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Saturn’s icy moon may host a stable ocean fit for life

A new study led by researchers from Oxford University, Southwest Research Institute and the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona has provided the first evidence of significant heat flow at Enceladus’s north pole, overturning previous assumptions that heat loss was confined to its active south pole.

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Icarus returns to space aboard SpaceX for wildlife tracking

After a three-year pause, Icarus, the pioneering project that tracks wildlife from space, is set to resume operations. On 11 November 2025, a rocket is scheduled to carry a satellite equipped with the Icarus receiver into space—opening a new chapter in the study of animal observation. The latest launch status will be updated on the […]

Nearby brown dwarf’s ‘weather’ mapped in unprecedented detail

Researchers at McGill University and collaborating institutions have mapped the atmospheric features of a planetary-mass brown dwarf, a type of space object that is neither a star nor a planet, existing in a category in-between. This particular brown dwarf’s mass, however, is just at the threshold between being a Jupiter-like planet and a brown dwarf. […]

Rare meteoroid impact triggers dust avalanches and new streaks on slopes on Mars

When a meteoroid shook the edge of Apollinaris Mons on Mars, it triggered streaks that carved a hundred new scratches on the surface. The European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter captured these dust avalanches on the slopes the night before Christmas in 2023.

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Lunar water traced to solar wind: Latitude and regolith maturity shape its abundance, study finds

The abundance, distribution, and origin of lunar surface water has recently drawn significant scientific interest, owing to its critical role in future space exploration.

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Insects on the space menu: A sustainable food source for future missions

Long before humans reached orbit, insects had already shown they could handle the hurdles of spaceflight. Light, highly adaptable and nutritionally rich, these resilient animals present an attractive option for European researchers studying reliable food sources for long-duration missions.

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Are there different types of black holes? New method puts Einstein to the test

Black holes are considered cosmic gluttons, from which not even light can escape. That is also why the images of black holes at the center of the galaxy M87 and our Milky Way, published a few years ago by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, broke new ground.

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Suspected debris strike delays Chinese spaceship’s return

A suspected strike by “tiny space debris” has delayed the return of the Chinese spaceship Shenzhou-20 and three astronauts, Beijing’s space agency said on Wednesday.

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Trump again taps Musk ally Jared Isaacman to lead NASA

President Donald Trump on Tuesday nominated billionaire entrepreneur and private astronaut Jared Isaacman to head NASA, again tapping the close associate of Elon Musk to lead the US space agency.

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New Zealand plans space mission, satellite fleet: Minister

New Zealand is planning a national space mission which could see a small fleet of state-owned satellites launched into the skies over the Pacific nation, a minister told AFP on Wednesday.

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Trying to find baby planets swaddled in dust

When it comes to finding baby, still-forming planets around young stars, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observatory is astronomers’ most adept tool. ALMA has delivered many images of the protoplanetary disks around young stars, with gaps and rings carved in them by young planets. In new research, a team of researchers used ALMA to […]

Picture of universe getting clearer—but much remains unknown

Even though we can explore the universe with great precision, there is still a lot we don’t know, according to Ulf Danielsson, professor of theoretical physics at Uppsala University. Besides doing research, he is keen to explain science more broadly—most recently in the book “Människan är ett mirakel” (“Human Life is a Miracle”), a collaboration […]

Simulations suggest the early universe helped black holes grow big, but not in the long run

At the heart of the Milky Way, just 27,000 light-years from Earth, there is a supermassive black hole with a mass of more than 4 million suns. Nearly all galaxies contain a supermassive black hole, and many of them are much more massive. The black hole in the elliptical galaxy M87 has a mass of […]

Webb telescope spies Io’s volcanic activity and sulfurous atmosphere

Trapped in a gravitational push and pull between Jupiter and other Jovian moons, Io is constantly being stretched and compressed. Heat generated by these contortions has melted pockets of the moon’s interior so much that Io is our solar system’s most volcanically active body.

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A space historian explores how the advent of radio astronomy led to the USSR’s search for extraterrestrial life

As humans began to explore outer space in the latter half of the 20th century, radio waves proved a powerful tool. Scientists could send out radio waves to communicate with satellites, rockets and other spacecraft, and use radio telescopes to take in radio waves emitted by objects throughout the universe.

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