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FengYun-3 satellites improve global diurnal land surface temperature tracking

A recent study published in the ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing highlights how China’s FengYun-3 (FY-3) meteorological satellites have improved global tracking of land surface temperature (LST) throughout daily cycles.

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Gateway lunar space station’s first habitation module arrives in U.S.

From the mountains of Turin to the deserts of Arizona, a core element of Gateway, humanity’s first lunar space station, is now one step closer to the moon. As seen in this April 1, 2025, photo, HALO (Habitation and Logistics Outpost), Gateway’s first pressurized module and one of its foundational elements, recently arrived in Gilbert, […]

Want to know how to survive in space? Ask a tardigrade

The 2025 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, which took place from March 10–14 in The Woodlands, Texas, witnessed some very interesting proposals for space exploration and science. In addition to bold mission concepts, scientists presented exciting opportunities for potential research that addresses major questions. Not the least of which was “How can humans survive in […]

The International Space Station is too clean—what does that tell us about how to co-exist with bugs on Earth?

One of the cleanest places beyond Earth may be making its residents ill. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) have had rashes, allergies and the odd infection, and scientists now believe the station’s environment is too clean. Researchers recently concluded that the ISS is so sterile it may be damaging astronauts’ health and have […]

In the search for life on exoplanets, finding nothing is something too

What if humanity’s search for life on other planets returns no hits? A team of researchers led by Dr. Daniel Angerhausen, a Physicist in Professor Sascha Quanz’s Exoplanets and Habitability Group at ETH Zurich and a SETI Institute affiliate, tackled this question by considering what could be learned about life in the universe if future […]

Hubble helps determine Uranus’ rotation rate with unprecedented precision

An international team of astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have made new measurements of Uranus’ interior rotation rate with a novel technique, achieving a level of accuracy 1,000 times greater than previous estimates. By analyzing more than a decade of Hubble observations of Uranus’ aurorae, researchers have refined the planet’s rotation period and […]

Methane detected in the atmosphere of the nearest T dwarf

Using the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), European astronomers have detected methane in the atmosphere of WISEA J181006.18−101000.5—the closest T dwarf to Earth. The finding was reported in a research paper published March 28 on the arXiv pre-print server.

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Blue Origin plans an all-female space flight—but astronaut memoirs reveal the cost of being exceptional

For the first time since Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo flight in 1963, a spacecraft will enter orbit with only women aboard. Blue Origin’s all-female space flight crew, which includes popstar Katy Perry, is set to take off this spring.

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Four space tourists return to Earth after a private flight over the poles

Four space tourists who orbited the north and south poles returned to Earth on Friday, splashing down in the Pacific to end their privately funded polar tour.

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Here’s how we could quickly raise temperatures on Mars

Multiple plans exist to explore Mars in the coming decades using robotic and crewed missions. The ultimate goal of these missions is to determine whether human beings could actually live there someday. This requires access to building materials, water, cutting-edge manufacturing technology, and closed-loop habitation systems with bioregenerative life support systems (BLSS). Basically, future settlers […]

A mission that could reach Mercury on solar sails alone

Turns out, it’s as tough to drop inward into the inner solar system, as it is to head outward. The problem stems from losing momentum from a launch starting point on Earth. It can take missions several years and planetary flybys before capture and arrival in orbit around Mercury or Venus.

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Hubble spots star cluster NGC 346

In anticipation of the upcoming 35th anniversary of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, ESA/Hubble is kicking off the celebrations with a new image of the star cluster NGC 346, featuring new data and processing techniques. This prolific star factory is in the Small Magellanic Cloud, one of the largest of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxies. […]

Image: A chance alignment in Lupus

The subject of today’s NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week is the stunning spiral galaxy NGC 5530. NGC 5530 is situated 40 million light-years away in the constellation Lupus (The Wolf). This galaxy is classified as a “flocculent” spiral, meaning that its spiral arms are patchy and indistinct.

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KiDS dataset doesn’t shake up cold dark matter model after all, say researchers

Data from 41 million galaxies does not shake up the standard cosmological model after all. To that conclusion, to their own surprise, comes an international team of researchers including Koen Kuijken, professor at the Leiden Observatory.

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Lunar polar regions could have microbes, modeling study suggests

Could microbes survive in the permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) of the moon? This is what a recent study presented at the 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC 2025) hopes to address as a team of researchers from the United States and Canada investigated the likelihood of long-term survival for microbes in the PSR areas […]