Moon’s Formation In Many Ways Still Remains A Mystery Our Moon is still guarding its secrets decades after the last of the Apollo missions lifted off the lunar surface. Lunar scientists still puzzle over just when and how a giant Earth impactor formed our Moon, completely altering our early Earth in the process. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Optically dark gamma-ray burst reveals an unusually wide jet Using various telescopes, an international team of astronomers has performed multi-wavelength observations of a recently identified gamma-ray burst source designated GRB 250416C. Results of the observational campaign, published April 23 on the v pre-print server, could help us better understand the nature of GRB 250416C and gamma-ray bursts in general. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
We Might Have Massively Underestimated Io’s Thermal Output Io is a world of extremes. It is by far the most volcanically active world in our solar system. Being continually squeezed in the never-ending tug-of-war between Jupiter and its larger satellites will do that to a moon. As a result, Io has over 400 “paterae” – volcanic depressions that spew lava up onto its surface. And, according to a new paper available in pre-print on arXiv and utilizing data from Juno’s Jupiter InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) tool, we have been massively underestimating the power output of those paterae for decades. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
A tiny world beyond Neptune has an atmosphere that shouldn’t exist A team of professional and amateur Japanese astronomers have found evidence for a thin atmosphere around a small body in the outer solar system. The object is so small that it should not have a sustainable atmosphere, raising questions about when and how the atmosphere formed. Future observations to better characterize the atmosphere will help solve these mysteries. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Astronomers uncover over 1,000 radio galaxies with ‘wings,’ expanding a rare cosmic class Astronomers recently carried out a comprehensive search for strange “winged” radio galaxies using data from the LOFAR Two-meter Sky Survey Data Release 2 (LoTSS DR2) and discovered over 1,000 new systems. The paper outlining these results was submitted to the arXiv preprint server on April 24, 2026. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
The Paranal solar ESPRESSO Telescope, a New Tool for Finding Exoplanets The Paranal solar ESPRESSO Telescope (PoET), installed at the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) Paranal site in Chile, has made its first observations. The telescope will work with ESO’s ESPRESSO instrument to study the sun in detail. Described as a solar telescope for planet hunters, PoET aims to understand how the variation in the light from stars like the sun can mask the presence of planets orbiting them, helping us in our search for worlds outside the solar system. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Solar radio bursts reveal hidden magnetic switchbacks near the sun, Parker Solar Probe data suggest Solar radio bursts are intrinsically linked to the motion of their emitting source through the coronal and heliospheric plasma. Electron transport is mostly confined to magnetic field lines. These electrons move at a substantial fraction of the speed of light and often generate radio emission via the plasma emission process. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Radio Telescope Array Reveals the Masses of Hidden Young Stars The Orion Nebula provides a master class in the study of newly born stars as the closest starbirth region to us. Yet, many of its youngest ones are still swaddled in their birth creches, hidden by clouds of gas and dust. The Very Large Baseline Array (VLBA) radio telescopes have managed to punch through the dusty obscuring veil to study a pair of young binary systems called Brun 656 and HD 294300 born in the Nebula. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Is the Large Magellanic Cloud a First-Time Visitor? Our most massive satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), has been the center of a heated debate in the astrophysics community over the last few years. That debate centers on whether this is the LMC’s first or second “pass” by the Milky Way itself – and it has huge implications for the evolution of our galaxy given the disruption such a large grouping of stars has. A new paper from Scott Lucchini, Jiwon Jesse Han, Sapna Mishra, and Andrew J. Fox and his co-authors, currently available in pre-print on arXiv, provides what they claim to beRead More →
DESI-HVS1 is an old hypervelocity star ejected from the galactic center, observations suggest Chinese astronomers report the discovery of DESI-HVS1, which may be an old metal-poor hypervelocity star of galactic center origin. The finding, based on the data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and ESA’s Gaia satellite, was detailed in a research paper published April 23 on the arXiv pre-print server. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Close-In Planets Act as “Bouncers” to Create Rogue Worlds Rogue planets sound like rare travelers amongst the stars, freed from the gravitational constraints of a host system, left to forever wander the interstellar void. But modern models suggest these Free Floating Planets (FFPs) as they are technically known, are actually very common – nineteen times more common than planets beyond the “snow line”, which is the distance from the central star where it becomes cold enough that hydrogen compounds like water, ammonia, and methane can condense into ice. But why are FFPs so common? What forces them out of the stellar systems where they form?Read More →
