the Fermi paradox help explain why humans haven’t found evidence of extraterrestrial technological civilizations (ETCs)? This is what a recently submitted study hopes to address as a lone researcher investigated the prospect for finding ETCs based on this principle. This study has the potential to help scientists and the public better understand why we haven’t identified intelligent life beyond Earth and how we might narrow the search for it.

Could scientists find life in the clouds of exoplanet atmospheres? This is what a recently submitted manuscript hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated how the biosignatures of microbes could be identified in exoplanet atmospheres and clouds. This study has the potential to help scientists develop new methods for finding life on exoplanets, either as we know it or even as we don’t know it.

In the 1970’s Vera Rubin didn’t set out to upend modern cosmology. She was just always curious about the heavens. It started with building a homemade telescope out of cardboard and glass, and it progressed with her becoming the only astronomy undergraduate student at Vasser College, graduating in 1948. She was qualified enough to get into Princeton, except for the fact that she was a woman, and so they wouldn’t let her in. Despite years of discouragement and harassment, she made a name for herself in cosmology, joining the first generation of scientists to piece together the large-scale structure of the universe.

Everyone’s favorite interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS isn’t hiding near perihelion this week, as amateur astronomers reveal.

For decades, astronomers have faced a frustrating puzzle when studying star formation in our Galaxy. They know that most stars are born inside clouds of cold molecular hydrogen gas, but this hydrogen is all but invisible to telescopes because it doesn't emit light that can easily be detected. To find these stellar nurseries, researchers have relied on carbon monoxide as a tracer molecule, find the marker and thats where molecular clouds exist. However, there's been a problem with this approach, substantial amounts of star forming gas simply don't light up in carbon monoxide observations, remaining hidden from view.

If you could zoom out from Earth far enough, our Milky Way would shrink to just one galaxy among roughly fifty neighbours clustered together by gravity. These galactic neighbourhoods vary dramatically in size, and the largest ones, containing hundreds or thousands of galaxies bound together, represent some of the most massive objects in the entire universe. Their immense scale makes them uniquely valuable laboratories for testing our understanding of fundamental physics.

Can water-rich exoplanets survive orbiting white dwarf stars, the latter of which are remnants of Sun-like stars? This is what a recent study accepted to *The Astrophysical Journal* hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated the likelihood of small, rocky worlds with close orbits to white dwarfs could harbor life. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the conditions for finding life as we know it, or don’t know it, and where to find it.

The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is slated to be the next Great Observatory for the world. Its main focus has been searching for biosignatures in the atmospheres of at least 25 Earth-like exoplanets. However, to do that, it will require a significant amount of effort with only a coronagraph, the currently planned primary instrument, no matter how powerful that coronagraph is. As new paper from Fabien Malbet of the University of Grenoble Alpes and his co-authors suggest an improvement - add a second instrument to HWO’s payload that will be able to astrometrically track planets down to a precision of .5 micro-arcseconds (µas). That would allow HWO to detect Earth-size planets around hundreds of nearby stars - dramatically increasing the number of potential candidates for atmospheric analysis.

Our Sun seems pretty calm these days with a largely stable regular solar cycle revealed by sunspots and flare activity but billions of years ago, it was quite simply a menace. Scientists have just captured evidence of what the Sun and early Solar System might have looked like, and it's more violent than we imagined.

New images from the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed NGC 6537, the Red Spider Nebula in unprecedented detail, complete with sprawling legs, a glowing heart, and possibly a hidden companion lurking at its core.

In partnership with NASA, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works has executed the first test flight of the X-59 quiet supersonic aircraft. This week's first flight was subsonic, but eventually the plane will demonstrate technologies aimed at reducing sonic booms to gentle thumps.

As a kid you ever play that game Guess Who? If you haven’t, it’s actually kinda fun. You have two players, each with a board in front of them. On the board are a bunch of flip cards with different characters. You have to guess your opponent’s secret identity through a process of elimination. You ask if they’re a kid or an adult, or a boy or a girl, or if they’re wearing glasses or bald. If you ask the right questions, and eliminate the correct possibilities, you’re left with only one remaining option: your opponent’s secret identity.

Gravitational wave telescopes work in a very different way than optical or radio telescopes, but they do have one thing in common: they are tuned to a specific range of frequencies.

A nearby dwarf galaxy could teach astrophysicists something new about dark matter and black holes. It's named Segue 1 and it's about 75,000 light years away. Segue 1 is one of the Milky Way's smallest and dimmest satellite galaxies. It has about 600,000 solar masses and is only as bright as about 300 Suns.

We are truly lucky to live in an age where modern instruments - like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) - exist and are pulling back the veil on the period known as the Cosmic Dark Ages (aka. the Epoch of Reionization). Thanks to its sophisticated suite of infrared optics and spectrometers, Webb has observed some of the earliest galaxies in the Universe, shedding new light on the formation history and evolution of the cosmos. Alas, there are still many unanswered questions about the first stars (Population III), galaxies, and black holes formed.

It's a well-known fact that Jupiter plays a vital role in the dynamics of the Solar System. As the largest planet beyond the "Frost Line," the boundary where volatiles (like water) freeze, Jupiter protects the planets of the inner Solar System from potential impacts by asteroids and comets. In addition to this "guardian" role, Jupiter has also been an "architect" planet that affected the evolution of the early Solar System and the orbits of its planets. According to new research from Rice University, Jupiter reshaped the Solar System by carving rings and gaps in the protoplanetary disk, leading to the formation of late-stage meteorites.

Why is it important to know about exoplanets having their atmospheres stripped while orbiting F-type stars? This is what a recent study submitted to *The Astronomical Journal* hopes to address as an international team of scientists conducted a first-time investigation into atmospheric escape on planets orbiting F-type stars, the latter of which are larger and hotter than our Sun. Atmospheric escape occurs on planets orbiting extremely close to their stars, resulting in the extreme temperature and radiation from the host star slowly stripping away the planet’s atmosphere.

We successfully plugged the hole in the ozone layer that was discovered in the 1980s by banning ozone depleting substances such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). But, it seems we might be unintentionally creating another potential atmospheric calamity by using the upper atmosphere to destroy huge constellations of satellites after a very short (i.e. 5 year) lifetime. According to a new paper by Leonard Schulz of the Technical University of Braunschweig and his co-authors, material from satellites that burn up in the atmosphere, especially transition metals, could have unforeseen consequences on atmospheric chemistry - and we’re now the biggest contributor of some of those elements.

Black holes it seems, are recyclers and a team of scientists have just caught them in the act. Two gravitational wave detections from late 2024 have revealed black holes with bizarre spins and lopsided masses, the telltale signs of cannibalism on a universal scale.