Lonely Jupiter-like planet 900 light years away tells us more about gas giants

One night last fall, University of Cincinnati astrophysics graduate Paul Smith waited anxiously for data to start rolling across his computer screen from the James Webb Space Telescope a million miles from Earth.

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Asteroid Apophis will skim past Earth in 2029, and a new joint mission plans to watch every change

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have signed a Memorandum of Cooperation to deepen collaboration in planetary defense, alongside a dedicated agreement for collaboration on the Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (Ramses) to the near-Earth asteroid Apophis.

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The moon’s largest impact crater scattered something priceless—and Artemis may be heading straight into it

A new study, published in Science Advances, has refined some important details about the moon’s largest and oldest impact crater, which stretches more than 1,200 miles (2,000 km) on the far side of the moon. The new details can help guide some of the planning for NASA’s upcoming Artemis mission to the moon, which is […]

Spaceflight leaves astronauts’ joints unchanged after 18 days on ISS, early data suggest

Researchers at National Jewish Health have published new findings demonstrating that short-duration spaceflight may not significantly impact lower extremity joint structures, while also identifying a promising, noninvasive tool to monitor astronaut musculoskeletal health on future long-duration missions.

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Spiral galaxy’s brilliant heart shines bright in a new picture from NASA’s Webb telescope

A spiral galaxy’s brilliant heart outshines everything within sight in a new picture from NASA’s Webb Space Telescope.

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Vast atmospheric waves on Venus are caused by largest known ‘hydraulic jump’

The mysterious origin of an impressive cloud disturbance on Venus has now been revealed by a team including the University of Tokyo. Researchers used numerical models to show that an enormous 6,000-kilometer-wide atmospheric wave front, which circumnavigates the planet for days at a time, is caused by a large “hydraulic jump.” This is when a […]

Meet the fleet: NASA Armstrong continues legacy of flight research

NASA’s home for experimental flight is welcoming more flyers to its already high-performing fleet as it continues to support science and aeronautics test missions—continuing the legacy of pioneers like Neil Armstrong.

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How Dante’s Inferno modeled a planetary impact 500 years before modern science

New research reveals that Dante Alighieri’s Inferno wasn’t just a masterpiece of literature: it was a gedankenexperiment in impact physics. From multi-ring craters to shockwaves that reshaped the globe, discover how a 14th-century poet modeled a planetary impact 500 years before the birth of modern meteoritics.

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Ultrahigh-energy cosmic messengers may carry ultraheavy secrets

There may be an ultraheavy explanation for the mystery surrounding the origins of the highest-energy particles ever observed. Ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays are particles from space that strike Earth with energies far beyond those reachable by human-made particle accelerators. One of the most extreme events ever recorded is the “Amaterasu particle,” detected by the Telescope Array […]

Next-gen Mars helicopter rotor blades exceed Mach 1

The rotor blades that will carry NASA’s next-generation helicopters to new Martian heights broke the sound barrier during March tests at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. Data from the tests, which took place in a special chamber that can simulate environmental conditions on the Red Planet, indicate that the fastest traveling part of […]

These monster black holes did not form the usual way—their history of violence is written into spacetime ripples

The most massive black holes in the universe detected by the ripples they make in spacetime were not born directly from collapsing stars, according to a new study. These cosmic giants instead build up through a series of repeated and extremely violent collision events in very densely populated star clusters, an international team of researchers […]

How the rise of continents may have set the stage for life on Earth

Earth’s earliest continents may have set the chemical stage for life by regulating boron levels in ancient oceans, a new study in Terra Nova suggests.

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Roman Space Telescope poised to transform hunt for elusive neutron stars

Astronomers have long known that neutron stars, the crushed cores left behind after massive stars explode, should be scattered throughout the Milky Way galaxy. However, most of them are effectively invisible. A new study published in Astronomy & Astrophysics suggests that NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope could spot them anyway.

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How quasars shut down star formation in the early universe

Supermassive black holes lurk at the centers of massive galaxies, including our own Milky Way. Puzzlingly, supermassive black holes more than a billion times the mass of the sun appear to exist just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was less than 5% of its current age. As interstellar […]

A new way to read the universe could sharpen understanding of cosmic expansion and dark energy

An international team led by researchers at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) has developed a new method that could significantly improve our understanding of the expansion of the universe and the nature of dark energy.

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