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In Antarctica, balloon lands after 23-day search for particles from outer space After years of work building an exquisitely sensitive instrument, University of Chicago scientists stood and watched as it flew up and out of sight into the fiercely blue Antarctic sky. Launched on Dec. 20, it would travel for the next 23 days on a NASA balloon along the very highest reaches of the atmosphere, scanning the continent of Antarctica from its 120,000-foot vantage point for minuscule visitors from outer space known as neutrinos. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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Using Foldable Structures To Guide Microwaves Origami and space exploration might not seem like they have much in common, but the traditional paper-folding technique solves one massive problem for space exploration missions – volume. Satellites and probes that launch in rocket housings are constrained by very restrictive requirements about their physical size, and options for assembling larger structures in orbit are limited to say the least. Anything that can fold up like an origami structure and then expand out to reach a fully functional size is welcome in the space community, and a new paper published in Communications Engineering by Xin Ning of the UniversityRead More →

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Third exoplanet detected in the planetary system HD 176986 Using HARPS and HARPS-N spectrographs, astronomers have observed a nearby K-type star designated HD 176986, known to host two super-Earth exoplanets. The observations resulted in the discovery of another planet in the system at least several times more massive than Earth. The finding was detailed in a paper published January 28 in the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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How big can a planet be? With very large gas giants, it can be hard to tell Gas giants are large planets mostly composed of helium and/or hydrogen. Although these planets have dense cores, they don’t have hard surfaces. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants in our solar system, but there are many other gas giant exoplanets in our galaxy and some are many times larger than Jupiter. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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Decoding China’s New Space Philosophy A major theme in communist governments is the idea of central planning. Every five years, the central authorities in communist countries lay out their goals for the country over the course of the next five years, which can range from limiting infant mortality to increasing agricultural yield. China, the largest current polity ruled by communists, recently released its fifteenth five-year plan, which lays out its priorities for 2026-2030. This one, accompanied by a press release of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the country’s state-owned giant aerospace corporation, has plenty of ambitious goals for its space sector. UniverseRead More →

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An International Team Uncovers What Powers Auroras A new study co-led by the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) reveals that plasma waves traveling along Earth’s magnetic field lines act like an invisible power source, fueling the stunning auroral displays we see in the sky. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

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SpaceX Crew-12 will Study How Microgravity Affects the Human Body NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission is preparing to launch for a long-duration science mission aboard the International Space Station. During the mission, select crew members will participate in human health studies focused on understanding how astronauts’ bodies adapt to the low-gravity environment of space, including a new study examining subtle changes in blood flow. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

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A giant star is changing before our eyes and astronomers are watching in real time For decades, astronomers have been watching WOH G64, an enormous heavyweight star in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy visible with the naked eye from the Southern Hemisphere. This star is more than 1,500 times larger than the sun and emitting over 100,000 times more energy. For a long time, red supergiant WOH G64 looked like a star steadily reaching the end of its life, shedding material and swelling in size as it began to run out of fuel. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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Webb unveils nature of distant ultraviolet-luminous galaxy CEERS2-588 Astronomers from the University of Tokyo in Japan and elsewhere have employed the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe a distant ultraviolet-luminous galaxy known as CEERS2-588. Results of the observational campaign, published January 29 on the arXiv preprint server, shed more light on the nature and properties of this galaxy. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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Pulsar timing hints at a nearby dark matter ‘sub-halo’ A group of US astronomers may have uncovered the first evidence for a dark matter sub-halo lurking just beyond our stellar neighborhood. Reporting their findings in Physical Review Letters, a team led by Sukanya Chakrabarti at the University of Alabama in Huntsville suggests that an unseen clump of dark matter could be subtly tugging on nearby pulsars. If confirmed, the result could shed new light on the elusive nature of dark matter and how it is distributed throughout our galaxy. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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The Collaboration that Brought you the First Image of a Black Hole Just Released Photos of its Massive Jet Recently published data from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) of the galaxy Messier 87 facilitate new insights into the direct environment of the central supermassive black hole. Measured differences in the radio light on different spatial scales can be explained by the presence of an as of yet undetected jet at frequencies of 230 Gigahertz at spatial scales comparable to the size of the black hole. The most likely location of the jet base is determined through detailed modeling. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

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JWST uncovers rich organic chemistry in a nearby ultra-luminous infrared galaxy A study led by the Center for Astrobiology (CAB), CSIC-INTA, using modeling techniques developed at the University of Oxford, has uncovered an unprecedented richness of small organic molecules in the deeply obscured nucleus of a nearby galaxy, thanks to observations made with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

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The Dirty Afterlife of a Dead Satellite Sometimes humans get ahead of ourselves. We embark on grand engineering experiments without really understanding what the long-term implications of such projects are. Climate change itself it a perfect example of that – no one in the early industrial revolution realized that, more than 100 years later, the emissions from their combustion engines would increase the overall global temperature and risk millions of people’s lives and livelihoods, let alone the impact it would have on the species we share the world with. According to a new release from the Salata Institute at Harvard, we seem to be goingRead More →

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The “Little Red Dots” Observed by Webb Were Direct-Collapse Black Holes The discovery by JWST of a substantial population of compact “Little Red Dots” (LRDs) presented astronomers with a major mystery. By reproducing their spectra with simulations, a team argued that they were Direct Collapse Black Holes (DCBHs). Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →