Space News & Blog Articles

In the more than sixty years where scientists have engaged in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), several potential examples of technological activity (“technosignatures”) have been considered. While most SETI surveys to date have focused on potential radio signals from distant sources, scientists have expanded the search to include other possible examples. This includes other forms of communication (directed energy, neutrinos, gravitational waves, etc.) and examples of megastructures (Dyson Spheres, Clarke Bands, Niven Rings, etc.)

Sailing has been a mainstay of human history for millennia, so it’s no surprise that scientists would apply it to traveling in space. Solar sailing, the most common version, uses pressure from the Sun to push spacecraft with giant sails outward in the solar system. However, there is a more technologically advanced version that several groups think might offer us the best shot at getting to Alpha Centauri – light sailing. Instead of relying on light from the Sun, this technique uses a laser to push an extraordinarily light spacecraft up to speeds never before achieved by anything humans have built. One such project is supported by the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative, initially founded by Yuri Milner and Stephen Hawking. A new paper by researchers at Caltech, funded by the Initiative, explores how to test what force a laser would have on a light sail as it travels to another star.

The Hakuto-R 2 mission launched on January 15, 2025. It’s the successor to Hakuto-R, which launched in December 2022 but failed when it lost communications during its descent. Both missions carried rovers, and this image was captured by the rover Resilience as it travels toward the Moon.

A galactic merger is a chaotic event. When two massive structures like galaxies merge, their powerful gravitational forces wrench stars out of their usual orbits in a process called violent relaxation. In essence, the merging galaxies are evolving rapidly, and small perturbations can be amplified as the system moves toward a more stationary state.

Every exoplanet discovery is an opportunity to refine models of planet formation, solar system architecture, habitable zones, and habitability itself. Each new planet injects more data into the scientific endeavour to understand what’s going on and how things got this way. However, some planets have such unusual characteristics that they invite a deeper focus and intense follow-up observations.

According to the Giant Impact Hypothesis, the Moon formed from a massive impact between a primordial Earth and a Mars-sized object (Theia) roughly 4.5 billion years ago. This is largely based on the study of sample rocks retrieved by the Apollo missions and seismic studies, which revealed that the Earth and Moon are similar in composition and structure. Further studies of the surface have revealed features that suggest the planet was once volcanically active, including lunar maria (dark, flat areas filled with solidified lava).

The odds of a sizable asteroid striking Earth are small, but they’re never zero. Large asteroids have struck Earth in the past, causing regional devastation. A really large asteroid strike likely contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs. So we shouldn’t be too surprised that astronomers have discovered an asteroid with a better than 1% chance of striking our world. Those odds are large enough we should keep an eye on them, but not large enough that we should start packing bags and fleeing to the hills.

Mars haunts us as a vision of a planet gone wrong. It was once warm and wet, with rivers flowing across its surface and (potentially) simple life residing in its water bodies. Now it’s dry and freezing.