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A beautiful death: How a dying star created the Crystal Ball Nebula

Planetary nebulae like the Crystal Ball Nebula (NGC 1514) are sort of like stellar obituaries. Though crystal balls supposedly reveal the future, the Crystal Ball Nebula tells us more about the past. It shows us how a binary pair of stars met their end. And since NGC 1514 is 1,500 light years away, we’re seeing […]

Mars fungi could make red planet regolith fertile for crops

You’re on the fourth human mission to Mars, and you’ve been tasked with establishing the first self-sustaining food crop on a Martian settlement. You’re nervous because you’re using a new type of fungi called beneficial fungi, which you’re told will help enhance the Martian regolith, enabling it to be used for growing crops.

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China launches crewed space flight as part of moon ambitions

China launched its crewed Shenzhou-23 spacecraft and eased it into a successful docking with a space station early Monday as part of Beijing’s ambitions to send humans to the moon by 2030, state media said.

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Study shows how sunspot activity speeds up reentries

It’s getting crowded up there. Over the past few years, the advent of SpaceX’s Starlink and other players in the mega-satellite constellation game are adding an exponential load of satellites and orbital debris to the low Earth orbit environment. But all that goes up, must eventually come down. Now, a new study looks at solar […]

Solar activity follows an 11‑year cycle. Here’s how it controls eruptions and solar flares

When you look up at the sky on a sunny day, the sun might seem like a bright spot, unchanging in the sky. But the sun is a complex, dynamic celestial body, wrapped in electrical currents and magnetic fields that constantly move and tangle as it rotates. At times the sun’s surface is very active, […]

Heavily reddened quasars caught going through a ‘blow-out’ phase

At the center of most large galaxies sits a supermassive black hole (SMBH). When these black holes are actively consuming material, they become incredibly luminous quasars. But some quasars appear wrapped in thick clouds of dust, making them hard to detect. In a new study, astronomers have revealed 77 new, hidden, “heavily reddened” quasars (HRQs). […]

As corporations race for the stars, we need international collaboration on space governance

The science academies of G7 member countries have identified international space governance as a pressing issue for the G7 Leaders’ Summit, to be held from June 15–17 in Evian, France.

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Extreme 8.5-minute orbit reveals white dwarf being torn apart by its binary companion

A team of U.S. astronomers has observed a binary pair of white dwarfs where one star is actively devouring material from the other. Led by Emma Chickles at MIT, the researchers revealed one of the clearest views yet of how ultracompact white dwarf binaries exchange mass at extreme orbital periods—offering an enticing potential target for […]

SpaceX launches its biggest, most beefed-up Starship yet on a test flight

SpaceX launched its biggest, most powerful Starship yet on a test flight Friday, an upgraded version that NASA is counting on to land astronauts on the moon.

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China set for latest space launch, with Hong Kong astronaut aboard

A Hong Kong astronaut will join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching on Sunday, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon.

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Just outside Jupiter, one region may have forged six meteorite parent bodies

When the solar system formed, a disk of gas and dust orbited the young sun. Over the course of millions of years, the dust gradually clumped together to form kilometer-sized chunks known as planetesimals. Some grew into planets, while the rest are considered to be the precursors of today’s asteroids. Researchers assume that this development […]

SpaceX to retry Starship test launch Friday

Elon Musk’s SpaceX will attempt another launch of its mammoth Starship rocket Friday, after the previous evening’s try was called off over technical issues.

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Using pulsars as ultra-precise gravitational probes to ‘weigh’ neighboring galaxies

Researchers at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System, have identified a promising new method for measuring the mass of galaxies orbiting the Milky Way by using pulsars, some of the universe’s most precise natural clocks, to detect tiny gravitational effects across our galaxy.

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Astronomers discover a super-Earth orbiting a nearby red dwarf

Astronomers from Italy and Brazil have investigated a nearby red dwarf star known as Ross 318 and have discovered an exoplanet orbiting this star, which is at least six times more massive than Earth. The discovery is reported in a research paper published May 11 on the arXiv preprint server.

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Earth’s outer core beneath Pacific reversed direction in 2010, satellite data reveal

The liquid iron in Earth’s outer core doesn’t always behave as expected. When it changed direction in an unexplained way, ESA satellites provided data on the direction of flow, helping scientists gain better insight into the dynamics at the center of our planet.

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