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JWST’s ‘overmassive’ early black holes may not be so massive after all

Astronomers studying a population of unusually X-ray-silent and overmassive black holes discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope have found that they may not be as massive as they appear. The new paper, outlining a plausible scenario that would produce such black holes, was published in Astronomy & Astrophysics on June 19.

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Another success for Hayabusa 2 as it completes a flyby of asteroid Torifune

Hayabusa 2’s primary mission is now well in the past. JAXA’s asteroid-sampling spacecraft rendezvoused with asteroid Ryugu in June 2018. It studied the asteroid for 1.5 years and gathered a sample that was returned to Earth in December 2020.

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What to know about the total solar eclipse due in August

Day will briefly turn into night across a swath of northern Spain on Aug. 12, when the moon will completely cover the sun during a rare total solar eclipse.

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‘Unique event’: Solar eclipse fever fills empty Spain

As a child, Enrique Bordallo would gaze in awe at the starry night sky in rural Spain. Next month’s solar eclipse has now made his passion a popular obsession.

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NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft wakes from its longest hibernation in good health

Following its longest hibernation period ever of nearly a year, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has emerged in good health and is ready to begin transmitting science data gathered in the distant Kuiper Belt far beyond Pluto.

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Galaxy mergers aren’t always obvious

The galaxy Centaurus A is about 11 million light-years away and is the fifth-brightest galaxy in the sky. Because it’s so bright, it’s been studied extensively by amateur and professional astronomers alike. Also called NGC 5128, it’s a starburst galaxy, meaning it’s forming stars at a rapid rate.

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Baseline tool could separate alien life signals from geology on ocean worlds

When it comes to the search for life elsewhere in the universe, methane and other chemical compounds are seen as signs of biology because they are often produced by living microbes. However, scientists can be misled because certain geological processes can produce chemical signatures identical to those of living organisms.

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Much of Earth’s ‘space dust’ may come from unidentified near-Earth asteroids

Like a shelf in an old house, the Earth collects a lot of dust from its surroundings. This “space dust” is mostly made up of micrometeorites that survive atmospheric entry and provides researchers with a cheap and easy way to obtain samples to study our cosmic neighbors. However, it can be difficult to determine which […]

South Pole Telescope analysis releases new catalog of more than 7,000 galaxy clusters

Researchers working with data from the South Pole Telescope have released a major catalog of galaxy clusters, giving scientists a powerful new tool for studying how the universe grew and changed over billions of years. The findings are published on the arXiv preprint server.

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University team proposed retractable, pressurized tunnels for missions to Mars

NASA and China’s national space agency plan to send crewed missions to Mars in the coming decades. Per NASA’s Moon to Mars mission architecture, this will involve using infrastructure established through the Artemis Program to send crews to the red planet sometime in the 2030s or 2040s. Similar to Artemis, these missions will culminate in […]

JWST finds the most distant barred galaxy candidate in the early universe

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have identified what may be the most distant barred spiral galaxy ever discovered, dating to a time less than 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang. The paper outlining its properties was posted to the arXiv preprint server on June 23.

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New Horizons watches the solar wind as it slows down

Where does the solar system end and interstellar space begin? That’s a question scientists have been working to answer using spacecraft traveling beyond the sun’s influence. A team of researchers from the Southwest Research Institute, led by Heather Elliott, is using the Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument aboard New Horizons to track the solar […]

‘Cosmic wallflowers’ may hold the key to the origin of globular clusters

Astronomers using computer simulations have investigated whether a class of star clusters nicknamed “cosmic wallflowers” could be the long-sought ancestors of the globular clusters we see orbiting galaxies today. Their paper, posted to the arXiv preprint server on June 25, suggests that where a cluster is born and how fast it spins may determine its […]

It’s disturbingly easy to trick AI into seeing aliens, say researchers

Are we alone in the universe? Consider mysterious “extraterrestrial” radio signals. Unexplained gases on other planets. Things mistaken for UFOs.

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How an interstellar comet sheds light on universe’s ‘cosmic noon’

Last year, an interstellar traveler entered our solar system. Some speculated that it was an alien spacecraft, but it turned out to be a comet, 3I/Atlas, and it provoked interest from astronomers and astrophysicists eager for insights into galaxies far, far away. Detailed observations from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shot down the […]