Space
Apr 28th, 2025 - An orbiter captured Curiosity mid-drive on the Red Planet. On a windswept plain 140 million miles from Earth, a dark speck moves across the ochre sands of Mars. For more than a decade, NASA's Curiosity rover has explored the alien world, climbing rocky hills, sniffing for ancient water, and searching for secrets that only a lonely machine on a barren, frightening planet could find. Now, for the first time, it has been caught in the act from above. In an image released by NASA, the Mars ... [Read More]
Source: zmescience.com
Apr 28th, 2025 - All products featured on Wired are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links. Two years ago, astronomers believe they detected a star devouring one of its planets. Now, new observations of the aftermath of same event from the James Webb Space Telescope have suggested a scenario previously only considered in the realms of science fiction: that a planet about the size of Jupiter self-destructed ... [Read More]
Source: wired.com
Apr 28th, 2025 -
The 35th Anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope Thirty-five years ago, in April of 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit aboard the space shuttle Discovery. Since then, NASA reports that Hubble has made "nearly 1.7 million observations, looking at approximately 55,000 astronomical targets," bringing so much of the nearby universe into focus. Gathered here is a collection of amazing recent images—some published in celebration of Hubble's 35th anniversary, ... [Read More]Source: theatlantic.com
Apr 28th, 2025 - Scientists have long believed that monster-sized supermassive black holes lurk at the heart of all large galaxies. That means that the failure to detect such a cosmic titan at the heart of the Southern Pinwheel Galaxy, officially known as Messier 83 (M83), has been a frustrating conundrum. Now, using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) , astronomers may have cracked this puzzle, finding the first evidence of a supermassive black hole at the heart of M83, also known as NGC 5236, a spiral ... [Read More]
Source: livescience.com
Apr 28th, 2025 - An international team of scientists led by a Rutgers University–New Brunswick astrophysicist has discovered a potentially star-forming cloud that is one of the largest single structures in the sky and among the closest to the sun and Earth ever to be detected. The vast ball of hydrogen , long invisible to scientists, was revealed by looking for its main constituent: molecular hydrogen . The finding marks the first time a molecular cloud has been detected with light emitted in the ... [Read More]
Source: phys.org
Apr 28th, 2025 - A battle is raging between darkness and light in the constellation Circinus, and a new image from the National Science Foundation's Dark Energy Camera captures a key turning point in the cosmic campaign. Known as the Circinus West molecular cloud, the ominous black structure at the center of the image is a vast conglomeration of star-forming gas located in Circinus, the compass constellation, about 2,500 light-years from Earth. Objects like these are sometimes known as "dark nebulae " because ... [Read More]
Source: livescience.com
Apr 28th, 2025 - The NASA team behind the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope – due to launch in 2027 – have shared the designs for the mission's 3 core surveys. Roman will deepen understanding into the mysteries of astrophysics and the universe. "Roman's setting out to do wide, deep surveys of the universe in a way that will help us answer questions about how dark energy and dark matter govern cosmic evolution, and the demographics of worlds beyond our solar system," says Gail Zasowski, an associate ... [Read More]
Source: cosmosmagazine.com
Apr 28th, 2025 - The NASA New Horizons spacecraft's extensive observations of Lyman-alpha emissions have resulted in the first-ever map from the galaxy at this important ultraviolet wavelength, providing a new look at the galactic region surrounding our solar system. The findings are described in a new study authored by the SwRI-led New Horizons team. The newly research paper detailing the observations and their interpretation, "The Lyman-alpha Sky as Observed by New Horizons at 57 AU," by R.G. Gladstone and ... [Read More]
Source: phys.org
Apr 27th, 2025 - Astronomers have discovered a "super-Earth" – a planet about twice the size of Earth – orbiting its star at a distance greater than where Saturn sits in our solar system. The discovery, led by researchers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), upends the long-held assumption that only hulking gas giants form so far from their hosts. "We found a 'super-Earth ' – meaning it's bigger than our home planet but smaller than Neptune – in a place where ... [Read More]
Source: earth.com
Apr 27th, 2025 - QUICK FACTS What it is: The Eagle Nebula (Messier 16) Where it is: 7,000 light-years away, in the constellation Serpens When it was shared: April 18, 2025 There are few more iconic images from the Hubble Space Telescope than this one. A colossal pillar of gas and dust towering 9.5 light-years tall, this spectacular structure in the Eagle Nebula highlights the breathtaking beauty sculpted by the forces of star formation. The stunning image, originally published in 2005, is an important part of ... [Read More]
Source: livescience.com
Apr 27th, 2025 - The Hubble Space Telescope, the most celebrated observatory in history, is officially 35 years old. To mark the milestone, NASA has released a fresh gallery of images spanning our solar system and well beyond – from Mars's ruddy surface to star-forming nebulae and a neighboring galaxy. The new portraits serve not only as a birthday gift to the public, but also as a vivid reminder of how profoundly Hubble has transformed modern astronomy and popular culture alike. Fixing Hubble's blurry ... [Read More]
Source: earth.com
Apr 26th, 2025 - Astronomers are nearing a statistically significant finding that could confirm the potential signs of life detected on the distant exoplanet K2-18b are no accident. The team of astronomers, led by the University of Cambridge , used data from the James Webb Space Telescope (which has only been in use since the end of 2021) to detect chemical traces of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and/or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS), which they say can only be produced by life such as phytoplankton in the sea. ... [Read More]
Source: cnet.com
Apr 25th, 2025 - The NASA rover Perseverance recently discovered a strange rock on Mars , which appears to be made up of small rounded stones a few hundred millimeters in diameter. NASA's research team is trying to determine its origin. Perseverance was launched in July 2020 with the mission of searching for traces of microorganisms that may have existed on Mars in ancient times. It carries seven scientific instruments , including SuperCam, which uses cameras, lasers, and spectrometers to study the Martian ... [Read More]
Source: wired.com
Apr 25th, 2025 - University of Central Florida (UCF) scientists and their collaborators discovered new insights into the formation of distant icy objects in space beyond Neptune, offering a deeper understanding of our solar system's formation and growth. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), scientists analyzed far-away bodies—known as Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs)—and found varying traces of methanol . The discoveries are helping them better classify different TNOs and understand the ... [Read More]
Source: phys.org
Apr 25th, 2025 - The weather forecast for Jupiter now includes softball-size hailstones, known as "mushballs," that are brewed by violent thunderstorms raging in the planet's turbulent atmosphere, a new study finds. The findings confirm these bizarre, ammonia-rich mushballs are also the source of Jupiter's missing ammonia. The absence of this gas in pockets of Jupiter's atmosphere has perplexed scientists for years. Decades ago, astronomers spotted intensely turbulent cloud tops in telescope images of the gas ... [Read More]
Source: livescience.com
Apr 25th, 2025 - Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. . science and culture for people who love beautiful writing. I f there's any life on Saturn's moon Titan, then there's probably not very much. Nautilus Members enjoy an ad-free experience. Astrobiologists have been hopeful that Titan hosted life ever since scientists detected signs there of a subsurface ocean layer during the Voyager fly-bys of Saturn in the 1980s. The possibility was further supported by data gathered during the Cassini mission, ... [Read More]
Source: nautil.us