New Lithium-Plasma Engine Passes Key Mars Propulsion Test You’re on the fourth human mission to Mars, and you’re told the Odyssey spacecraft designed to take you there will be the smoothest ride you’ll ever take. It features a newly christened electric propulsion engine which was in the late stages of testing during the first three missions. The mission starts and the spacecraft travels at a crawl, and you wonder if it’s broken. A week goes by and you’re now traveling at more than 400,000 kilometers (250,000 miles) per hour, and your mind is blown as to how fast you’re going, how quickly that happened, andRead More →
DAMPE satellite reveals cosmic rays share spectral break near 15 teravolts A century after their discovery, cosmic rays—particles of extreme energy originating from the far reaches of the universe—remain a mystery to scientists. The DAMPE (Dark Matter Particle Explorer) space telescope is tackling this phenomenon, particularly investigating the role that dark matter may play in their formation. This international mission, which includes the University of Geneva (UNIGE), has made a major breakthrough by highlighting a universal feature of these particles. The results are published in the journal Nature. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
What is the Most Common Type of Planet in the Galaxy? Astronomers now believe there is at least one planet for every star in the Milky Way but new research has revealed a deeply unsettling twist in that picture. The most common planets in our Galaxy, it turns out, are almost entirely absent around the most common stars. Using data from NASA’s TESS satellite, researchers found that the small, faint stars that make up the vast majority of the Milky Way seem to host rocky super Earths in abundance, but virtually no sub Neptunes, the planet type previously thought to be plentiful. The finding doesn’tRead More →
How do you study something you can never step outside of? An international team of astrophysicists has just released one of the largest cosmological datasets ever assembled. A mouthwatering 2.5 petabytes of simulated universe, freely available to researchers anywhere in the world. Built using a supercomputer and a suite of simulations called FLAMINGO, the data models how matter has evolved since the Big Bang, tracing everything from individual galaxies to the vast cosmic web that stretches across billions of light years. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
What does it take to call home from the Moon? When NASA’s Artemis II crew swung around the Moon in April, the world watched in extraordinary detail and a breakthrough laser communications system was the reason why. Bolted to the outside of the Orion capsule, a compact optical terminal beamed 484 gigabytes of data back to Earth using invisible infrared light, outpacing traditional radio systems by a factor of tens. The result was some of the most vivid imagery ever captured in deep space, and a technology demonstration that will fundamentally change how humanity communicates beyond Earth. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
How Do Close Binary Stars Form? Our Sun is a bit of an outlier in the general stellar population. We typically think of stars as being solitary wanderers throughout the galaxy. But roughly half of Sun-like stars are locked in with more than one companion star. If there are two, it’s known as a “binary” system, but in many cases there are even more stars all collectively tied together by gravity. Astronomers have long debated why this happens, and a new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv from Ryan Sponzilli, a graduate student at the University of Illinois, makes an argument for a mechanism knownRead More →
LHAASO discovers new extreme particle accelerator in the Milky Way The Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) has made a breakthrough in exploring the extreme universe. For the first time, the LHAASO collaboration has detected ultra-high-energy (UHE) gamma rays—with energies exceeding 100 trillion electron-volts (TeV)—from a gamma-ray binary system, LS I +61° 303. The discovery challenges existing theories of particle acceleration in extreme astrophysical environments. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
A lost galaxy called ‘Loki’ may be hiding inside the Milky Way The Milky Way galaxy grew into its current form with the help of smaller galaxies over time, which it has “consumed” or merged with. Astronomers are able to pick out which stars in the Milky Way came from other galaxies by identifying certain features, like the eccentricities of their galactic orbits and how many heavier elements they contain. Properties of some of the merged galaxies can then be determined when astronomers find collections of stars with similar features. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
Hubble reveals spiral galaxy 53 million light-years away in striking detail In this new image by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, a spiral galaxy glittering with star clusters is the center of attention. NGC 3137 is located 53 million light-years away in the constellation Antlia (The Air Pump). As a nearby spiral galaxy, this target offers astronomers an excellent opportunity to study the cycle of stellar birth and death, as well as giving researchers a glimpse of a galactic system similar to our own. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →
