Space

Apr 19th, 2024 - While details are understandably slim today, life on Earth is thought to have arisen about 4 billion years ago from a fateful blend of organic compounds popularly known as primordial soup . Just how – and where – the ingredients for this proto-biological entree were generated is still a field of debate, given the timeline and surface conditions on a cooling baby Earth. Crucial materials like amino acids, lipids, and sugars can form in the depths of space, as recent research has ... [Read More]

Apr 19th, 2024 - Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), has initiated a novel mission targeting small asteroids within the main belt. This effort seeks to deepen our understanding of these celestial objects, which are considered crucial to unraveling the mysteries of the early solar system. Managed by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center and supported by Lockheed Martin Space for mission operations, the telescope continues its over three-decade-long legacy of space ... [Read More]

Apr 19th, 2024 - Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter.  . A huge heart-shaped feature on the surface of Pluto has intrigued astronomers since NASA's New Horizons spacecraft captured it in a 2015 image. Now, researchers think they have solved the mystery of how the distinctive heart came to be — and it could reveal new clues about the dwarf planet's origins. The feature is called Tombaugh Regio in honor of astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930. But the heart is not all ... [Read More]

Apr 19th, 2024 - A team of geologists and planetary scientists from the California Institute of Technology, the University of California Santa Cruz, New York University, and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center reports evidence that Io's volcanic activity has been ongoing since the beginning of the solar system. In their study, published in the journal Science , the group studied sulfur isotopes in Io's atmosphere to determine how long the moon has been volcanically active. Prior research has shown that the solar ... [Read More]

Apr 19th, 2024 - It's been a wild and wacky last few weeks in space, not to mention awe-inspiring, as a spectacular total solar eclipse graced the skies across North America. We also said goodbye to a trusty old rocket, while saying hello to what might finally be the first crewed mission of Boeing's beleaguered Starliner spacecraft. This week's space-themed slideshow is a two-for-one special, as last Friday's edition didn't go out. So without further ado, let's get this cosmic party started. On April 9, United ... [Read More]

Apr 18th, 2024 - A new theory suggests that Titan's majestic dune fields may have come from outer space. Researchers had always assumed that the sand making up Titan's dunes was locally made, through erosion or condensed from atmospheric hydrocarbons. But researchers from the University of Colorado want to know: Could it have come from comets? When the Cassini spacecraft arrived in orbit around Saturn, nobody had ever seen beneath the thick soupy atmosphere of Titan. So when it dropped the Huygens lander, and ... [Read More]

Apr 18th, 2024 - Scientists Surprised by Sleeping Giant – Most Massive Stellar Black Hole in Our Galaxy Found Lurking Nearby ESA's Gaia mission has uncovered a massive dormant black hole in our galaxy, revealing new insights into the formation of stellar-mass black holes and setting the stage for future astronomical discoveries. Wading through the wealth of data from ESA's Gaia mission , scientists have uncovered a 'sleeping giant'. A large black hole, with a mass of nearly 33 times the mass of the Sun, ... [Read More]

Apr 18th, 2024 - Scientists on NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter have transformed data collected during two recent flybys of Io into animations that highlight two of the Jovian moon's most dramatic features: a mountain and an almost glass-smooth lake of cooling lava. Other recent science results from the solar-powered spacecraft include updates on Jupiter's polar cyclones and water abundance. The new findings were announced Wednesday, April 16, by Juno's principal investigator Scott Bolton during a news conference ... [Read More]

Apr 18th, 2024 - An elusive Earth-like planet in our solar system could finally be discovered within the next few years. BBC But now researchers who have spent almost a decade hunting for Planet Nine believe the breakthrough could be close. 'Doughnut region' There are eight known planets in our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – and then a possible Planet Nine. Speculation over its existence began following the discovery of Neptune in 1846 and Percival Lowell, ... [Read More]

Apr 18th, 2024 - Something intriguing has been found just 47 light-years from Earth. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has now provided astronomers with stunning insights into a planetary atmosphere. Astronomers spotted an unusual atmospheric feature on a brown dwarf known as CWISEP J193518.59-154620.3 , also known as W1935. After watching several brown dwarfs with the JWST, the multi-organizational team noticed W1935 — located just 47 light-years from Earth and 6-35 times the mass of Jupiter — ... [Read More]

Apr 18th, 2024 - Astronomers have employed a novel approach with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to uncover a largely unseen population of smaller asteroids in our solar system. By sifting through a vast archive of images captured by Hubble over a span of 19 years, the researchers have identified an impressive 1,701 asteroid trails, with 1,031 of these asteroids being previously uncatalogued. The study was led by Pablo García Martín of the Autonomous University of Madrid , Spain, and co-authored by ... [Read More]

Apr 18th, 2024 - TOPICS: A study that investigated 42 superflares challenges the traditional blackbody radiation model of superflares, proposing the hydrogen recombination model as a more accurate explanation based on physical plausibility and energy estimates. Although their primary purpose is to look for exoplanets, observatories like the Kepler Space Telescope and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) have supplied a vast amount of data on stellar flares, detected with high-precision photometry by ... [Read More]

Apr 18th, 2024 - Two recent flybys of Jupiter's moon Io by NASA's Juno spacecraft revealed a couple of stunning surprises: a remarkably steep mountain and islands in the middle of a burbling lava lake. The new findings were announced yesterday by Scott Bolton, the principal investigator of the Juno mission, at the European Geophysical Union's General Assembly. "Io is simply littered with volcanoes, and we caught a few of them in action," Bolton said in a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory release . "There is ... [Read More]

Apr 18th, 2024 - Planetary atmospheres are typically leaky things . Think about it – with no impenetrable barrier to hold it back against the void, some of it is bound to seep away and dissipate into the very tenuous medium in the between parts of space. Earth loses about 90 tonnes of atmospheric material every day. That's not enough to make a dent , but it does give us a few clues about why some of the other planets are the way they are. Venus, for example, is thought to have once been a temperate world ... [Read More]

Apr 18th, 2024 - Researchers may have solved the mystery of why a distant galaxy surrounded by an eerily perfect "Einstein ring" is denser than it should be: The hefty galaxy, which was discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST ), is being compressed by a massive halo of dark matter. Einstein rings, which were first predicted by Albert Einstein 's theory of relativity , are luminous halos created by a phenomenon called gravitational lensing, which occurs when light from a distant object is warped ... [Read More]

Apr 17th, 2024 - Have you ever wondered what secrets lie hidden in the Sun's atmosphere? Scientists have been puzzled by a peculiar structure on the Sun that they've dubbed "moss" due to its resemblance to the earthly plants. This bright, patchy plasma formation has been a mystery for decades, but recent research is shedding light on its superheating mechanism. Discovering the Sun's moss Souvik Bose, a research scientist at Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory and Bay Area Environmental Institute , ... [Read More]