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ESA’s first stand-alone deep-space CubeSat Henon takes shape

The European Space Agency’s upcoming Henon mission will be the first ever CubeSat to independently venture into deep space, communicate with Earth and maneuver to its final destination without relying on a bigger spacecraft. Once in its orbit around the sun, the carry-on luggage-sized CubeSat will observe the sun’s emissions to demonstrate technologies capable of […]

Solar gamma rays could unlock mystery of sun’s hidden magnetic fields

New research conducted by an international team of physicians has found that high-energy gamma rays might offer the key to unlocking the mysteries of the sun’s magnetic fields.

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A new, expansive view of the Milky Way reveals our galaxy in unprecedented radio color

Astronomers from the International Centre of Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) have created the largest low-frequency radio color image of the Milky Way ever assembled. This spectacular new image captures the Southern Hemisphere view of our Milky Way galaxy, revealing it across a wide range of radio wavelengths, the colors of radio light.

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The Red Spider Nebula, caught by Webb

This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month features a cosmic creepy-crawly called NGC 6537—the Red Spider Nebula. Using its Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam), Webb has revealed never-before-seen details in this picturesque planetary nebula with a rich backdrop of thousands of stars.

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Solar storms have influenced our history. An environmental historian explains how they could also threaten our future

In May 2024, part of the sun exploded.

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Young sun-like star’s dual-temperature plasma ejections offer clues to early planetary environments

Astronomers have used simultaneous ground-based and space-based observations to measure the temperature and velocity of gas ejected from a young sun-like star. The result showed a two-component ejection consisting of a hot fast component followed by a slower, cooler component. This result is important for understanding how young stars affect their surrounding environment where planets […]

Gravitational wave events hint at ‘second-generation’ black holes

In a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the international LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration reports on the detection of two gravitational wave events in October and November of 2024 with unusual black hole spins. This observation adds an important new piece to our understanding of the most elusive phenomena in the universe.

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Astronomers discover end-dominated collapse and hub-filament system in G53 star-forming region

Meng Dezhao, a Ph.D. student from the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with his collaborators, has conducted a systematic study of the filamentary structure within the G53 molecular cloud. By combining multi-wavelength observations and simulations, they revealed for the first time that the filament is undergoing an “end-dominated collapse” (EDC), […]

The cosmic microwave background is a wall of light—here’s how we might see beyond it

So much happened in the earliest moments of the universe. Elementary particles appeared, the first nuclei of hydrogen and helium, and fluctuations of energy and matter set into motion the formation of galaxies and supermassive black holes. But all of it is invisible to us.

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Spectral biosignatures of airborne microbes in planetary atmospheres

Could scientists find life in the clouds of exoplanet atmospheres? This is what a manuscripton the arXiv preprint server hopes to address as a team of researchers investigate how the biosignatures of microbes could be identified in exoplanet atmospheres and clouds.

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JWST observations discover large debris disk around nearby M dwarf

An international team of astronomers have employed the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe a nearby M-dwarf star known as TWA 20. As a result, they detected a large debris disk around this star. The finding was reported in a paper published October 23 on the arXiv pre-print server.

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A meteorite slammed into Western Australia billions of years ago. Or did it?

In the beginning, Earth was a violent place with no atmosphere to soften the blow.

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Engineers test photonic AI chips in space

In a new milestone for space-enabled semiconductor research, the University of Florida, in collaboration with NASA, MIT, Vanguard Automation, AIM Photonics and Germany’s Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute, launched a suite of photonic AI chips to the International Space Station aboard JAXA’s HTV-XI spacecraft this weekend.

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Now in 3D, maps begin to bring exoplanets into focus

Astronomers have generated the first three-dimensional map of a planet orbiting another star, revealing an atmosphere with distinct temperature zones—one so scorching that it breaks down water vapor, a team co-led by a Cornell expert reports in new research.

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China’s Zhuque-3 reusable rocket passes key milestone

The Chinese company LandSpace continues to develop the Zhuque-3 (ZQ-3), a two-stage reusable launch vehicle inspired by SpaceX’s Starship and Super Heavy. They achieved their first milestone in January 2024 with a vertical takeoff and vertical landing (VTVL) using their VTVL-1 test vehicle at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (JSLC) in northern China. By September, […]