Space News & Blog Articles

The TRAPPIST-1 system continues to fascinate astronomers, astrobiologists, and exoplanet hunters alike. In 2017, NASA announced that this red dwarf star (located 39 light-years away) was orbited by no less than seven rocky planets – three of which were within the star’s habitable zone (HZ). Since then, scientists have attempted to learn more about this system of planets to determine whether they could support life. Of particular concern is the way TRAPPIST-1 – like all M-type (red dwarf) stars – is prone to flare-ups, which could have a detrimental effect on planetary atmospheres.

There’s a common pattern in science. We develop some new process or tool that allows us to gather all kinds of data we’ve never had before, the data threatens to overturn all we’ve assumed about some long-established theory, and then the dust settles. Unfortunately, the early stage of this process generates a lot of sensationalism in the press. Early results from the JWST are a good example of this.

Carbon and water are so common on Earth that they’re barely worth mentioning. But not if you’re a scientist. They know that carbon and water are life-enabling chemicals and are also links to the larger cosmos.

What would happen if two giant planets collided? It would be terrifying to behold if it happened in our Solar System. Imagine if Neptune and Uranus slammed into each other. Picture the chaos as a new super-heated object took their places, and clouds of debris blocked out the Sun. Think of the monumental destruction as objects are sent careening into each other.

Even with the clearest image from the best telescope in the world, astronomers still won’t know what they’re looking at. It takes a fundamental understanding of physics, particularly how light works, to glean scientific data from the images that telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) capture. To help with that understanding, a whole group of physics modelers specialize in trying to understand what different scenarios would look like with different telescope technologies. A new paper fits neatly into this mold, where researchers from UC Riverside, NASA Goddard, American University, and the University of Maryland decided to model what they think volcanic activity would look like on an exoplanet around a Sun-like star.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) recently disclosed a prototype radio telescope antennae for its next generation Very Large Array (ngVLA) to a group of press, scientists, engineers, and government and business leaders from the United States and Germany at the end of a workshop held at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Leipzig. While construction on the ngVLA isn’t slated to begin until 2026, this recent unveiling provided an opportunity for mtex antenna technology to present its 18-meter dish, which consists of 76 individual aluminum panels arranged in an 8-sided shape.

The James Webb Space Telescope is widely considered to be better than the Hubble Space Telescope. But the JWST doesn’t replace its elder sibling; it’s the Hubble’s successor. The Hubble is nowhere near ready to retire. It’s still a powerful science instrument with lots to contribute. Comparing images of the same object, NGC 5068, from both telescopes illustrates each one’s value and how they can work together.

The International Space Station (ISS) will be retired in 2030 after more than thirty-two years of continuous service. Naturally, there are questions regarding what will replace this station, which has served as a bastion for vital research and inter-agency cooperation in space. In the past, China has indicated that their Tiangong (“heavenly palace”) space station will be a successor and rival to the ISS, offering astronauts from other nations an alternative platform to conduct research in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). As part of this plan, China recently announced plans to double the size of Tiangong in the coming years.

The Hyades star cluster is only about 153 light-years away. At that short distance away, it’s visible with the unaided eye in the constellation Taurus. Its proximity gives professional astronomers an easier time observing it than many other objects of interest. Hyades contains hundreds of stars with similar ages—about 625 million years—similar metallicities and similar motions through space.

BOULDER, Colo. — NASA says it’s going to play a bigger role in studying what’s behind unidentified anomalous phenomena, the newfangled name for what we used to call UFOs. But exactly how should NASA step into that role? The astrophysicist who helped get the ball rolling last year as NASA’s associate administrator for science is suggesting a quick and easy way to get started.

Nature makes few duplicates, and planets are as distinct from one another as snowflakes are. But planets all start out in the same circumstances: the whirling disks of material surrounding young stars. ALMA’s made great progress imaging these disks and the telltale gaps excavated by young, still-forming planets.

Don’t miss the final solar eclipse of the year: a striking ‘ring of fire’ annular solar eclipse.

Astronauts need to eat, and they need to breathe. That means, for long-duration missions, they are going to need to bring plants with them. But not all plants are created equal, and not all can survive the harsh conditions of space. One that might thrive on long spacefaring voyages also happens to be the smallest flowering plant on Earth.

Recently, much attention has been given to massive, active galaxies discovered by the JWST in the early universe. But in contrast to these active galaxies, some galaxies that the JWST has discovered have been unusually quiet with little to no active star formation.

Aerobraking is commonly used to slow down spacecraft when they arrive at various planetary systems. It requires a spacecraft to dip into the atmosphere of a celestial body in the planetary system, such as a moon or the planet itself, and use the resistance from that atmosphere to shed some of its velocity. That slow-down would then allow it to enter an orbit in the planetary system without carrying the extra fuel required to do the maneuvers through powered flight, thereby saving weight on the mission and reducing its cost.  

On July 1st, 2023, the ESA’s Euclid mission headed for space, where it began its mission to observe the Universe and measure its expansion over time. The commissioning process began well as the mission team spent weeks testing and calibrating the observatory, then flew the mission out to Lagrange Point 2 (LP2). The telescope focused its mirrors, collected its “first light,” and the first test images it took were breathtaking! Unfortunately, Euclid hit a snag when its Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) failed to lock onto its “guide stars.”

Pulsars are known for their regularity and stability. These fast-rotating neutron stars emit radio waves with such consistent pulses that astronomers can use them as a kind of cosmic clock. But recently a pulsar emitted gamma rays with tremendous energy. The gamma rays were the most energetic photons ever observed, with energies of more than 20 teraelectronvolts, and astronomers are struggling to understand how that’s possible. The results were published in Nature Astronomy, which describes the burst of gamma rays emanating from the Vela Pulsar.

The Moon was once a geologically active place characterized by volcanoes, lava flows, and a magnetic field generated by action in its interior. The Moon’s airless environment has perfectly preserved evidence of this past and can be seen today as dark deposits, volcanic domes, and cones. But the most recognizable features are known as “sinuous rilles,” which are believed to be ancient lava tubes that have since collapsed. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) recently captured images of a rille that extended 48 km long (30 mi) across the northern hemisphere.

Supermassive black holes are elusive creatures. Massive gravitational beasts that can power immensely bright quasars, or can lurk quietly among the bright stars of a galactic core. We mostly study them indirectly through their bright accretion disks or powerful jets of plasma they create, but we have been able to observe them more directly, such as our images of M87* and Sag A*. But what still eludes us is capturing a direct image of the enigmatic photon ring. A new work in Acta Astronautica proposes how this might be done.

Everyone loves a good mystery, and astronomers have just uncovered a new one in a nearby supermassive galaxy called M87. Like most galaxies, M87 regularly plays host to a smattering of stellar explosions called novae, each the result of a star stealing material from a neighbour. M87 also features a massive jet of plasma blasting out into deep space from the galactic core. These phenomena: the jet and the novae, are unrelated astronomical occurrences, or so scientists believed. But astronomers recently discovered that the novae in M87 seem to be uncharacteristically aligned along the jet, instead of scattered randomly throughout the galaxy. Is the jet somehow triggering nova explosions?

CubeSats are taking on more and more responsibility for remote monitoring of the Earth. As they become more ubiquitous, they will also gain more varied propulsion systems. Or, in the case of a new set of monitoring CubeSats from INTA, Spain’s Institue of Aerospace Technology, no propulsion system at all.