SpaceX's new Starlink satellites are so radio noisy that they could blind radio astronomy observatories to the universe's most intriguing phenomena, scientists say.
Space News & Blog Articles
Tune into the SpaceZE News Network to stay updated on industry news from around the world.
Exoplanets Could be Hiding Their Atmospheres
Most of the exoplanets we’ve discovered orbit red dwarf stars. This isn’t because red dwarfs are somehow special, simply that they are common. About 75% of the stars in the Milky Way are red dwarfs, so you would expect red dwarf planets to be the most abundant. This also means that most habitable worlds are going to orbit these small, cool stars, and that has some significant consequences for our search for life.
James Webb Space Telescope witnesses a 'smiling' galactic collision (images)
The James Webb Space Telescope has imaged a collision between two galaxies that appears to have created a beaming smile in space.
Magnetic mystery at Mercury revealed by BepiColombo probe (video)
The BepiColombo probe's flybys of Mercury have revealed just how sharply and rapidly the planet's local environment changes in response to the solar wind.
China's Yutu 2 rover still going strong after nearly 6 years on the far side of the moon (video)
China's Chang'e 4 rover Yutu 2 has been working on the far side of the moon for nearly six years. It was designed to operate for just three lunar days, or about three Earth months.
Arctic Weather Satellite’s first images capture Storm Boris
Just a month after its launch, ESA’s Arctic Weather Satellite has already delivered its first images, notably capturing Storm Boris, which has been wreaking havoc across central Europe.
Caught on camera: Satellite tracker photographs secret spacecraft
Satellite tracker and photographer Felix Schöfbänker has captured a variety of secret spacecraft on camera, revealing "things that either were not known, or only were speculated before."
Actually, Ceres Might Have Formed in the Asteroid Belt After All
Dwarf planet Ceres is the largest planetary body in the Asteroid Belt. For a long time, scientists thought it was born in the outer solar system and then migrated to its present position. Some evidence for that origin lies in extensive surface deposits of ammonium-rich materials on the Cerean surface.
Metal Part 3D Printed in Space for the First Time
Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, has had a profound impact on the way we do business. There is scarcely any industry that has not been affected by the adoption of this technology, and that includes spaceflight. Companies like SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Aerojet Rocketdyne, and Relativity Space have all turned to 3D printing to manufacture engines, components, and entire rockets. NASA has also 3D-printed an aluminum thrust chamber for a rocket engine and an aluminum rocket nozzle, while the ESA fashioned a 3D-printed steel floor prototype for a future Lunar Habitat.
NASA Watches a Peanut-Shaped Asteroid Drift Past Earth
Peanuts! Get your peanuts here! The Solar System has been passing out peanuts lately in the form of two different oddly shaped asteroids that recently passed by Earth, and both look like over-sized peanuts. The latest peanut-shaped asteroid pass was on September 16, 2024, when the near-Earth asteroid 2024 ON came within 1 million kilometers (62,000 miles) of Earth (2.6 times the Earth-Moon distance). Radar imaging revealed the asteroid was peanut-shaped because it is actually a contact binary – which means it is made of two smaller objects touching each other. NASA says the two rounded lobes are separated by a pronounced neck, and one lobe about 50% larger than the other.
Rocket Lab aborts launch of 5 'Internet of Things' satellites at last second (video)
Rocket Lab's Electron vehicle appeared to fire up briefly today (Sept. 18) before shutting down, resulting in a launch abort.
Did Mars Once Have a Third, Larger Moon?
We are all familiar with our one Moon but other planets have different numbers of moons; Mercury has none, Jupiter has 95 and Mars has two. A new paper proposes that Mars may actually have had a third larger moon. Why? The red planet has a triaxial shape which means it bulges just like Earth does but along a third axis. The paper suggests a massive moon could have distorted Mars into this shape.
NASA's 'Hidden Figures' women awarded Congressional Gold Medals
Though they may never shed the label, the women who worked for NASA as human computers during the space race are no longer "hidden figures," and they now have Congressional Gold Medals to prove it.
The Early Universe Had a Lot of Black Holes
The Hubble Deep Field and its successor, the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field, showed us how vast our Universe is and how it teems with galaxies of all shapes and sizes. They focused on tiny patches of the sky that appeared to be empty and revealed the presence of countless galaxies. Now, astronomers are using the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field and follow-up images to reveal the presence of a large number of supermassive black holes in the early Universe.
'Transformers One' is an end of summer sensation certain to please fans (review)
Paramount's new all-CG animated 'Transformers' film delivers a dynamic origin story for the shapeshifting robots from outer space.
Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket experiences abort as its Rutherford engines began firing, prior to liftoff
Right before Rocket Lab’s 53rd Electron rocket lifted off from its Launch Complex-1 in Mahia, New Zealand, the vehicle experienced a T-0 abort. The engines began firing as expected at T-2 seconds, but the vehicle remained on the pad. Image: Rocket Lab via launch livestream
Update Sept. 18, 9:47 p.m. EDT: Rocket Lab noted the scrub was due to “a ground systems sensor trigger.”
The largest volcano on Mars may sit above a 1,000-mile magma pool. Could Olympus Mons erupt again?
A low-density, weak-gravity region has been found below Olympus Mons and the Tharsis volcanoes, while Mars' northern hemisphere is littered with puzzling high-gravity structures beneath the surface.
2nd Kuiper Belt? Our solar system may be much larger than thought
Eleven objects found at the extremities of the solar system could mark the location of a 'Kuiper Belt 2.'
AI is on the hunt for dark matter
The secrets of dark matter might be hiding in the immense cosmic crashes that are colliding galaxy clusters.
SETI Scientists Scan TRAPPIST-1 for Technosignatures
If you are going to look for intelligent life beyond Earth, there are few better candidates than the TRAPPIST-1 star system. It isn’t a perfect choice. Red dwarf stars like TRAPPIST-1 are notorious for emitting flares and hard X-rays in their youth, but the system is just 40 light-years away and has seven Earth-sized worlds. Three of them are in the potentially habitable zone of the star. They are clustered closely enough to experience tidal forces and thus be geologically active. If intelligent life arises easily in the cosmos, then there’s a good chance it exists in the TRAPPIST-1 system.
Earth had Saturn-like rings 466 million years ago, new study suggests
Earth may have had a Saturn-like ring system long ago, created from the debris of a passing asteroid that our planet tore apart.
