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Could aliens ever visit Earth? An aerospace scientist unpacks the challenges of interstellar spaceflight

On May 22, 2026, the Pentagon released a second batch of previously classified photos and videos showing what appear to be unexplained flying objects. These file dumps were the culmination of a process that was set in motion back in July 2023, when a group of government whistleblowers testified before Congress that the U.S. government […]

NASA lays out moon base plans with landers, buggies and drones at the top of the list

NASA is already ordering landers, rovers and drones for a sprawling moon base, less than two months after the Artemis II’s record-breaking lunar flyaround.

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Astrophysicists strike black gold with treasure trove of gravitational wave detections

Researchers from the University of Glasgow’s Institute for Gravitational Research are celebrating the publication of a vast new treasure trove of gravitational wave detections, hailed as a milestone marking the coming of age of gravitational astronomy.

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Mercury’s water ice may have been deposited by a larger, slower impactor than previously thought—in only one day

The source of the significant water ice deposits hidden in Mercury’s polar regions has been a topic of debate among researchers. A new study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, suggests that these deposits were accumulated in only one Mercurian day (176 Earth days) by a large impactor, such as a comet or […]

Just 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang, galaxies were already shaped by where they lived

A large protocluster of galaxies that existed 12.6 billion years ago, first discovered with the Subaru Telescope, has been examined in detail using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The study found that galaxies in crowded regions are more extended than similar galaxies in less dense environments. The results, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters […]

Triply-eclipsing triple star system discovered with TESS

Using NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), astronomers have discovered a triply-eclipsing star system. The newfound system, designated TIC 295741342, consists of two sun-like stars in an eclipsing binary and a giant tertiary companion, which orbits the binary. The finding was reported in a paper published May 19 on the arXiv pre-print server.

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How Mars can help us understand ‘marginal’ exoplanets

Mars holds a special place in the solar system. It represents marginal habitability. This means it transitioned from warm and wet and potentially hospitable, to cold and dry and inhospitable.

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Supermassive black holes can render exoplanets uninhabitable at great distances

The thinking around exoplanet habitability is mostly concerned with a planet’s distance from its star. Too close, and any surface water is boiled away into space. Too far, and surface water is frozen. Both are severe limits on the prospects for life. Habitability depends on an exoplanet being in the Goldilocks Zone, a distance range […]

Universe’s most distant ‘Hot DOG’ yet may owe extreme infrared glow to polar dust, Webb reveals

New observations from the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed fresh details about one of the most luminous known objects in the universe: the dust-shrouded quasar W2246−0526, seen just 1.2 billion years after the Big Bang. The paper outlining the results was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on May 14. […]

New material could help NASA melt moon rocks, harness lunar resources

A material recently discovered and tested at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland could help astronauts pack lighter for future missions to the moon. NASA is researching ways explorers could “live off the land” by harnessing lunar resources, including melting moon rocks to extract metals for building infrastructure and oxygen for fuel and life support. […]

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, […]