Space

One day, our Sun will die. Since we happen to be inhabitants of the Sun’s planetary system, the question of when, and how, this will happen, is of intense interest to us. Sure, we’re unlikely to be around to see it… but, you know, it’s our home. We want to know what will eventually become

Earth and its Moon are unique in the Solar System. Earth is the only planet with just one moon, and that Moon is pretty influential. In fact, without the Moon, life on Earth may not have emerged, some research suggests. Couple that with a size ratio unlike any other planet-moon system we’ve seen – the

Within 24 hours of accessing the first stage of Australia’s newest supercomputing system, researchers have processed a series of radio telescope observations, including a highly detailed image of a supernova remnant. The very high data rates and the enormous data volumes from new-generation radio telescopes such as ASKAP (Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder) need highly

Once a year, from mid-July to late August, Earth passes through a cosmic junk heap that pelts our planet with thousands of tiny space rocks no wider than a grain of sand. We call this annual event the Perseid meteor shower – or simply the Perseids. This year, the Perseids peak in the dark hours between 11

On Sunday, Earth’s magnetic field was pelted by a solar wind stream reaching velocities of more than 600 kilometers (372 miles) per second. While that’s nothing too alarming – solar storms often pummel our planet triggering spectacular auroras – what is weird is that this storm was totally unexpected. “This event was not in the forecast,

From the smallest bacterium to the greatest galaxy, death looms on the horizon; even if, in cosmic terms, the time scales are too large for us to truly comprehend. Eventually, even the Universe itself should come to an end – when the last light winks out, and the cold, dense lumps of dead stars are

Ask astronomers about dark matter and one of the things they talk about is that this invisible, mysterious ‘stuff’ permeates the universe. In particular, it exists in halos surrounding most galaxies. The mass of the halo exerts a strong gravitational influence on the galaxy itself, as well as on others in the neighborhood. That’s pretty

Atomic clocks, combined with precise astronomical measurements, have revealed that the length of a day is suddenly getting longer, and scientists don’t know why. This has critical impacts not just on our timekeeping, but also things like GPS and other technologies that govern our modern life. Over the past few decades, Earth’s rotation around its

Mysterious large pieces of wreckage were discovered across Southeast Asia over the weekend, and evidence is growing that they came from a Chinese rocket booster that fell to Earth uncontrolled. The booster of China’s 25-ton Long March 5B rocket pushed a new segment of the country’s space station into orbit in late July. Then, instead of pushing itself

A little under 13 billion years ago, a large blue star lit up the early cosmos. Across countless light years of expanding space that light has shone, reduced to shadow wherever it met dust and rock. What little remained of those ancient photons was pulled out of shape by the growth of space itself, warping

Stop what you’re doing. The latest official image release from the James Webb Space Telescope is in, and it’s a stunning circus of fireworks lighting up the darkness of space. The subject is the Cartwheel Galaxy, a well-known object about 500 million light-years away, and a huge oddity: unlike most other galaxies, which tend to

It’s a record that has been broken multiple times over the past two years alone, and one that we expect to see broken again soon. Astronomers using the newly operational James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have announced the discovery of what appears to be the most distant galaxy yet. If this sounds familiar, it’s already

Back in 2014, an object crashed into the ocean just off the coast of Papua New Guinea. Data collected at the time indicated that the meteorite just might be an interstellar object, and if that’s true, then it’s only the third such object known (after ‘Oumuamua and Borisov), and the first known to exist on

The aftermath of an epic collision involving at least one neutron star has been captured for the first time in the millimeter range of radio frequency wavelengths. The result is a recording of a short-duration gamma-ray burst – one of the most energetic ever observed, and one of the brightest lingering afterglows we’ve ever seen. The data can help

What little we know of dark matter comes from calculations based on the glow of surrounding galaxies. The further away we look, however, the dimmer that starlight gets, making it harder to see the subtle influence of this most mysterious of forces. Now a collaboration between astronomers from Japan and the US has found a

The discovery of multiple exoplanets that appear to be shrinking appears to resolve a ‘missing link’ in planetary evolution. Four mini-Neptunes in close proximity to their stars have been found leaking their atmospheres at a rate consistent with eventual total loss. This suggests that these worlds will eventually shrink into terrestrial, roughly Earth-sized planets –

Australian farmers mysteriously found space debris scattered across their fields last month. An astrophysicist who examined the junk now believes it was from a SpaceX flight. People near Dalgety, New South Wales, found three large pieces of debris, with the largest – a 10-foot-tall triangular structure – found planted firmly into the ground, the Australian Broadcasting

Scientists may have just tracked down the source of some mysterious infrared glows detected emanating from stars and clouds of interstellar dust and gas. These Unidentified Infrared Emission (UIE) bands have baffled scientists for decades; according to a theoretical new work, at least some of these bands can be produced by highly ionized buckminsterfullerene, more

New Zealand may seem to be under meteor bombardment at the moment. After a huge meteor exploded above the sea near Wellington on July 7, creating a sonic boom that could be heard across the bottom of the South Island, a smaller fireball was captured two weeks later above Canterbury. Fireballs Aotearoa, a collaboration between

The Universe is littered with galaxy clusters – huge structures piled up at the intersections of the cosmic web. A single cluster can span millions of light-years across and be made up of hundreds, or even thousands, of galaxies. However, these galaxies represent only a few percent of a cluster’s total mass. About 80 percent

What appear to be ripples of blue sand dusting the Martian landscape make the Red Planet appear even more alien than usual. The striking coloration is not, however, what it seems. To see the true beauty, you need to look a little deeper than its make-up. Imaged by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter earlier this year,

A Chinese booster rocket made an uncontrolled return to Earth on Saturday, leading US officials to chide Beijing for not sharing information about the potentially hazardous object’s descent. US Space Command “can confirm the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Long March 5B (CZ-5B) re-entered over the Indian Ocean at approx. 10:45 am MDT on 7/30,”

One of the most extreme stars in the Milky Way just got even more wack. Scientists have measured the mass of a neutron star named PSR J0952-0607, and found that it’s the most massive neutron star discovered yet, clocking in at a whopping 2.35 times the mass of the Sun. If true, this is very

The temperature on the Moon can vary from boiling to freezing depending on whether it’s night or day, but scientists think there might well be sheltered pits and caves where the temperature is quite reasonable – no matter what time it is. In such spots, the temperature hovers around 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit),

This weekend, a massive, uncontrolled rocket booster is predicted to hurtle back to Earth, with a high chance that at least some of the debris will be large enough to survive the descent and smash into our planet. The booster is 53.6 meters (176 feet) long and weighs around 23 metric tons, and belongs to

Ever since space probe Juno gave us our first incredible views of the poles of Jupiter, the regions have fascinated and mesmerized us. In one of the latest pictures Juno has sent back of the north pole, you can see why: a medley of storm vortices, connected and interconnected, appearing serene from a distance, but

Two skyscraper-size asteroids are zooming toward Earth this weekend, with one making its closest approach on Friday (29 July) and the second whizzing by on Saturday (30 July). The first asteroid, dubbed 2016 CZ31, will fly by around 7 pm ET (23:00 GMT) on Friday, whizzing at an estimated 34,560 mph (55,618 km/h, according to NASA. Astronomers

The chance of someone being killed by space junk falling from the sky may seem ridiculously tiny. After all, nobody has yet died from such an accident, though there have been instances of injury and damage to property. But given that we are launching an increasing number of satellites, rockets and probes into space, do

Moscow said Tuesday it was leaving the International Space Station “after 2024” amid tensions with the West, in a move analysts warned could lead to a halt of Russian-crewed flights. The confirmation of the long-mooted move comes as ties unravel between the Kremlin and the West over Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine and several rounds

In 2016, the Curiosity rover came across something really peculiar in Gale Crater on Mars. On the slope of Mount Sharp, where Curiosity labored, were large quantities of a rare mineral; rare, at least, here on Earth. Tridymite, a form of quartz, only seems to form extremely seldom, and under high temperatures, such as those

Not all stars are happy to just hang around, orbiting the galactic center with all the other stars. Some stars go rogue, punted out across the Milky Way with significant force. These are the runaway stars, and we can trace their trajectories to understand violent events that can take place in the Universe. One such

While studying diamonds inside an ancient meteorite, scientists have found a strange, interwoven microscopic structure that has never been seen before. The structure, an interlocking form of graphite and diamond, has unique properties that could one day be used to develop super-fast charging or new types of electronics, researchers say.  The diamond structures were locked

Given its similarities to its neighbor, Saturn, it seems natural to ask why Jupiter doesn’t also have a magnificent, extensive system of visible rings. Alas, it’s not the reality. While Jupiter does have rings, they’re thin, tenuous, flimsy things of dust, visible only when back-lit by the Sun. According to new research, these discount rings

NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts is famous for supporting outlandish ideas in the astronomy and space exploration fields. Since being re-established in 2011, the institute has supported a wide variety of projects as part of its three-phase program. However, so far, only three projects have gone on to receive Phase III funding. And one of

Have you heard of LU Camelopardalis, QZ Serpentis, V1007 Herculis, and BK Lyncis? No, they’re not members of a boy band in ancient Rome. They’re Cataclysmic Variables, binary stars that are so close together one star draws material from its sibling. This causes the pair to vary wildly in brightness. Can planets exist in this

There’s something very odd about this image from the Hubble Space Telescope. If you look closely, you can see two almost-mirror image, orange-colored galaxies, seemingly connected by a long filament. Fascinatingly, that’s not two galaxies at all, but one, named SGAS J143845+145407. It just appears to be two, thanks to the way the gravity of

The biggest known canyon in the Solar System is getting the star treatment in new images from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter. As it whooshed by in Martian orbit, the spacecraft captured a pair of gouges in the planet’s surface that make up part of the Valles Marineris, a system of canyons known

It hasn’t even been a fortnight since the first image release, and the James Webb Space Telescope is just continuously knocking all our socks off. Only a few images have been officially released, but that hasn’t stopped citizen scientists digging through the raw data to see what they can find. One of those is Judy

The Sun’s glare is the main reason telescopes tend to look outwards from Earth, away from the center of our Solar System. New research reveals that for telescopic surveys prepared to peer in the other direction, there’s lots to be found. In particular, recent surveys are revealing near-Earth objects or NEOs, including asteroids we’ve never

It looks a bit like neon artwork from the ’80s. But what the image above really shows is much, much cooler. It’s a star, and the first light image captured by the newest instrument on the Gemini South telescope, the Gemini High-resolution Optical SpecTrograph, or GHOST. What it shows is the entire optical spectrum of

Just a week after its first images were shown to the world, the James Webb Space Telescope may have found a galaxy that existed 13.5 billion years ago, a scientist who analyzed the data said Wednesday. Known as GLASS-z13, the galaxy dates back to 300 million years after the Big Bang, about 100 million years

Solar winds from the snapping of a gigantic “canyon of fire” filament on the Sun are set to slam into the Earth today (20 July) or tomorrow (21 July), triggering a weak G1 geomagnetic storm. Sun watchers first spotted solar filaments as dark, thread-like lines against the Sun’s bright background on 12 July, according to SpaceWeather.com. Then, on

It has been an exciting week with the release of breathtaking photos of our Universe by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Images such as the one below give us a chance to see faint distant galaxies as they were more than 13 billion years ago. It’s the perfect time to step back and appreciate

Some of the brightest, most energetic objects in the Universe are the mystery source of high-energy cosmic neutrinos, new research has confirmed. A comprehensive analysis has pretty conclusively linked galaxies hosting blazing nuclei known as blazars with these enigmatic particles. It’s a result that provides a really unexpected solution to a problem that has had

Here’s the best evidence I’ve ever seen for water on Mars: NASA’s Perseverance rover came across a tangled mess of string on Mars, which looks like snarled fishing line left behind by a frustrated angler. Where there’s fishing, there’s gotta be water, right? Actually, this tiny piece of trash is likely something left over from

A small black hole that’s just hanging around, quietly minding its own business, has been detected outside the Milky Way galaxy. This, the team says, marks the first time that we’ve been able to conclusively detect and identify an inactive black hole that isn’t within the confines of our own galaxy. While a similar discovery

In the early 1990s, planetary history was made. In 1992, two astronomers, Alexander Wolszczan and Dale Frail, published a paper in Nature announcing the discovery of the very first planets outside the Solar System. These two extrasolar planets, or exoplanets, were immediately intriguing. They were rocky worlds 4.3 and 3.9 times the mass of Earth,

Will we discover simple life somewhere? Maybe on Enceladus or Europa in our Solar System, or further away on an exoplanet? As we get more proficient at exploring our Solar System and studying exoplanets, the prospect of finding some simple life is moving out of the creative realm of science fiction and into concrete mission