By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds

How an interstellar comet sheds light on universe’s ‘cosmic noon’ Last year, an interstellar traveler entered our solar system. Some speculated that it was an alien spacecraft, but it turned out to be a comet, 3I/Atlas, and it provoked interest from astronomers and astrophysicists eager for insights into galaxies far, far away. Detailed observations from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shot down the alien spacecraft idea, but recent NASA analysis holds clues about the comet’s ancient and, literally, alien origins. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds, Universe Today

University Team Proposed Retractable, Pressurized Tunnels for Missions to Mars As part of NASA’s Moon to Mars eXploration Systems and Habitation (M2M X-Hab) 2026 Academic Innovation Challenge, a University of Michigan team proposed an actuated, pressurized tunnel system that would save countless hours of work and preparation by connecting the astronaut’s habitat with other surface elements. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds

The square kilometer array will revolutionize the hunt for alien life With new technologies come new opportunities. And that is especially true in astronomy—with every new advanced telescope, we have the potential to see (or in some cases, listen) farther and more clearly than ever before. That is certainly the case for the new Square Kilometer Array (SKA), which is currently undergoing a multiyear rollout phase. Despite that drawn-out process, astronomers are already excited about its potential, and a new book chapter from Dr. Chenoa Tremblay and her co-authors details how this new technology could be used to answer one of the most fundamental questions:Read More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds, Universe Today

Andromeda’s Newest Dwarf Galaxy is Extremely Dim Astronomers have discovered an extremely low-mass and dim dwarf galaxy around Andromeda. Called And 35, it’s an Ultra-Faint Dwarf Galaxy (UFDG) and so far, the researchers have detected only 46 of its stars. Lambda-CDM predicts that there should be many UFDGs around galaxies like Andromeda and the Milky Way, so finding more of them is important. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds, Universe Today

New Horizons Watches the Solar Wind as it Slows Down Where does the Solar System end and interstellar space begin? That’s a question scientists have been working to answer using spacecraft traveling out beyond the Sun’s influence. A team of researchers from the Southwest Research Institute led by Heather Elliott, is using the Solar Wind around Pluto instrument onboard New Horizons to track the solar wind in the outer reachers of the Solar System. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds, Universe Today

A New Net-Membrane Could Clean Up Some Tricky Space Debris We’ve reported on all kinds of wacky ideas for capturing and deorbiting space debris safely. From electric tethers to lasers, engineers and scientists have been trying everything they can think of to deal with the ever-increasing orbital debris problem. But one simple design keeps popping up over and over again – a net. A new paper from researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China details one of the most advanced net concepts yet – but whether we can actually build one remains to be seen.Read More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds, Universe Today

The Square Kilometre Array Will Revolutionize the Hunt for Alien Life With new technologies come new opportunities. And that is especially true in astronomy – with every new advanced telescope we have the potential to see (or in some cases, listen) further and more clearly than we ever have before. That is certainly the case for the new Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which is currently undergoing a multi-year roll out phase. Despite that drawn out process, astronomers are already excited about its potential, and a new book chapter from Dr. Chenoa Tremblay and her co-authors details how this new technology could be used to answerRead More →

By:
On:
In: ESOnews, News, RSSfeeds

Older than the Sun: Astronomers find new clues to the origin of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS Astronomers have used the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) to study the composition of 3I/ATLAS, the brightest interstellar object ever seen, in detail. By measuring specific chemical fingerprints — the first observations of this kind for a comet that formed outside the Solar System — they found that 3I/ATLAS likely originated in the outskirts of an old star system. The findings shine new light on the formation history of this comet, indicating that it may be much older than the Sun. ESO News Feed Go to SourceRead More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds, Universe Today

Nearby “Super Earth” Could Host Life After All Using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory, astronomers have taken a closer look at a nearby exoplanet and discovered it may be more Earth-like than previously thought.Using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory, astronomers have taken a closer look at a nearby exoplanet and discovered it may be more Earth-like than previously thought. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds, Universe Today

Astronomers Characterize “Improbable” System Shaped by Brown Dwarf An international team involving over ten institutions, with a strong participation from ESO and INAF, has characterised TOI-201 c, the transiting brown dwarf with the longest period for which mass has been measured. The study, published today in Nature, reveals a compact, coplanar system in which the presence of a massive, eccentric object redefines the stability boundaries for the inner planets Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds, Universe Today

In Anticipation of New Horizons Entering Interstellar Space, Researchers are Developing a Solar Wind Forecasting Method Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists are using a solar wind forecasting method combined with analytic and numerical heliosphere models to find out where the first plasma boundary of the outer heliosphere lies as NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft hurtles toward this mysterious region of space. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds

Astronomers may have caught an early galaxy in the process of dying Astronomers have spotted many “red and dead” galaxies in the early universe. These are massive systems that stopped forming stars surprisingly early in cosmic history. Now, they may have found evidence of one in the act of becoming dead: a massive galaxy being stripped of its star-forming gas just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang. The clues behind why it lost its star-forming material are detailed in a paper posted to the arXiv preprint server on June 16. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds, Universe Today

Bending Spacetime Reveals New Planet Hidden in Archived TESS Data NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has captured evidence of a Jupiter-like world orbiting another star, using a trick straight out of Einstein’s relativity: gravitational microlensing. The technique marks a first for TESS, and opens up the possibility of a whole new category of planets the spacecraft might uncover. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds

Long-lived radio outburst from black hole exhibits properties of the early universe Short-lived sources of radio radiation in the sky, known as radio transients, can originate in the vicinity of supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies. They are the result of processes that take place under extreme physical conditions. While most radio transients associated with galactic centers last only days or weeks, the galaxy SDSS J110546.07+145202.4 has been shining very brightly in radio light for several years—the first source of its kind. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds, Universe Today

Astronomers Spot an Extremely Rare Galaxy Mega-Merger Scale in the universe is hard to understand from a purely human perspective. Many times the math just doesn’t sit well with our brains that evolved to capture and process data about the world around us rather than groking the complexities of stellar dynamics and galaxy mergers. But every once in a while astronomers find something that, if we can wrap our heads around the numbers, gives a sense of just how big the universe is. That is precisely what a new paper, available in preprint on arXiv from a group of astronomers led by Z.L. Wen ofRead More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds

JWST discovers a new barred spiral galaxy An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of a new massive barred spiral galaxy. The newfound galaxy, designated M1149-BSG-z5, was identified using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The finding was detailed in a paper published June 23 on the preprint server arXiv. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds

NASA’s Hubble spots star-spangled cosmic scene More than 500,000 stars blaze red, white, and blue in this image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, released in celebration of the United States’ 250th anniversary. The image showcases Messier 3 (M3), one of the Milky Way galaxy’s most massive globular clusters, or spherical collections of gravitationally bound stars. Globular clusters are made up of ancient stars that formed at roughly the same time from the same cloud of gas, giving those stars similar ages. Around 150 known globular clusters are sprinkled around the outer regions of the Milky Way. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

By:
On:
In: News, RSSfeeds

Cosmic neutrino ‘whispers’ may surface in 5,000-day Super-Kamiokande signal Neutrinos: They have no electric charge, pass through matter like a ghost and are so light they were initially thought to have zero mass. These are just some of the traits that make them so difficult to detect. Research on neutrinos requires massive underground observatories far from potential confounders that drown out their weak signals. One of the largest in the world, located 1,000 meters (3,281 feet) underground in Gifu Prefecture, Japan, is called Super-Kamiokande. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →