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Webb’s Picture of the Month Features Two Planet-Forming Disks and a Possible Planet Two images of protoplanetary disks side-by-side. The left image shows a dark horizontal band covering the star, with broad, colorful, conical outflows above and below it, and a narrow jet pointing directly up and down from the star. The right image shows the star within a yellow dusty disk, with scattered dust creating purple lobes above and below the disk. Each is on a black background with several galaxies or stars around it. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

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A Mercury Rover Could Explore the Planet by Sticking to the Terminator A Mercury lander mission would create opportunities to sample unique geological features. However, extreme temperature fluctuations on Mercury’s surface pose challenges for exploration on the planetary surface. In a narrow region near the terminator, temperate conditions would allow a rover to run on solar power and collect data and surface samples without needing to withstand the extreme heat. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

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A New Class of Star: Merger Remnant In the vastness of the Universe, any new object with interesting properties can spur the search for similar objects, potentially establishing a new class of stars. In a paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics and an arXiv preprint, researchers from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) describe two stellar remnants that share five properties, including X-ray emission, despite being isolated objects. According to the team, these two remnants are sufficient to define a new class of stars. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

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Student research on coronal holes improves space weather forecasting Fast solar winds originating from the sun can have direct impacts on Earth—disrupting systems like GPS, aviation, electrical grids, and satellite and radio communications. A new paper by New Mexico State University astronomy graduate student Khagendra Katuwal examines the connection between coronal holes and solar wind streams, helping improve our understanding of how the sun’s magnetic structure influences space weather. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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Meet Orpheus – A Hopper Mission Built To Hunt For Life In Martian Volcanoes We’ve spent decades scratching the surface of Mars trying to uncover life there. But we’ve been searching a barren wasteland bombarded by radiation and bathed in toxic perchlorates. The entire time, it’s likely that it’s been too hostile to harbor extant life. So if we want a better shot at finding currently living life on Mars, we need to go underground. That is exactly the purpose of Orpheus, a proposed Mars vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) hopper mission put forth by Connor Bunn and Pascal Lee of the SETI Institute atRead More →

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Celestial wonders in Leo Leo is a prominent sight for stargazers in April. Its famous sickle, punctuated by the bright star Regulus, draws many a beginning stargazer’s eyes, inviting deeper looks into some of Leo’s celestial delights, including a great double star and a famous galactic trio. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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The Outer Solar System Contributed Nothing To Earth New research shows that Earth formed from inner Solar System material. Isotopic geochemistry analysis found no evidence that material from beyond Jupiter contributed to Earth’s bulk composition. The results also support the idea that Earth’s water wasn’t delivered by comets. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

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First close pair of supermassive black holes detected Supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies are one of the most active fields of research in astronomy. In order to accumulate their enormous masses, they must merge with each other. A research team led by Silke Britzen from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Bonn has found direct evidence of two supermassive black holes in the galaxy Markarian 501, which orbit each other very closely. This could be the first time that a pair has been detected that is about to merge. This provides a unique opportunity to better understand a centralRead More →

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How Jupiter cultivated more large moons than Saturn The two largest planets in our solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, also have the largest satellite systems, or the most moons. At present, Jupiter’s reported moon count stands at more than 100 moons, and along with its many rings, Saturn has more than 280 reported moons. Not all these moons are equal, however. Jupiter’s moon family has four large members, including the largest moon in the solar system, Ganymede, while Saturn’s family is dominated by one large moon, Titan, the solar system’s second largest. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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Astronomers discover Andromeda XXXVI, an ultra-faint dwarf satellite galaxy By analyzing the data from the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey (PandAS), European astronomers have discovered a new satellite of the Andromeda galaxy. The newfound object, which received the designation Andromeda XXXVI, appears to be an ultra-faint dwarf galaxy. The finding is reported in a paper published March 30 on the arXiv preprint server . phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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JAXA Plans To Bring Back Pristine Early Solar System Samples From A Comet Japan’s space agency, JAXA, has been knocking it out of the park with small-body exploration missions for decades. They had historic successes with both Hayabusa and Hayabusa2, and they are going to visit the Martian Moons soon with the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission. But after that, they are aiming for something much more pristine and arguably more difficult – a comet. The Next Generation Small-Body Return (NGSR) was recently described in a paper at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), and is under assessment as a large-class mission for theRead More →

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Blue Origin Plans A Pair Of Low-Flying Prospectors Around The Lunar South Pole The water locked up in the Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) of the Moon’s south pole is a critical resource if we are ever going to get a permanent lunar presence off the ground. But while we know the water ice there exists, we don’t really know how much. We have to move from general estimates to mineable-scale prospecting data. That is what Oasis-1, the newly proposed lunar prospecting mission from Blue Origin that was recently introduced at the 2026 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) is meant to do. Universe Today GoRead More →

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Astronomers thought the early universe was full of hydrogen: Now they’ve found it The Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) has discovered tens of thousands of gigantic hydrogen gas halos, called “Lyman-alpha nebulae,” surrounding galaxies 10 billion to 12 billion years ago. Known as Cosmic Noon, this is an epoch in the early universe when galaxies were growing their fastest. To spur this growth, they would have needed access to vast reservoirs of hydrogen gas, a key building block for stars. However, until recently, astronomers had only found a handful of these essential structures. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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‘Hot Jupiter’ orbiting a metal-poor star discovered Using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers has discovered a new “hot Jupiter” exoplanet. The newfound alien world, designated TOI-7169 b, orbits a metal-poor star, which is rare among exoplanets. The finding was detailed in a paper published March 26 on the arXiv pre-print server. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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Looking up? How to photograph the moon with your phone Eyes are on the sky this week as four astronauts get the closest humans have been to the moon for more than 50 years on NASA’s Artemis II mission. Join the millions of people looking up while it’s on its way and we’ll show you how to get the best photo of the moon using your phone. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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JWST Spies Once-hidden Treasures in the W51 Starbirth Crèche Star formation is a dramatic and complex process that erupts throughout the Universe. Yet, a lot of the action gets hidden by clouds of gas and dust. That’s where observatories such as the James Webb Telescope JWST and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) come in handy. They use infrared light and radio waves, respectively, to pierce the veil surrounding the process of starbirth. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

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Artemis II Mission Shares First Photo of Earth NASA astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman took this picture of Earth from the Orion spacecraft’s window after completing the translunar injection burn. There are two auroras (top right and bottom left) and zodiacal light (bottom right) is visible as the Earth eclipses the Sun. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

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TESS spots the rise of a black hole X-ray binary system Designed to hunt for new alien worlds, NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has serendipitously observed the rising outburst of a black hole X-ray binary known as AT 2019wey. The observations, which may help us better understand the nature of this system, were presented March 25 on the arXiv pre-print server. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →