The giant planets weren't always where we find them today. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune formed in a more compact configuration and later underwent a violent reshuffling that scattered them to their current positions. Exactly what triggered this chaos remains uncertain, but researchers at the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux and the Planetary Science Institute now propose a close encounter with a wandering substellar object during the Sun's youth.
The universe is getting bigger, and there's a problem. Two different ways of measuring its expansion rate give two different answers, and nobody knows why. Now researchers at the University of Tokyo have demonstrated a completely independent method that adds compelling evidence this discrepancy represents something real, not just measurement error.
Since it commenced science operations in mid-2022, the James Webb Space Telescope has made significant strides in detecting atmospheres around exoplanets. These included providing the first clear evidence of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere (WASP-39b), atmospheric water vapor (WASP-96 b), and even heavier elements like oxygen and carbon (HD149026b). According to the latest release, researchers announced that they have detected the strongest evidence to date for an atmosphere around a rocky planet.
Carl Sagan famously said that “We’re all made of star-stuff”. But he didn’t elaborate on how that actually happened. Yes, many of the molecules in our bodies could only have been creative in massive supernovae explosions - hence the saying, and scientists have long thought they had the mechanism for how settled - the isotopes created in the supernovae flew here on tiny dust grains (stardust) that eventually accreted into Earth, and later into biological systems. However, a new paper from Martin Bizzarro and his co-authors at the University of Copenhagen upends that theory by showing that much of the material created in supernovae is captured in ice as it travels the interstellar medium. It also suggests that the Earth itself formed through the Pebble Accretion model rather than massive protoplanets slamming together.
For decades, scientists have recognized that large galaxies in our Universe have supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at their centers. These behemoths, which are millions to billions of times the mass of our Sun, play a vital role in star formation and the long-term evolution of galaxies. According to a recent study based on observations performed using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, it appears that most dwarf galaxies may buck this trend. This stands in stark contrast to their theory that nearly every galaxy has a massive black hole within its core.
Tracking down resources on the Moon is a critical process if humanity decides to settle there permanently. However, some of our best resources to do that currently are orbiting satellites who use various wavelengths to scan the Moon and determine what the local environment is made out of. One potential confounding factor in those scans is “space weathering” - i.e. how the lunar surface might change based on bombardment from both the solar wind and micrometeroid impacts. A new paper from a researchers at the Southwest Research Institute adds further context to how to interpret ultra-violet data from one of the most prolific of the resource assessment satellites - the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) - and unfortunately, the conclusion they draw is that, for some resources such as titanium, their presence might be entirely obscured by the presence of “old” regolith.
Radio astronomy has a pollution problem. Satellites thousands of kilometres overhead, designed to broadcast communications or relay data, are increasingly contaminating the frequencies astronomers use to study the universe. While much attention has focused on SpaceX's Starlink and other low Earth orbit constellations, but what about the satellites much farther away?
What could force a supermassive black hole (SMBH) out of its host galaxy? They can have hundreds of millions, even billions of solar masses? What's powerful enough to dislodge one of these behemoths?
On July 1st, 2025, the third interstellar object (ISO) ever detected was seen making its way through our Solar System. Shortly after being alerted by automated detection systems, astronomers at the European Space Agency (ESA) began using observatories in Hawaii, Chile, and Australia to get a better look at the interstellar interloper. Since then, 3I/ATLAS has been observed by multiple space observatories, including the venerable NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. On Nov. 30th, Hubble viewed the ISO again, which is about to make its closest approach to Earth.
When astronauts finally set foot on Mars, they'll arrive carrying the weight of centuries of speculation about whether life exists beyond Earth. Now a new report from the National Academies has settled a fundamental question about priorities: searching for evidence of past or present Martian life should be the primary science objective for humanity's first crewed mission to the red planet, ranking above all other scientific goals including understanding the effects of Mars on human health.
(This is Part 1 of a series exploring the mythic side of the Big Bang!)
The Hubble Tension is one of the great mysteries of cosmology. Solving it might require a fundamental change in how we understand the universe - but scientists have to prove it actually exists first. A new paper from a collective of cosmologist researchers known as the TDCOSMO Collaboration adds further fuel to that first with updated measurements of the “Late Universe” measurement of the Hubble Constant using gravitational lenses of quasars, which shows that the Tension might exist after all.
What geological features on Earth can be used to better understand unique geological features on Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa? This is what a recent study published in *The Planetary Science Journal* hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated potential Earth analogs for studying a unique geological feature on Europa scientists identified almost 30 years ago. This study has the potential help scientists gain insights into Europa’s unique geological features, some of which scientists hypothesize are caused by the moon’s internal liquid water ocean.
How did life begin on Earth? Based on studies of fossilized bacteria, scientists theorize that life first emerged on Earth over 4 billion years ago as simple, single-celled organisms. Over time, these organisms evolved to incorporate photosynthesis and sexual reproduction, eventually giving rise to more complex multicellular organisms, plants, and, eventually, mammals. Despite this scientific consensus, the question of how inorganic chemicals came together to form organic molecules that gradually evolved into self-replicating systems remains unclear.
The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are irregular dwarf galaxies and satellites of the Milky Way. The LMC is about 163,000 light-years away and the SMC is about 206,000 light-years away, and their close proximity makes them excellent laboratories for the study of galaxies in general. The Clouds are the focus of a new research group being formed at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP).
Imagine trying to spot a single firefly orbiting a lighthouse from hundreds of kilometres away. That's essentially the challenge astronomers face when attempting to study Proxima b, an Earth sized exoplanet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our Solar System. The star shines 10 million times brighter than its planet, drowning out any hope of detecting the faint light reflected from that distant world. Now scientists at the University of Geneva have successfully tested key components of an instrument designed specifically to solve this seemingly impossible problem.
Looking at an X-ray image of a galaxy cluster is like watching fireworks frozen in time. You see swirls and arcs, bubbles and filaments, structures that hint at past violence but don't explain what actually happened. Astronomers have puzzled over these features for decades, trying to determine which came from shock waves, which from cooling gas, and which from bubbles blown by black holes. Now a team led by Hannah McCall at the University of Chicago has developed a technique that answers these questions directly, creating images that classify the structures by their physics rather than their appearance.
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