Categories

Tying theory to practice when searching for dark energy

Science is a story of coming up with theories then doing our best to disprove them. That is especially true for theories on a grand, cosmological scale, though disproving them can be particularly hard.

Go to Source

Astronomers discover rare Einstein cross with a fifth image, revealing hidden dark matter

When Rutgers theoretical astrophysicist Charles Keeton first saw an unusual picture shared by his colleague, he was intrigued.

Go to Source

Fly through Gaia’s 3D map of stellar nurseries

Scientists created the most accurate three-dimensional map of star-formation regions in our Milky Way galaxy, based on data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope. This map will teach us more about these obscure cloudy areas, and the hot young stars that shape them.

Go to Source

A rover to mine Martian volcanoes

Different parts of Mars have different advantages and disadvantages when it comes to their available resources, just like Earth. The polar caps are likely the most valuable in terms of their water content, which will be critical to any early stage crewed mission to the red planet.

Go to Source

Ancient brown dwarf reveals cloud chemistry secrets

Deep in space, an ancient brown dwarf nicknamed “The Accident” has revealed the first-ever detection of a molecule that scientists have been searching for in planetary atmospheres for decades.

Go to Source

A spacecraft could explore 3I/ATLAS to learn more about ‘cosmic noon’

The period known as “cosmic noon,” which took place roughly 2 to 3 billion years after the Big Bang, was characterized by the rapid formation of new stars and planetary systems. Naturally, objects dated to this period are coveted by scientists hoping to learn more about the processes that led to the formation of planets […]

New images reveal unexpected polarization flips near M87’s supermassive black hole

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, with a substantial contribution from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR), has unveiled new, detailed images of the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy M87. These reveal a dynamic environment with changing polarization patterns near the black hole. For the first time in EHT […]

Partial solar eclipse at the bottom of the world closes out the year’s sun and moon spectacles

The bottom of the world is front and center for a partial solar eclipse next week.

Go to Source

Earth’s history written in the stars: Zircon crystals reveal galactic influence

New Curtin University research has uncovered a striking link between the structure of our galaxy and the evolution of Earth’s crust, showing its development was shaped by the impact of meteorites during its journey through the Milky Way and not solely through internal processes as was previously widely considered.

Go to Source

[…]

JWST observations discover a small star-forming complex

Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have detected what appears to be a faint and small star-forming complex. The discovery of the new complex, which received the designation LAP2, is detailed in a research paper published Sept. 8 on the arXiv preprint server.

Go to Source

In search of exo-Neptunes: TOI-421 planetary system reveals inclined orbital architecture

An international team led by the University of Geneva (UNIGE), including scientists from the National Center of Competence in Research PlanetS, the University of Warwick, and the Canary Islands Institute of Astrophysics, has launched an ambitious program to map exoplanets located around the Neptunian Desert. The goal: to better understand the formation and evolution of […]

Mapping the universe, faster and with the same accuracy

If you think a galaxy is big, compare it to the size of the universe: it’s just a tiny dot which, together with a huge number of other tiny dots, forms clusters that aggregate into superclusters, which in turn weave into filaments threaded with voids—an immense 3D skeleton of our universe.

Go to Source

[…]

Scientists detected a potential biosignature on Mars—an astrobiologist explains the findings

As the Perseverance rover traversed an ancient river valley in Mars’ Jezero Crater back in July 2024, it drilled into the surface and extracted a sample from a unique, striped rock called Cheyava Falls. The rover’s instruments then analyzed the sample, which is called Sapphire Canyon, and surveyed the surrounding rock.

Go to Source

[…]

NASA analysis shows sun’s activity ramping up

The sun has become increasingly active since 2008, a new NASA study shows. Solar activity is known to fluctuate in cycles of 11 years, but there are longer-term variations that can last decades. Case in point: Since the 1980s, the amount of solar activity had been steadily decreasing all the way up to 2008, when […]

Information collected by the world’s largest radio telescope will be stored and processed by global data centers

When the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) Observatory goes online later this decade, it will create one of science’s biggest data challenges. The SKA Observatory is a global radio telescope project built in the Southern Hemisphere. There, views of our Milky Way are clearest and the SKA’s remote sites limit human-made radio interference.

Go to Source

[…]