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The Risk of Stellar Flybys and GJ 710 In a stellar flyby, a star approaches our Solar System close enough to create gravitational mayhem. The last one was 70,000 years ago. There are more in the future, and it’s possible that they could disrupt comets from the Oort Cloud and send them into the inner Solar System, with the risk of catastrophic impact. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Are Satellite Megaconstellations Accidentally Geoengineering the Earth? We’ve been reporting a lot lately on the negative impacts of satellite constellations. And unfortunately it’s time for another article about a paper pointing out the potential hazards of them. This one, by lead author Conner Barker of University College London, focuses on the pollution caused by rocket launches – and admittedly contains some good news, but also a cautionary tale that policy makers should be aware of. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
How Mars Can Help Us Understand ‘Marginal’ Exoplanets We’ve discovered large numbers of small rocky exoplanets, but they’re at such great distances that habitability is extremely difficult to determine. New research suggests than since Mars is on the edge of being habitable, studying it in detail can shed light on rocky exoplanets. If we can understand things like tectonic activity and atmospheric escape on Mars, we can understand how they may play out on rocky exoplanets. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
How Mars Can Help Us Understand ‘Marginal’ Exoplanets We’ve discovered large numbers of small rocky exoplanets, but they’re at such great distances that habitability is extremely difficult to determine. New research suggests than since Mars is on the edge of being habitable, studying it in detail can shed light on rocky exoplanets. If we can understand things like tectonic activity and atmospheric escape on Mars, we can understand how they may play out on rocky exoplanets. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Ultrahigh-energy Cosmic Rays May Be Ultraheavy in Origin New research led by Penn State scientists suggests that some of the highest-energy cosmic rays may consist of atomic nuclei heavier than iron and could help narrow down the cosmic sources capable of accelerating these particles. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Early Life on Earth May Have Thrived in Impact Craters A team of South Korean scientists has uncovered new evidence that could help explain how Earth’s atmosphere became rich in oxygen, one of the most transformative events in the planet’s history. Researchers from the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) report the finding of stromatolites, layered structures formed by microbial communities, within the Hapcheon impact crater on the Korean Peninsula. While the Hapcheon crater is only about 40,000 years old, it shows how stromatolites got a boost from the heat in impact crater hydrothermal systems. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
A Brief-ish History of SETI. Part VII: Brief Windows and Transcendence Could the “Great Silence” be the result of extraterrestrial civilizations dying out before they can make contact, or will they evolve to the point where communication with them is no longer possible? Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Alien life may be missed by current space missions, but AI might help It’s 2035 and NASA’s Dragonfly quadcopter has been “hopping” around the surface of Saturn’s largest moon Titan for just over a year taking images, scanning pebbles, drilling holes, and analyzing surface material for potential signs of life. You’re at NASA JPL and just moved to Blue Team (12am-8am) from Red Team (4pm-12am), so you’re hyped up on coffee, Red Bull, and will power. It’s 3:30am, you’ve been analyzing data since you clocked in, and you keep discarding what you’ve been told looks like positive signs of life but is more commonly knownRead More →
Mars Fungi Could Make Red Planet Regolith Fertile for Crops You’re on the fourth human mission to Mars, and you’ve been tasked with establishing the first self-sustaining food crop on a Martian settlement. You’re nervous because you’re using a new type of fungi called beneficial fungi, which you’re told will help enhance Martian regolith, enabling it to be used for growing crops. You were privately told that doing this will not only get a high school named after you, but you will successfully feed future settlers without the need to bring food from Earth. But you really only care about having your name on aRead More →
SpaceX’s Next-Gen Starship Doesn’t Fire on All Engines During First Test SpaceX’s next-generation Starship V3 rocket got off to a glorious start for its first test flight, and although not all of its engines fired fully according to plan, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the mission “scored a goal for humanity.” Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Is Dust the Best Thing in the Universe? Part 4: We Owe Dust Our Lives No dust, no way to cool a collapsing gas cloud. No way to cool it, no stars. No dust, no first rung on the ladder from grain to pebble to planet. The substance I spent two articles complaining about turns out to be the substance that makes me possible. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
NASA’S Juno Makes Closest Ever Approach To Jupiter’s Moon Of Thebe NASA’S Juno spacecraft images Jupiter’s tiny moon of Thebe in a recent close approach. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
A Beautiful Death: How a Dying Star Created the Crystal Ball Nebula Planetary nebula are created when a dying star sheds it outer layers. The gas is lit up by the star and all the gorgeous, changing detail is exposed. NGC 1514, the Crystal Ball Nebula, is about 1500 light years away and contains a binary pair in its center. The orbits and winds from the stars create the Crystal Ball’s beautiful form. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Supermassive Black Holes Can Render Exoplanets Uninhabitable at Great Distances Life on Earth relies on energy from astrophysical sources. But what if the astrophysical source isn’t a star, but a supermassive black hole and its active galactic nuclei? Life needs shelter from their powerful energy, and the only shelter is distance. New research shows that SMBH and their AGN could strip away exoplanet atmospheres and destroy their ozone at vast distances. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Is Dust the Best Thing in the Universe? Part 3: Tiny Chemistry Labs Two hydrogen atoms can’t form an H2 molecule on their own in empty space. They need a surface. The universe has only one surface available, and it’s something I have just spent two articles complaining about. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Both Hemispheres of 3I/ATLAS Observed Simultaneously by JUICE and Europa Clipper The Southwest Research Institute-led Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) instruments aboard ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft and NASA’s Europa Clipper made unique observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS in late 2025. SwRI leads the UVS instruments on both spacecraft, simultaneously imaging both hemispheres of the comet and detecting the comet’s ultraviolet emissions. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
The Magnetar at the Heart of a Superluminous Supernova Superluminous supernovae are the royalty in the supernova world. They’re up to 100 times brighter than a standard supernova, and astrophysicists want to know why. New research shows that magnetars are responsible. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Study Shows How Sunspot Activity Speeds Up Reentries It’s getting crowded up there. Over the past few years, the advent of SpaceX’s Starlink and other players in the mega-satellite constellation game are adding an exponential load of satellites and orbital debris to the low Earth orbit environment. But all that goes up, must eventually come down. Now, a new study looks at solar activity over time as a predictor for how reentries trend. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
Is Dust the Best Thing in the Universe? Part 2: The Astronomer’s Headache Dust scatters light, absorbs light, re-emits light, and ruins everything. It’s why our maps of the Milky Way were wrong before 1930, and it’s why one of the biggest cosmological announcements of the 2010s quietly evaporated. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
SNAPPY CubeSat Takes Flight to Test Space-Based Neutrino Detectors Neutrinos, the second most common fundamental particles in the universe, are notoriously difficult to detect. So far we’ve only been able to do so by building giant vats of water far underground with hundreds of photodetectors watching for brief flashes of light. But a new CubeSat mission hopes to change that dynamic and enable the neutrino detectors of the future a much less constrained and expensive existence – in space. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →
