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Nearby Dwarf Galaxies Show Surprising Lack Of Oxygen, Says Paper
A new study of more than three dozen dwarf galaxies has surprised researchers with just how little oxygen they have been able to retain over cosmic time. The results reveal that we still have major gaps in our understanding of galaxy evolution.
Our Sun’s Undiscovered Stellar Nemesis Is Still Out There, Says Physicist
The decades old idea that our solar system’s Oort Cloud is continually perturbed by a heretofore undetected low mass Red Dwarf star remains the best explanation for periodicities found in Earth’s impact record. Or so says a well known physicist who has long championed this idea.
The ELT Can Probe Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies and Their Dark Matter Mysteries
Ultra-Diffuse Galaxies are strange because they're as large as the Milky Way, but have far fewer stars. It's as if they're puffed up for some reason. Determining what's going on with them could help confirm the Lambda-CDM model. A new proposed instrument for the Extremely Large Telescope could give…
NASA's Twin Spacecraft Will Execute Powered Slingshot Maneuvers on Their Way to Mars
NASA's ESCAPADE mission features a pair of identical spacecraft on their way to Mars. They launched outside of the normal launch window, so they'll perform powered slingshot maneuvers to boost their speed. Once there, they'll "fly" in formation and study how the solar wind interacts with what…
Earth's Gravity May Have Kept the Early Moon's Volcanic Heart Beating
We typically think of the Moon as a static, floating object that has remained the same for basically its entire lifetime, with an occasional asteroid impact serving as an exception. That understanding is grounded in physics - the Moon should have cooled rapidly after forming when a huge protoplanet…
'Big Bang' Fix Puts Voyager Across the 'One Light-Day' Mark
Flashback to 1977. Jimmy Carter was U.S. president, Star Wars was a box office hit, and the two Voyager spacecraft departed on an historic Grand Tour of the solar system. Now, teams at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are working to keep the missions active, as they push the boundaries of…
Asteroids' Oddball Shapes Make Deflecting Them Challenging
In a pinch, we could use a stand-off nuclear blast to redirect a dangerous asteroid on short notice. There's no atmospheric shock wave in space, but the x-ray pulse could still deflect the space rock. But asteroids aren't round and uniform, so their weird shapes make it difficult.
A Mighty Wind Blew Away Gas and Made Early Galaxies Brighter
When astronomers looked at photos of the early universe taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, they found something odd: an overabundance of bright galaxies about 400 to 500 million years after the Big Bang. But these galaxies should have been far less common so soon after the Big Bang…
Interstellar Visitor 3I/ATLAS Shows Water Ice Behaves the Same Across Alien Star Systems
Targets of opportunity sometimes happen in astronomy, and we got a major one when the third interstellar object, 3I/ATLAS, was discovered in July 2025. And it just so happens that in the intervening years between the last known interstellar visitor (2I/Borisov in 2019), we got a major upgrade in…
Exoplanets Can't Hide From The JWST's 'Digital Twin'
Finding dim exoplanets hidden in the glare of their stars is an ongoing challenge in astronomy. Telescopes use coronagraphs to block out starlight, but even they have their limitations. Researchers have developed a new technique with the JWST that can find dim exoplanets more easily than ever.
China Unveils Their Plan for a Crewed Moon Landing
Yesterday, on November 3rd, the deputy chief designer of China's crewed space program and chief designer of the lunar exploration program (Wang Xiang) unveiled an official statement detailing its [plans for a crewed mission to the Moon](https://english.spacechina.com/n17212/c4744561/content.html).
Game Theory Helps SETI Search for Alien Civilizations
SETI can be more effective the more the targets in the search are refined. SETI's newest survey effort uses game theory to inform its search. It's based on the idea that other ETIs would almost certainly use the transit method to detect habitable worlds like Earth.
Giant Impacts Help Rocky Planets Retain Their Atmospheres
For a long time, planetary scientists thought that giant impacts drove a young planet's atmosphere away into space with all the heat they generated. But it turns out the opposite could be true. The mass a young planet gains through a giant impact increases its gravitational hold on its atmosphere.
A Virtual Lifeless Earth Will Help Scientists Find Life on Exoplanets
Researchers have created a model lifeless Earth that couples the atmosphere with interior planetary processes. The model can reproduce Earth's modern habitable state without including life, showing that a planet that appears habitable isn't necessarily inhabited. The tool will be useful when and if…
Students Test Prototype Landing Pad to Make Lunar Operations Safe
This summer, a team of students and researchers at the University of Alabama in Huntsville successfully conducted three rocket-motor firing tests on a prototype lunar landing pad. The tests showed the prototype’s ability to capture and redirect rocket exhaust through an integrated vent system…
What Will Politics Look Like on Other Planets? It's Likely to Be a Mishmash
When we make our home on other worlds, who will be in charge? Will it be an emperor? A billionaire? A rebel alliance? Or none of the above? Astrobiologist Jacob Haqq Misra runs through the legal and political options.
Stubborn Asteroids Around White Dwarfs Resist Becoming Dust
Astronomers are finding more dusty disks around white dwarf stars, and some of them are home to asteroids. But how these rocky asteroids are turned to dust and form these rings isn't clear. New research shows that the white dwarf's gravity alone can't shred them to dust.
The Vera Rubin Has Found Two More of the Milky Way's Dim Satellites
The Vera Rubin Observatory has detected two more of the Milky Ways' dim, hard to see satellites. One is an ultra-faint dwarf galaxy, and one is a globular cluster. Each one is a missing piece of the puzzle in the Milky Way's merger history. By finding more of these satellites, our understanding of…
The JWST May Have Found Where Heavy Black Hole Seeds Formed
Astrophysicists think that black holes grow through a hierarchical merger framework. But the elusive Intermediate Mass Black Holes are the missing link between stellar mass black holes, and the gargantuan supermassive black holes like the one at the center of the Milky Way. The JWST may have found…
Researchers May Have Solved a Puzzling Contradiction in the Ryugu Sample
Samples from the asteroid Ryugu, and from carbonaceous chondrites that have crashed on Earth, present an apparent contradiction. Their fine-grained matrices have widely varied compositions of their clay-like minerals. That suggests that there were widely different aqueous environments in the same…
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