Space News & Blog Articles

What role can the relationship between oxygen (O2) and ozone (O3) in exoplanet atmospheres have on detecting biosignatures? This is what a recent study submitted to Astronomy & Astrophysics hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated novel methods for identifying and analyzing Earth-like atmospheres. This study has the potential to help scientists develop new methods for identifying exoplanet biosignatures, and potentially life as we know it.

When NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft returned from its mission to asteroid Bennu in 2023, it brought back more than just ancient space rocks, it delivered answers to puzzles that have baffled astronomers for years. Among the most intriguing questions was why asteroids that should look identical through telescopes appear strikingly different colours from Earth.

The Butterfly Nebula, officially known as NGC 6302, earned its name from its distinctive wing like lobes that spread in opposite directions from a central dusty band. This striking shape isn't just beautiful, it’s a natural laboratory where scientists can study the very processes that create the raw materials for rocky planets like Earth.

All (or at least most) astronomical eyes are on 3I/ATLAS, our most recent interstellar visitor that was discovered in early July. Given its relatively short observational window in our solar system, and especially its impending perihelion in October, a lot of observational power has been directed towards it. That includes the most powerful space telescope of them all - and a recent paper pre-printed on arXiv describes what the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) discovered in the comet’s coma. It wasn’t like any other it had seen before.

The recent discovery of the third known interstellar object (ISO), 3I/ATLAS, has brought about another round of debate on whether these objects could potentially be technological in origin. Everything from random YouTube channels to tenured Harvard professors have thoughts about whether ISOs might actually be spaceships, but the general consensus of the scientific community is that they aren’t. Overturning that consensus would require a lot of “extraordinary evidence”, and a new paper led by James Davenport at the DiRAC Institute at the University of Washington lays out some of the ways that astronomers could collect that evidence for either the current ISO or any new ones we might find.

What processes are responsible for our Sun’s solar wind, heat, and energy? This is what a recent study published in Physical Review X hopes to address as a team of researchers presented evidence for a newly discovered type of barrier that the Sun exhibits that could help explain the transfer of energy to heat within the Sun’s outer atmosphere. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the underlying mechanisms for what drives our Sun and what this could mean for learning about other suns throughout the cosmos.

What can binary star systems teach astronomers about the formation and evolution of planets orbiting them? This is what a recent study published in Nature hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated past studies that claimed a specific binary star system could host a planet demonstrating a retrograde orbit, meaning it orbits in the opposite direction of the star’s rotation. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand binary and multiple star systems, specifically the formation and evolution of their planets and what this could mean for finding life beyond Earth.

Scientists from the University of Minnesota have discovered something extraordinary in Jupiter's polar regions that has never been seen before, a completely new type of plasma wave that creates aurora unlike anything we observe on Earth.

For astrobiologists, the search for life beyond our Solar System could be likened to where one would look in a vast desert where there's water. The most intriguing targets are planets called sub-Neptunes, which get their name because they're larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune. What makes them fascinating is that their size and mass suggest they're packed with water but not the kind of water we know.

On August 8, 2024, the NSF Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii achieved a historic milestone by capturing the sharpest images ever taken of a solar flare. The unprecedented observations revealed coronal loops in stunning detail. The arches of superheated plasma following the Sun's magnetic field lines were captured at such resolution that it’s possible to see individual structures as narrow as 21 kilometres across.

The ESA's JUpiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) is on its way to conduct detailed studies of Jupiter and its three icy moons, Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. To pick up speed and reach Jupiter by July 2031, the probe will conduct a gravity-assist maneuver with Venus on Sunday, August 31st. According to the ESA, the mission suffered an anomaly with its communications system, which temporarily severed its connection with Earth. Fortunately, a coordinated response by teams at the ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) and Airbus (JUICE's manufacturer) restored communications in time for the probe's flyby.