Cosmic ‘hamburger’ offers rare edge-on view of where giant planets may take shape

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) were surprised to discover the earliest phases of giant planet formation between the dense layers of gas and dust in the “Gomez’s Hamburger” system, referred to as GoHam.

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Japan to launch world-first mission to moon of Mars

Japanese scientists will launch a spacecraft on Tuesday that aims to be the first to retrieve samples from one of Mars’ moons, potentially helping unlock the origins of the solar system and life on Earth.

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Webb reveals metal-rich gas around Milky Way’s central black hole

The gas orbiting Sagittarius A (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, is rich in metals, researchers at McGill University’s Trottier Space Institute have found. The metal enrichment probably resulted from stars that exploded and released material into the black hole’s surroundings over time, they said.

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Auroral structure could be caused by bouncing electrons

The aurora is among nature’s most visually striking phenomena. It occurs when charged particles from the sun are funneled by Earth’s magnetic field into the upper atmosphere, where they collide with atoms and molecules and produce distinctly colored curtainlike patterns of light.

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Euclid discovers its first new comet 810 million miles from Earth

The European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope has discovered its first previously unknown comet in images taken between Sept. 16 and 24, 2026.

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Enigmatic Mercury will remain a puzzle until someone sends a lander

Mercury remains one of our solar system’s most elusive and difficult planets to study. It’s easier to send probes to the icy moons of Saturn or Jupiter, or even to Pluto, than to land on our innermost planet, Mercury.

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Retired pilot helps historical society buy Neil Armstrong’s boyhood home for tours

Ken Schreiber was 9 when Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon in 1969—a moment he would never forget. Like Armstrong, he became a military fighter pilot.

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Japan to launch historic round-trip mission to Mars moon

Japanese scientists are readying a mission to Mars’ moons to retrieve samples that could help unlock the origins of the solar system and life on Earth, in what aims to be the first round trip to the Martian region.

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Japan’s MMX mission aims to swipe soil samples from Mars’s moon Phobos

A Japanese space mission is about to launch towards Mars. But it will not land on the planet itself. Instead, the Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) mission will focus on Phobos, the bigger of Mars’s two small moons.

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Japan to launch spacecraft on a mission to get samples from a Martian moon

Japan is set to launch a spacecraft on the world’s first mission to bring back samples from Phobos, one of the two small, potato-shaped moons orbiting Mars.

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Simulations explore nuclear mitigation of asteroid threats

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers are developing three-dimensional simulations to examine how a nuclear device could be used to deflect or potentially disrupt an asteroid threatening Earth.

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Salt crystals could hold clues to life beneath Enceladus’s ice

The ocean beneath Saturn’s moon Enceladus lies under kilometers of ice, but some of its contents do reach the surface. Jets near the south pole spray out water vapor and icy particles, offering a way to investigate the hidden ocean without drilling down to it.

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Lone, starless cloud may be a ‘dark’ galaxy

Astronomers using China’s FAST radio telescope have discovered a compact cloud of hydrogen with no visible stars or galaxy around it. This could be one of the strongest candidates yet for an isolated “dark galaxy,” containing nearly 500,000 times the sun’s mass in neutral hydrogen. The discovery paper was posted to the arXiv preprint server […]

Astronomer leads global team on NASA mission to create unprecedented view of the early universe

A University of Missouri astronomer is leading a team of 130 researchers from 62 institutions—including NASA, the California Institute of Technology, Princeton University and Harvard University—on an ambitious mission to capture an unprecedented view of the early universe.

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New 3D model reveals how shadows reshape chemistry in stellar nurseries

How do young stars reshape the clouds from which they are born? A new high-resolution 3D model developed by an international team led by Dr Brandt Gaches from the University of Duisburg-Essen shows how the uneven structure of stellar nurseries creates shadows that alter their chemistry and influence the infrared emission observed by the James […]