Space News & Blog Articles

Just a few hundred light-years from Earth, the famous variable star Mira A is huffing and puffing its outer layers to space. Its most recent mass-loss event ejected more material at higher velocity than in past events. A team of astronomers led by Theo Khouri of Chalmers University in Sweden discovered two large asymmetrical clouds of material expanding away from Mira A.

There’s been plenty in the news about 3I/ATLAS over the course of the past 8 months. Our third confirmed interstellar visitor went behind the Sun during its closest approach, but reemerged in December with plenty of eyes watching it. Papers describing what it looks like following its closest brush with the power of a star in probably billions of years are starting to come out, including a new one available in pre-print on arXiv from Carey Lisse of Johns Hopkins University and his co-authors, which shows how much the comet - and it is definitely a comet - has changed in the matter of only a few months.

Astronomers know that supermassive black holes (SMBH) can inhibit star formation. These behemoths, which seem to be present in the center of large galaxies like ours, inject energy into their surroundings, heating up star-forming gas. Gas needs to be cool to collapse and form stars, so active SMBH put a damper on the process.

When we think of ice on Mars, we typically think of the poles, where we can see it visibly through probes and even ground-based telescopes. But the poles are hard to access, and even more so given the restrictions on exploration there due to potential biological contamination. Scientists have long hoped to find water closer to the equator, making it more accessible to human explorers. There are parts of the mid-latitudes of Mars that appear to be glaciers covered by thick layers of dust and rock. So are these features really holding massive reserves of water close to where humans might first step foot on the Red Planet? They might be, according to a new paper from M.A. de Pablo and their co-authors, recently published in Icarus.

The Milky Way's galactic center should be home to many pulsars, but for some reason, we can't find them. New research identified a candidate pulsar very near the MW's center. If it can be confirmed, it's a chance to test General Relativity.

This past weekend, ground crews at the Kennedy Space Center replaced a filter in the ground support equipment used for propellant loading. This filter was suspected of reducing the flow of liquid hydrogen into the Core Stage during the wet dress rehearsal of the *Artemis II* rocket on Feb. 12th. The test provided the engineers with enough data to prepare for a second wet dress rehearsal, which NASA is targeting for Thursday, Feb. 19th. This test will put the launch team and supporting teams through a full range of operations.