Space News & Blog Articles

More than one million asteroids larger than 1 km exist in the main asteroid belt (MAB) between Mars and Jupiter. Their roots are in a much smaller number of larger asteroids that broke apart because of collisions, and the MAB is populated with debris fields from these collisions. Researchers have created a geological map of the MAB by tracking meteorites that fell to Earth and determining which of these debris fields they originated in.

Welcome back to our five-part examination of Webb's Cycle 4 General Observations program. In the first and second installments, we examined how some of Webb's 8,500 hours of prime observing time this cycle will be dedicated to exoplanet characterization and the study of galaxies that existed at "Cosmic Dawn" - ca. less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang.

We see the Universe through a glass darkly, or more accurately, through a dusty window. Interstellar dust is scattered throughout the Milky Way, which limits our view depending on where we look. In some directions, the effects of dust are small, but in other regions the view is so dusty it's called the Zone of Avoidance. Dust biases our view of the heavens, but fortunately a new study has created a detailed map of cosmic dust so we can better account for it.

When massive stars explode as supernovae, they can leave behind neutron stars. Other than black holes, these are the densest objects we know of. However, their masses are difficult to determine. New research is making headway.

The search for life has become one of the holy grails of science. With the increasing number of exoplanet discoveries, astronomers are hunting for a chemical that can only be present in the atmosphere of a planet with life! A new paper suggests that methyl halides, which contain one carbon and three hydrogen atoms, may just do the trick. Here on Earth they are produced by bacteria, algae, fungi and some plants but not by any abiotic processes (non biological.) There is a hitch, detecting these chemicals is beyond the reach of current telescopes.

The China Space Station Telescope, scheduled for a 2027 launch, will offer astronomers a fresh view on the cosmos. Though somewhat smaller than Hubble, it features a much wider field of view, giving a wide-field surveys that will map gravitational lensing, galaxy clusters, and cosmic voids. Scientists anticipate it will measure dark energy with 1% precision, differentiate between cold and dark matter models, and evaluate gravitational theories.

From far enough away, most supernovas are benign. But the thing you have to watch out for are the X-rays.

When water is sprayed or splashed, different size microdroplets develop opposite charges. This "microlightning" could've provided the energy needed to synthesize prebiotic molecules necessary for life.

Helium-3 (He-3) on the Moon's surface has drawn attention for decades. In 1939, a paper first noted the presence of Helium-3 on the Moon. Still, it really came into the collective consciousness of space resource enthusiasts during the 1980s when they realized just how valuable a resource it was and how much the Moon had of it. Now, a new paper from a company called Interlune, a relatively new start-up based out of Seattle, presented a paper at the recent Lunar and Planetary Science Conference that discusses plans to try to mine some of that wealth of material economically.

Even tipped over onto its side, the Odysseus Lunar Lander was able to do some science. Though a broken leg means it's doomed to spend eternity in an awkward position, its solar panels were able to gather some energy. Enough for its radiotelescope to take observations for about 80 minutes.

We are so familiar with our solar system that we often presume it is generally how star systems are built. Four little planets close to the star, four large gas planets farther away, and all with roughly circular orbits. But as we have found ever more exoplanets, we've come to understand just how unusual the solar system is. Large planets often orbit close to their star, small planets are much more common than larger ones, and as a new study shows, orbits aren't always circular.

Gravitational slingshots are now a common part of space missions where the trajectory of a spacecraft is altered using the gravity of another body. These often bring fabulous opportunities for an extra bit of bonus science such as that demonstrated by ESA’s Hera mission on its way to asteroid Dimorphos. It’s following up on the DART 2022 impact but to get there, it’s used the gravity of Mars. It came within 5,000 km of the red planet and on its way, was able to take a look at Mars’ smaller moon Deimos from its far side.

Supernova explosions are powerful enough to cause mass extinctions if they're close enough. But can we tie supernovae to any of Earth's five mass extinctions? New research shows supernovae could be responsible for the Late Devonian and Late Ordovician mass extinctions.

When Betelgeuse goes off, it's going to be the show of a lifetime. But it’s not going to hurt us.

What's on and in a star? What happens at an active galactic nucleus? Answering those question is the goal of a proposed giant interferometer on the Moon. It's called Artemis-enabled Stellar Imager (AeSI) and would deploy a series of 15-30 optical/ultraviolet-sensitive telescopes in a 1-km elliptical array across the lunar surface.

In the years since Miguel Alcubierre came up with a warp drive solution in 1994, you would occasionally see news headlines saying that warp drives can work. And then a few months later you’ll see that they’ve been ruled out. And then after that you’ll see that warp drives kind of work, but only in limited cases. It seems to constantly go around and around without a clear answer.What gives?

There is a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. There is also a lot of other stuff there as well. Young stars, gas, dust, and stellar-mass black holes. It's a happening place. It is also surrounded by a veil of interstellar gas and dust, which means we can't observe the region in visible light. We can observe stars in the region through infrared and radio, and some of the gas there emits radio light, but the stellar-mass black holes remain mostly a mystery.

Welcome back to our five-part examination of Webb's Cycle 4 General Observations program. In the first and second installments, we examined how some of Webb's 8,500 hours of prime observing time this cycle will be dedicated to exoplanet characterization, the study of galaxies at "Cosmic Dawn," the period known as "Cosmic Noon," and the study of star formation and evolution.In our final installment, we'll examine programs that leverage Webb's unique abilities to study objects in our cosmic backyard—the Solar System!

In 1994 Miguel Alcubierre was able to construct a valid solution to the equations of general relativity that enable a warp drive. But now we need to tackle the rest of relativity: How do we arrange matter and energy to make that particular configuration of spacetime possible?

There are three known types of black holes: supermassive black holes that lurk in the hearts of galaxies, stellar mass black holes formed from stars that die as supernovae, and intermediate mass black holes with masses between the two extremes. It's generally thought that the intermediate ones form from the mergers of stellar mass black holes. If that is true, there should be a forbidden range between stellar and intermediate masses. A range where the mass is too large to have formed from a star but too small to be the sum of mergers. But a new study of data from LIGO suggests that there are black holes in that forbidden range.

To make a warp drive you have to arrange spacetime so that you never locally travel faster than light but still arrive at your destination…faster than light. And in 1994 Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre figured out how.