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Geologists discover the first evidence of 4.5-billion-year-old ‘proto Earth’

Scientists at MIT and elsewhere have discovered extremely rare remnants of “proto Earth,” which formed about 4.5 billion years ago, before a colossal collision irreversibly altered the primitive planet’s composition and produced Earth as we know today. Their findings, reported today in the journal Nature Geosciences, will help scientists piece together the primordial starting ingredients […]

Composing crews for Mars missions: Team diversity may foster resilience

Simulation results highlight how team composition shapes stress, health, performance, and cohesion in long-duration space missions, according to a study published October 8, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS One by Iser Pena and Hao Chen of the Stevens Institute of Technology, U.S. In particular, team diversity in personality traits may contribute to greater resilience […]

Open source mega-constellations could solve overcrowding

Duplicating expensive resources is expensive and wasteful, and most people would agree it’s unnecessary. However, the planned increase in major satellite constellations is currently causing a massive duplication of resources as individual companies and even countries try to set up their own infrastructure in space.

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Cosmic tug-of-war: Gravity reshapes magnetic fields in star clusters

Astronomers have captured the clearest picture yet of how massive stars are born, revealing a dramatic interplay between gravity and magnetic fields in some of our galaxy’s most dynamic star forming regions. A team led by Dr. Qizhou Zhang from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) […]

Simulations unveil the electrodynamic nature of black hole mergers and other spacetime collisions

Gravitational waves are energy-carrying waves produced by the acceleration or disturbance of massive objects. These waves, which were first directly observed in 2015, are known to be produced during various cosmological phenomena, including mergers between two black holes that orbit each other (i.e., binary black holes).

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Mars dust devils mapped in detail, revealing faster winds than expected

Combing through 20 years of images from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft, scientists have tracked 1,039 tornado-like whirlwinds to reveal how dust is lifted into the air and swept around Mars’s surface.

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With new analysis, Apollo samples brought to Earth in 1972 reveal exotic sulfur hidden in moon’s mantle

When astronauts returned from NASA’s final Apollo moon mission in 1972, some of the samples they collected were sealed and carefully stored away in the hope that future researchers using advanced equipment might analyze them and make new discoveries.

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3I/ATLAS’s coma proves another cometary formation theory

Interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS has been constantly changing as it makes its way through our solar system. That’s to be expected, as, for the first time in potentially billions of years, it’s getting close to the energy put out by a star.

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Bringing the digital revolution to direct exoplanet imaging with LCD technology

An instrument is set to improve the detection and direct imaging of planets outside our solar system by harnessing the power of liquid crystals. The Programmable Liquid-crystal Active Coronagraphic Imager for the DAG telescope (PLACID) was installed earlier this year at the 4m-diameter telescope of the newly built Eastern Anatolian Observatory (DAG) observatory in Eastern […]

We need a solar sail probe to detect space tornadoes earlier, researchers say

Spirals of solar wind can spin off larger solar eruptions and disrupt Earth’s magnetic field, yet they are too difficult to detect with our current single-location warning system, according to a new study from the University of Michigan.

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Could life exist on Mars today? Here’s what the latest evidence says

Recently, NASA revealed exciting details of new findings from Mars. Scientists have discovered tiny patterns of unusual minerals in the clay-rich rocks on the edge of Jezero Crater—an ancient lake once fed by Martian river systems, and the exploration site of the NASA Perseverance Rover.

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Setting bounds on SETI

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has a data scale problem. There are just too many places to look for an interstellar signal, and even if you’re looking in the right place you could be looking at the wrong frequency or at the wrong time. Several strategies have come up to narrow the search given […]

Multi-band observations explore nearby dwarf irregular galaxy UGCA 320

Astronomers from South Africa have conducted multi-band observations of a nearby dwarf irregular galaxy known as UGCA 320. Results of the observational campaign, recently published on the arXiv preprint server, yield important insights into the nature of this galaxy.

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Galaxies with high radio emissions could be home to many advanced civilizations

For decades, scientists engaged in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) have probed the galaxy for signs of artificial radio transmissions. Beginning with Project Ozma in 1960, astronomers have used radio antennas to listen for possible transmissions from other star systems or galaxies.

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Cassini proves complex chemistry in Enceladus ocean

Scientists digging through data collected by the Cassini spacecraft have found new complex organic molecules spewing from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. This is a clear sign that complex chemical reactions are taking place within its underground ocean. Some of these reactions could be part of chains that lead to even more complex, potentially biologically relevant molecules. […]