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Private space tourism is taking off—but laws on outer space are from another era

Private commercial operators are launching more rockets into space, carrying more people and pursuing more ambitious missions than ever before.

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How a shape-shifting tiny rover inspired by Japanese toys autonomously explored the moon

Moon missions come in all shapes and sizes, from car-sized rovers packed with scientific equipment to towering rocket payloads—and now, a small, shape-shifting machine that is about the size of the average palm.

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Binary asteroids’ puzzling configurations may link to multi-satellite history

Binary asteroid systems are widespread throughout our inner solar system. For decades, the standard paradigm held that many of them form when a rapidly spinning primary asteroid casts off material, which then reaccumulates into an elongated moon orbiting near the Roche limit.

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Consciousness likely not unique to earthlings, paper says

Does consciousness depend on flesh and blood? The answer is almost certainly no, according to Eric Schwitzgebel, a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. In a new working paper, Schwitzgebel and Jeremy Pober, a former UCR graduate student who is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Lisbon, assert that […]

On the hunt for cosmic dawn and the universe’s very first stars

After only four short years, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and observational cosmologists like Richard Ellis at University College London (UCL) have pushed the cosmic lookback time to an era when the universe’s very first stars and galaxies are within observational reach.

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NASA head defends Artemis 3 crew of all men

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman on Wednesday defended the makeup of the space agency’s latest Artemis crew, an all-male group.

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NASA’s CloudCube pioneers miniaturized radar to study clouds, precipitation

A compact, multifrequency radar built by a team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory will make it easier to collect information about dynamic cloud systems. Called CloudCube, this new instrument simultaneously probes the atmosphere with three radar signals, spanning 36 to 240 GHz, for optimized sensitivity to a wide range of water droplet and ice particle […]

Lab-created ‘moon’ rock could help scientists interpret lunar data and explore how water might form on the moon

The moon may look unchanged from afar, but its surface is constantly reshaped by microscopic impacts and a steady stream of particles from the sun, a process known as space weathering. Now, Georgia Tech researchers have recreated one of those weathering sources, solar wind, in the lab—offering new insight into how the lunar surface evolves. […]

Cosmic acceleration holds up as new analysis rebuts slowdown claim

Our universe’s expansion is still accelerating despite recent claims suggesting otherwise, an international team of astrophysicists says.

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‘Black hole stars’—Webb finds strongest evidence yet

The complex puzzle known as little red dots has become more complete since their initial discovery by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022. Now a particular little red dot’s spectrum is helping connect many of the pieces.

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The Milky Way was rewired by a cataclysmic collision billions of years ago. Now it is on course for another

No matter the time or vantage point, from a pre-Neolithic cave to a post-lockdown London high-rise, the predictability of the night sky has always been humanity’s symbol of permanence and reassuring stability.

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Small optical component could change how telescopes view the sun

A new telescope technology—measuring just 6 millimeters (0.24 inches) in diameter—could improve how future space missions study and monitor the sun while simplifying onboard hardware and reducing costs.

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A meteorite impact may have once rained gold on Western Australia

We’re used to a lot of different natural things falling out of the sky. These can include snow, rain and sometimes even frogs (yes, really). All of these relate to weather phenomena.

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Where not to look in the search for ET

There’s a question at the heart of SETI that doesn’t get nearly enough attention. It isn’t whether aliens exist, and it isn’t whether we have the technology to detect them. It’s a far more practical problem: With a billion stars in our galaxy and finite telescope time, how do you decide which ones to actually […]

Astronomers find a four-carbon sugar in deep space

The space between stars may seem like a barren desert, but over the past few decades scientists have been finding all sorts of interesting chemicals in it. From the precursors to proteins to the building blocks of cell membranes, there has been discovery after discovery of new molecules in the giant gas clouds between the […]