Young sunlike system reveals comets may carry water toward forming planets

Astronomers at Lund University in Sweden have found evidence of exocomets—comets in other solar systems—orbiting a young star similar to our sun. The observations point to a possible mechanism for how water might be transported from the cold outer regions of the planetary system to regions where planets form.

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Hawai’i high school students name image of glittering galaxy pair

Nā ʻUhane Māhoe Huki Pū i ke Ola is the Hawaiian name given to NGC 7253—a pair of spiral galaxies caught in each other’s gravity. Captured by the Gemini North telescope on Maunakea in Hawai’i, the image created a spectacular symbolic display for this year’s interns participating in Project Hōkūlani.

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A 13-meter rocket hit the Moon: Tasmanian researchers helped track it there

A 13-meter (43-foot) Falcon 9 rocket stage struck the moon last month, leaving a crater about 20 meters (66 feet) wide. In the days before impact, University of Tasmania researchers from the School of Natural Sciences were the first in the world to detect the object by radar, helping refine predictions of where it would […]

More than 120 molecular species found in giant cloud near Milky Way’s center

Astronomers have discovered a second interstellar cloud near the center of the Milky Way that is extraordinarily rich in complex molecules, including several molecules associated with prebiotic chemistry. The newly studied cloud, G+0.633-0.0604, or G+0.633, contains more than 120 identified molecular species and is the first confirmed chemical twin of another famous molecule-rich cloud. Their […]

Blue Origin’s New Glenn explosion shows infrasound can detect rocket accidents from up to 1,700 kilometers away

When Blue Origin’s New Glenn launch vehicle accidentally exploded during a static test fire in May 2026, the explosion generated low frequency soundwaves below the range of human hearing.

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Many space missions are searching for life beyond Earth, but are we prepared for the fallout if they succeed?

Microbes from space have fueled the plots of science fiction mainstays like “Project Hail Mary” and “The Andromeda Strain.” But with more space missions launching each year, finding extraterrestrial life in a microbial form is becoming more plausible. What will the response be back here on Earth if—or when—scientists discover extraterrestrial microbes? Will the international […]

Giant impact could have formed an intact moon within five hours, simulations suggest

New Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) modeling, conducted in collaboration with scientists at the University of Arizona, shows fundamental differences in how the moon may have formed from the giant impact that created the Earth–moon system. The new results used state-of-the-art computational techniques that factor in the material strength of the two colliding planets. These impact […]

Saturn encounter may have set distant centaur on path to becoming a comet

More than 3 billion miles (4.8 billion kilometers) from Earth, an ancient icy object is slowly awakening. As it drifts inward through the solar system, the frozen body known as Centaur 450P/LONEOS has begun releasing gas and dust—behavior more commonly associated with comets than with centaurs, the small icy objects that typically orbit between Jupiter […]

Precision optics to make plant health visible from space

When the ESA Earth observation mission FLEX launches into space on September 15, 2026, as scheduled, it will carry high-precision optical components from Jena, Germany. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Precision Engineering IOF have developed and manufactured a silicon-based double-slit assembly as well as two high-precision mirrors for the spectrometer on […]

Martian astronomy: Percy sees a ‘Phobos eclipse’ from Mars

What’s so special about spotting Phobos crossing in front of the sun? Sure. It’s just another image of Phobos crossing the disk of the sun, as seen from the surface of Mars. Like so much of the modern space era, these images, once amazing, are now almost routine. But there’s some real science behind tasking […]

MeerKAT directly detects faint hydrogen signal from the distant universe

Astronomers from the University of Manchester and the University of the Western Cape have directly detected an extremely faint radio signal from hydrogen gas billions of light-years away, opening a powerful new way to map the large-scale structure of the universe. Using South Africa’s MeerKAT radio telescope, the international team measured radio emissions from neutral […]

AI tool detects unusual satellite behavior to improve space safety

A new AI model can monitor satellites and spot anomalies in their behavior, reducing the risk of in-orbit collisions, according to new research published in the journal Expert Systems.

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A supermassive black hole erupted in X-rays, and its radio jets followed 300 days later

By combining roughly two decades of observations from NASA’s Swift X-ray Telescope with radio monitoring, astronomers have caught a supermassive black hole at the heart of the Perseus Cluster suddenly flaring in X-rays, and about 300 days later, its powerful radio emission flared too. Their paper describing the connection between this black hole’s accretion disk […]

Declining star formation not caused by simple ‘fuel crisis,’ new measurements suggest

The universe has been having fewer and fewer stellar “babies.” Over the past 4.5 billion years, the rate of star birth has crashed to less than half of what it once was. But here’s the twist: the most essential “fuel” for making stars has barely decreased.

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Looking for Earth 2.0 in binary systems

While astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets over the last few decades, the true prize continues to elude them—they have yet to find an Earth-mass, rocky planet orbiting in the habitable zone of a sun-like star. That’s partially due to cosmic geography—around half of all sun-like stars near us aren’t alone. They have one or […]