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How do tidal forces determine a planet’s orbital evolution, specifically planets in the habitable zone? This is what a recently submitted study hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated how tidal forces far more powerful than experienced on Earth could influence orbital evolution of habitable zone planets with highly eccentric orbits around […]
An international team of scientists, led by Northwestern University astrophysicists, has detected a never-before-seen type of exploding star, or supernova, that is rich with silicon, sulfur and argon. The study, “Extremely stripped supernova reveals a silicon and sulfur formation site,” is published in the journal Nature.
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For the first time, scientists have directly tracked the slow transformation of a dying star over more than a century—revealing it is heating up faster than any other typical star ever observed.
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By analyzing the data from NASA’s Chandra spacecraft, astronomers have conducted the first X-ray study of a globular cluster known as NGC 6528. Results of the study, published August 13 on the arXivpreprint server, yield important insights regarding the population of X-ray sources in this cluster.
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In the past decade, astronomers have witnessed three interstellar objects (ISOs) passing through the solar system. These include the enigmatic ‘Oumuamua in 2017, the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov in 2019, and 3I/ATLAS in July 2025. This latest object also appears to be a comet, based on recent observations that showed it was actively releasing water vapor […]
Exoplanet habitability depends on a whole host of factors, with liquid water at the top of the list. It also requires a stable atmosphere, the right chemistry, and possibly even things like plate tectonics or other geological activity. Planetary magnetic fields are a critical part of the formula, too, but detecting them from Earth’s surface […]
The Three-Body Problem isn’t just the name of a viral Netflix series or a Hugo Award-winning sci-fi book. It also represents a real problem in astrodynamics—and one that can cause headaches for mission planners in terms of its complexity, but also one that offers the promise of an easier way to enter stable orbits that […]
Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a team led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has identified a previously unknown moon orbiting Uranus, expanding the planet’s known satellite family to 29. The detection was made during a Webb observation on Feb. 2, 2025.
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A University of Queensland researcher has developed a new mathematical model to explain the evolution of the universe which, for the first time, includes collapsing regions of matter and expanding voids.
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More than 50 years after the last manned moon mission, the Apollo program is still making groundbreaking discoveries.
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A new kind of stellar explosion provides a novel way to probe the distant universe, according to new results published today in Nature Astronomy.
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Headed for a metal-rich asteroid of the same name, the Psyche spacecraft successfully calibrated its cameras by looking homeward.
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The NASA Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, launched in 2015, has over 10 years of global L-band radiometry observations. The low frequency [1.4 GHz frequency or 21 cm (8 in) wavelength] measurements provide information on the state of land surfaces in all weather conditions—regardless of solar illumination.
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The 33rd SpaceX commercial resupply services mission for NASA, scheduled to lift off from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in late August, is heading to the International Space Station with an important investigation for the future of bone health.
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Compact, reflective, easy-to-manufacture mirrors are a critical component for advancing astronomical technology in space. Mirrors are a key component in most telescopes, though they are notoriously hard to manufacture with the necessary precision, especially at large scales. A new paper posted to the arXiv preprint server from researchers in the U.K. uses additive manufacturing to […]
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