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Mars reveals first Zwan-Wolf effect deep in its atmosphere during a solar storm

In December 2023, scientists looking at Mars data stumbled across something completely unexpected—observations of an atmospheric effect never before seen in the Red Planet’s atmosphere. Using instruments aboard NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) mission, scientists identified a phenomenon known to occur in Earth’s magnetosphere, where charged particles are squeezed like toothpaste coming out […]

New research examines how misinformation threatens planetary defense and public trust

As misinformation spreads faster than ever across digital platforms, new research highlights growing risks to public understanding of planetary defense, an area of science that deals with the threat from asteroid and comet impacts, with potentially global consequences.

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Bizarre Venus surface formations puzzle planetary scientists

Bizarre Venus surface formations (or coronae) are likely key to understanding our twin planet’s heretofore inscrutable interior. Using NASA Magellan spacecraft data from decades past, Anna Gulcher, an Earth and planetary scientist at Germany’s University of Freiburg, has created innovative new 3D models of the largest coronae to better understand Venus’ puzzling geodynamics.

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Hubble reveals rare galaxy 100 million light-years away caught in transition

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals an enigmatic galaxy with a bright center and a face that hints at spiral structure, yet it holds no obvious spiral arms. Reddish-brown clumps and filaments of dust partially obscure the galaxy’s full face, while red, blue, and orange light from distant galaxies shines through its diffuse outer […]

Is Earth’s constant companion a stray asteroid or a chunk of the moon?

Earth has a group of cosmic stalkers. Known as “co-orbitals,” these small bits of rock have a 1:1 mean motion resonance with Earth. Basically, they take the exact same amount of time to orbit the sun as we do. Astronomers have long believed these objects wandered in from the main asteroid belt between Mars and […]

Findings reconsider the existence of Europa’s vapor plumes

Looking back at 14 years of Hubble telescope data for Jupiter’s moon Europa has given Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists a better understanding of its tenuous atmosphere. The findings have cast doubt on previous evidence suggesting that the icy moon intermittently discharges faint water plumes from a presumed subsurface ocean.

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Dark lunar craters could host ultrastable lasers for moon navigation

They rank among the darkest and coldest places in the solar system: Hundreds of lunar craters, many of them at the moon’s south pole, never receive direct sunlight and lie in permanent shadow. That’s exactly why physicist Jun Ye and his colleagues suggest that these craters are the perfect place to build a critical component […]

Galactic collision may have reset Milky Way disk 11 billion years ago

A new study led by researchers at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC) reveals how the disks of galaxies like the Milky Way are affected by ancient galactic collisions.

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Supernova dust may be behind one of JWST’s biggest puzzles

Astronomers may have found an explanation for one of the biggest mysteries revealed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): why so many galaxies in the early universe appear unexpectedly bright in ultraviolet light. The new study, posted to the arXiv preprint server on May 11, suggests that galaxies more than 13 billion years ago […]

Images: NASA’s Perseverance captures panorama at ‘Arbot’

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover used its Mastcam-Z camera to capture this panorama of an area nicknamed “Arbot” on April 5, 2026, the 1,882nd Martian day (sol) of the mission, during the rover’s deepest push west beyond Jezero Crater.

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Falling space debris poses an escalating risk as spacecraft get stronger and more heat resistant

When it comes to space debris, what goes up is coming down more often—and not safely.

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Surrounded by stardust: Antarctic ice cores confirm Earth is accumulating iron-60 from local interstellar cloud

Our solar system is currently passing through the Local Interstellar Cloud, a region of highly diluted gas and dust between the stars. On its path, Earth continuously accumulates iron-60, a rare radioactive isotope of iron produced in stellar explosions. This has now been confirmed by an international research team led by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) […]

eROSITA discovers a ‘changing-look’ Seyfert galaxy

Astronomers have tracked a dramatic “changing-look” active galactic nucleus (AGN) whose central supermassive black hole appeared to switch off and then rapidly reignite. The galaxy, HE 1237−2252, dimmed in X-rays by a factor of 17 within just 18 months before recovering again. The paper outlining its analysis was uploaded to the arXiv preprint server on […]

New spacecraft will watch Earth’s shield take the hit as solar storms come roaring in

A joint European-Chinese spacecraft is set to blast off Tuesday to investigate what happens when extreme winds and giant explosions of plasma shot out from the sun slam into Earth’s magnetic shield.

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Musk wants SpaceX to go public. Here’s how it works

Hundreds of companies raised a combined $70 billion by selling shares to the public in the United States last year.

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