Space News & Blog Articles

The largest magnetic fields in the universe may have found themselves charged up when the first stars began to shine, according to new research.

Like a performer preparing for their big finale, a distant star is shedding its outer layers and preparing to explode as a supernova.

For a little over a month now, the Earth has been joined by a new ‘mini-moon.’ The object is an asteroid that has been temporarily accompanying Earth on its journey around the Sun. By 25th November it will have departed but before then, astronomers across the world have been turning their telescopes to study it. A new paper of 2024 PT5 reveals its basaltic nature – similar to volcanic rocks on Earth – with a composition that makes it similar to lunar material. There have been many close encounters to Earth allowing many of its secrets to be unveiled.

Despite decades of study, black holes are still one of the most puzzling objects in the Universe. As we know from Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, the gravitational force of these stellar remnants alters the curvature of spacetime around them. This causes gas, dust, and even photons (light) in their vicinity to fall inwards and form disks that slowly accrete onto their faces, never to be seen again. However, astronomers have also noted that they can produce powerful jets that accelerate charged particles to close to the speed of light (aka. relativistic jets).

74 million kilometres is a huge distance from which to observe something. But 74 million km isn’t such a big deal when the object is the Sun.

Every now and then, astronomers will detect an odd kind of radio signal. So powerful it can outshine a galaxy, but lasting only milliseconds. They are known as fast radio bursts (FRBs). When they were first discovered a couple of decades ago, we had no idea what might cause them. We weren’t even sure if they were astronomical in origin. FRB’s were so localized and so short-lived, it was difficult to gather data on them. But with wide-field radio telescopes such as CHIME we can now observe FRBs regularly and have a pretty good idea of their source: magnetars.

How do you weigh one of the largest objects in the entire universe? Very carefully, according to new research.

Exploring the Moon poses significant risks, with its extreme environment and hazardous terrain presenting numerous challenges. In the event of a major accident, assistance might take days or even weeks to arrive. To address this, Australian researchers have created a distress alert system based upon the COSPAS-SARSAT technology used for Earth-based search and rescue operations. It relies on low-power emergency beacons that astronauts could activate with minimal setup and use a planned lunar satellite network for communication and rescue coordination.

Volcanoes are not restricted to the land, there are many undersea versions. One such undersea volcano known as Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai off the coast of Tonga. On 15th January 2022, it underwent an eruption which was one of the most powerful in recent memory. A recent paper shows that seismic waves were released 15 minutes before the eruption and before any visible disruption at the surface. The waves had been detected by a seismic station 750km away. This is the first time a precursor signal has been detected. 

Some binary stars are unusual. They contain a main sequence star like our Sun, while the other is a “dead” white dwarf star that left fusion behind and emanates only residual heat. When the main sequence star ages into a red giant, the two stars share a common envelope.

11 million years ago, Mars was a frigid, dry, dead world, just like it is now. Something slammed into the unfortunate planet, sending debris into space. A piece of that debris made it to Earth, found its way into a drawer at Purdue University, and then was subsequently forgotten about.

Uranus is an oddball among the Solar System’s planets. While most planets’ axis of rotation is perpendicular to their orbital plane, Uranus has an extreme tilt angle of 98 degrees. It’s flopped over on its side, likely from an ancient collision. It also has a retrograde orbit, opposite of the other planets.

A camera aboard the Mars Express orbiter finds a new lease on life.

CubeSats are becoming more and more capable, and it seems like every month, another CubeSat is launched doing something new and novel. So far, technology demonstration has been one of the primary goals of those missions, though the industry is moving into playing an active role in scientific discovery. However, there are still some hurdles to jump before CubeSats have as many scientific tools at their disposal as larger satellites. That is where the Space Industry Responsive Intelligent Thermal (SpIRIT) CubeSat, the first from the Univeristy of Melbourne’s Space Lab, hopes to make an impact. Late in 2023, it launched with a few novel systems to operate new scientific equipment, and its leaders published a paper a few months ago detailing the progress of its mission so far.

Buried in the treasure trove of the Gaia catalog were two strange black hole systems. These were black holes orbiting sun-like stars, a situation that astronomers long thought impossible. Recently a team has proposed a mechanism for creating these kinds of oddballs.

SpaceX’s Starship launch system went through its sixth flight test today, and although the Super Heavy booster missed out on being caught back at its launch pad, the mission checked off a key test objective with President-elect Donald Trump in the audience.

Thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, we all have a vivid image of the Crab Nebula emblazoned in our mind’s eyes. It’s the remnant of a supernova explosion Chinese astronomers recorded in 1056. However, the Crab Nebula is more than just a nebula; it’s also a pulsar.

The existence of gigantic black holes in the very early universe challenges our assumptions of how black holes form and grow. New research suggests that these monsters may have found their origins in the earliest epochs of the Big Bang.

The 2024 China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition was held in Zhuhai last week – from November 12th to 17th, 2024. Since 1996, and with support from the Chinese aerospace industry, this biennial festival features actual products, trade talks, technological exchanges, and an air show. This year’s big highlight was China’s newly announced reusable space cargo shuttle, the Haolong (Chinese for “dragon”). According to chief designer Fang Yuanpeng, the spacecraft has entered the engineering phase and will be ready for space in the near future.

In recent years, astronomers have developed techniques to measure the metal content of stars with extreme accuracy. With that capability, astronomers have examined sibling stars to see how their metallicity differs. Some of these co-natal stars have pronounced differences in their metallicity.

The Large Magellanic Cloud is a small galaxy, just a tenth of the Milky Way’s mass. It is about 160,000 light years away, which is remarkably close in cosmic terms. In the southern hemisphere it spans the width of 20 Moons in the night sky. While the galaxy seems timeless and unchanging to our short human lives, it is, in fact, a dynamic system undergoing a near collision with our galaxy. Now astronomers are beginning to observe that process.