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NASA releases detailed images of rare interstellar comet passing through solar system

NASA unveiled close-up pictures on Wednesday of the interstellar comet that’s making a quick one-and-done tour of the solar system.

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Physicists and philosophers have long struggled to understand the nature of time: Here’s why

The nature of time has plagued thinkers for as long as we’ve tried to understand the world we live in. Intuitively, we know what time is, but try to explain it, and we end up tying our minds in knots.

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Webb reveals Apep’s four ‘spiraling’ dust shells shaped by Wolf-Rayet stars

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has delivered a first of its kind: a crisp mid-infrared image of a system of four serpentine spirals of dust, one expanding beyond the next in precisely the same pattern. (The fourth is almost transparent, at the edges of Webb’s image.)

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Key driver of extreme winds on Venus identified

Imagine the catastrophic winds of a category 5 hurricane. Now, imagine even faster winds of more than 100 meters per second, encircling the planet and whipping clouds across the sky, with no end in sight. This scenario would be astonishing on Earth, but it’s business as usual on Venus, where the atmosphere at cloud level […]

Lost signal: How solar activity silenced Earth’s radiation

Researchers from HSE University and the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences analyzed seven years of data from the ERG (Arase) satellite and, for the first time, provided a detailed description of a new type of radio emission from near-Earth space—the hectometric continuum, first discovered in 2017.

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Photo: NASA ER-2 pilot prepares for GEMx flight

NASA ER-2 pilot Kirt Stallings waits inside the transport vehicle moments before boarding the airborne science aircraft at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025. Outside the window, the aircraft is being readied for a high-altitude mission supporting the Geological Earth Mapping Experiment (GEMx), a multi-year NASA–U.S. Geological Survey […]

Machine learning framework can scan for signs of extraterrestrial life

A machine learning framework can distinguish molecules made by biological processes from those formed through non-biological processes and could be used to analyze samples returned by current and future planetary missions. The findings are published in the journal PNAS Nexus.

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Deep imaging suggests isolated galaxy forms stars without signs of past mergers

Using the Two-meter Twin Telescope (TTT3), Spanish astronomers have conducted deep optical imaging of an isolated dwarf galaxy known as NGC 6789. Results of the new observations, presented November 10 on the arXiv preprint server, shed more light on the star formation process in this galaxy.

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Asteroid 2024 YR4 was Earth’s first real-life defense test

At this point in history, astronomers and engineers who grew up watching “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon,” two movies about the destructive power of asteroid impacts, are likely in relatively high ranking positions at space agencies. “Don’t Look Up” also provided a more modern, though more pessimistic (or, unfortunately, realistic?), look at what might potentially happen […]

Cohesion, charging and chaos on the lunar surface

Most people interested in space exploration already know lunar dust is an absolute nightmare to deal with. We’ve already reported on numerous potential methods for dealing with it, from 3D printing landing pads so we don’t sand blast everything in a given area when a rocket lands, to using liquid nitrogen to push the dust […]

Balloon telescope captures new details of matter swirling around black holes

An international collaboration of physicists including researchers at Washington University in St. Louis has made measurements to better understand how matter falls into black holes and how enormous amounts of energy and light are released in the process.

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Astronomers reveal flat ‘Diamond Ring’ in Cygnus X is a burst bubble remnant

An international team led by researchers from the University of Cologne has solved the mystery of an extraordinary phenomenon known as the “Diamond Ring” in the star-forming region Cygnus X, a huge, ring-shaped structure made of gas and dust that resembles a glowing diamond ring. In similar structures, the formations are not flat but spherical […]

Earth’s earliest life 3.3 billion years ago revealed by faint biosignatures

A new study uncovered fresh chemical evidence of life in rocks more than 3.3 billion years old, along with molecular traces showing that oxygen-producing photosynthesis emerged nearly a billion years earlier than previously thought.

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Earth’s largest modern crater discovered in Southern China

A newly discovered, remarkably well-preserved impact crater is shedding fresh light on how extraterrestrial bodies collide with Earth.

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Solar storms delay the launch of Blue Origin’s big new rocket with Mars orbiters for NASA

Intense solar storms responsible for breathtaking auroras across the U.S. delayed the launch of Blue Origin’s big new rocket Wednesday.

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