Organic molecules detected in the watery plumes that spew out from cracks in the surface of Enceladus could be formed through exposure to radiation on Saturn’s icy moon, rather than originating from deep within its sub-surface ocean.

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Space changes you. It strengthens some muscles, weakens others, shifts fluids within your body, and realigns your sense of balance. NASA’s Human Research Program works to understand—and sometimes even counter—those changes so astronauts can thrive on future deep space missions.

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Using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Italian astronomers have observed five blue straggler stars in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae. Their results show that one of these stars has a white dwarf companion. The discovery is presented in a paper published Aug. 28 on the arXiv preprint server.

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About 80% of the universe’s mass is thought to consist of dark matter. Yet, little is known about the composition and structure of the particles that make up dark matter, presenting physicists with some fundamental questions. To explore this elusive matter, researchers are attempting to capture photons, or light particles, which are produced when dark […]

Since the early days of human space exploration, the endeavor has been haunted by a very good question: why spend so much on space when there are so many urgent problems here on Earth?

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Radio astronomy took another step forward recently, with the completion of Phase III of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in Western Australia. We’ve reported before on how the MWA has investigated everything from SETI signals to the light from the earliest stars. With this upgrade, the MWA will continue to operate with much needed improvements […]

Using ESA’s INTEGRAL spacecraft, astronomers have detected exceptionally bright X-ray flares from the Cygnus X-1 X-ray binary system. This is the first time that such strong flaring activity has been observed in this system although it has been monitored for decades. The new findings were detailed in a paper published August 28 on the pre-print […]

University of Bristol astrophysicists are helping shed new light on an Earth-sized exoplanet 40 light years away where liquid water in the form of a global ocean or icy expanse might exist on its surface. That would only be possible if an atmosphere is present—a big mystery that the scientists are attempting to unravel and […]