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Moonbound Artemis II astronauts give Orion capsule a name

The four astronauts set to climb aboard the first Orion spacecraft to fly humans have already given it a name.

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Two Neptune-sized exoplanets discovered around a young sun-like star

Using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), astronomers have discovered two new exoplanets around a young sun-like star known as TOI-6109. The newfound alien worlds are slightly larger than Neptune and orbit their host in less than 10 days. The finding was presented in a paper published September 18 on the arXiv pre-print server.

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Icy planetesimal with high nitrogen and water content discovered in white dwarf’s atmosphere

University of Warwick astronomers have uncovered the chemical fingerprint of a frozen, water-rich planetary fragment being consumed by a white dwarf star outside our solar system.

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JWST searches for stars in a glowing gas cloud

Star formation is a fundamental physical process in our universe. Stars light up the cosmos, and give rise to planets, some of which may support life. While humans have no doubt wondered about stars since prehistoric times, new technological tools like the Milky Way have taken our natural curiosity to a whole new level. Now […]

Rogue planet SIMP-0136 displays strong auroral activity similar to Northern Lights

Strong Northern Lights-like activity is the standout feature of today’s weather report, which is coming at you from a strange, extrasolar world, instead of a standard TV studio. That is thanks to astronomers from Trinity College Dublin, who used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to take a close look at the weather of a […]

Double launch day complete with SpaceX, ULA successes

A busy week on the Space Coast saw two rockets launch within hours of one another as both SpaceX and United Launch Alliance had missions to proliferate a pair of competing satellite constellations.

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Gravitational wave detectors affected by daylight savings time

Interference from human activity has always been a sticking point in astronomical observations. Radio astronomy is notoriously sensitive to unintentional interference—hence why there are “radio silent” zones near telescopes where cell phones are banned. But gravitational wave astronomy is affected to an even worse degree than radio astronomy, according to a new paper published on […]

New catalog compiles more than 100 ‘spider’ pulsars that consume stellar partners

Manuel Linares is a physicist at NTNU who studies binary stars called “spider pulsars.” The stars got this name because they could eat their partner, just like some spiders do.

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NASA selects Blue Origin to take the once-canceled VIPER rover to the moon

An expensive lunar rover that once had its moon trip canceled has a ride once again.

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SpaceX sunrise launch the 80th on Space Coast

SpaceX’s sunrise launch from Cape Canaveral on Sunday was the 80th launch of the year on the Space Coast, which is on track to break the annual record and surpass 100 for the year.

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Observations explore a rare type Iax supernova

An international team of astronomers has conducted detailed multicolor photometric and spectroscopic observations of SN 2022xlp—a type Iax supernova. Results of the observational campaign, published September 9 on the arXiv pre-print server, could shed more light on the nature of this rare subclass of supernovae.

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Researchers detect first ‘heartbeat’ of a newborn neutron star in distant cosmic explosion

A discovery involving researchers at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) has, for the first time, revealed millisecond pulsations hidden within a powerful cosmic explosion known as a gamma-ray burst (GRB).

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Amateur astronomers help track asteroid to French impact site

With help from amateur astronomers, scientists tracked how an asteroid traveled from space, broke up in Earth’s atmosphere and sent fiery fragments shooting to the ground, gathering new information about how these space rocks disintegrate.

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Make like a spacecraft and fly through Gaia’s 3D map of stellar nurseries

When the ESA launched the Gaia spacecraft in 2013, it didn’t generate the same fanfare as the launch of other missions like the JWST, or first light from telescopes like the Vera Rubin Observatory. That’s largely because Gaia doesn’t capture gorgeous images of celestial objects like other telescopes. Instead, Gaia was an astrometry mission.

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Webb discovers ‘The Cliff’ object that could solve red dot mystery

A new class of supermassive black holes embedded in a thick gas shell could explain small red dots in images from the James Webb Space Telescope.

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