Space

May 31st, 2023 - Five years since the Kepler Space Telescope was retired, a team of astronomers believe they've found exoplanets captured by some of the veteran observatory's last light. Kepler launched to space in 2009 with one essential task: find new worlds. In its nearly decade-long tenure in solar orbit, Kepler found over 2,600 exoplanets, including some that lurk in the so-called "Goldilocks Zone" of habitability , suggesting that they may have conditions suitable for fostering life. Kepler ran out of ... [Read More]

May 31st, 2023 - Scientists recently discovered an asteroid that tags along with Earth during its yearly journey around the sun.  Dubbed 2023 FW13, the space rock is considered a "quasi-moon" or "quasi-satellite," meaning it orbits the sun in a similar time frame as Earth does, but is only slightly influenced by our planet's gravitational pull. It is estimated to be 50 feet (15 meters) in diameter — roughly equivalent to three large SUVs parked bumper to bumper. During its orbit of the sun, 2023 FW13 ... [Read More]

May 31st, 2023 - Your source for the latest research news Follow: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Subscribe: RSS Feeds Science News from research organizations 1 2 NIRISS instrument on Webb maps an ultra-hot Jupiter's atmosphere Date: May 31, 2023 University of Montreal Summary: There's an intriguing exoplanet out there -- 400 light-years out there -- that is so tantalizing that astronomers have been studying it since its discovery in 2009. One orbit for WASP-18 b around its star that is slightly larger than our Sun ... [Read More]

May 30th, 2023 - TOPICS: Interaction between moon's plumes and Saturn's ring system explored with Webb Enceladus—a tiny, icy moon of Saturn —is one of the most intriguing objects in the search for signs of life beyond our own planet. Under a crust of ice lies a global ocean of salty water. Jets, supplied by that ocean, gush from the surface of the moon and feed into the entire system of Saturn. NASA 's James Webb Space Telescope 's long-awaited first look at this ocean world is already revealing ... [Read More]

May 30th, 2023 - The Breakthrough Listen Investigation for Periodic Spectral Signals (BLIPSS), led by Akshay Suresh, Cornell doctoral candidate in astronomy, is pioneering a search for periodic signals emanating from the core of our galaxy, the Milky Way. The research aims to detect repetitive patterns, a way to search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) within our cosmic neighborhood. The researchers developed software based on a Fast Folding Algorithm (FFA), an efficient search method offering enhanced ... [Read More]

May 30th, 2023 - These planets would not look like ours, but they would be habitable. In order for a planet to be habitable, the conditions need to be just right. Too close to the star and the planet would get roasted, like Venus ; too far away, and it freezes, like the moons of Saturn. But here's the thing: not all solar systems are like our own, and not all stars are like the Sun. If you have a bigger and hotter star, the 'Goldlilocks' habitable zone would be farther away. But most stars in our galaxy, at ... [Read More]

May 30th, 2023 - TOPICS: High-resolution imaging of radio emissions from an ultracool dwarf shows a double-lobed structure like the radiation belts of Jupiter . A team of astronomers has successfully observed the first radiation belt outside our solar system, using an array of 39 radio dishes. The radiation belt, found around an ultracool dwarf, is similar to Jupiter's but 10 million times brighter. This breakthrough in the study of magnetic fields of celestial bodies may contribute to the understanding of the ... [Read More]

May 30th, 2023 - Cracks, crusts and ridges in Martian sand dunes point to the presence of water near the planet's equator as recently as 400,000 years ago, according to an analysis of data from China's Zhurong rover, published in the journal Science Advances . While the rover did not gather any direct evidence of water, the findings suggest that liquid water may have flowed in this region of the Red Planet much closer to the present than previously thought. "We've seen these features before," Aditya Khuller , a ... [Read More]

May 30th, 2023 - TOPICS: Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory successfully used the world's most powerful laser to simulate and study pressure-driven ionization, a process vital to understanding the structure of planets and stars. The research revealed unexpected properties of extremely compressed matter and has significant implications for both astrophysics and nuclear fusion research. Scientists have conducted laboratory experiments at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) that provide ... [Read More]

May 30th, 2023 - It doesn't take a huge leap of imagination to see why M64 is better known as the Evil Eye galaxy. Sitting in the abyssal vacuum of space it seems to cast a sinister glare across the cosmos, a cloud of dust framing its visible periphery like a dark bruise. The galaxy is even stranger than it looks. Its hydrogen-rich outer disk orbits in the opposite direction to the galaxy's inner disk of stars, hinting at differences in their origins. Now, astronomers have worked out the outer disk's hydrogen ... [Read More]

May 29th, 2023 - The HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lunar lander, launched by ispace in December 2022, failed to land safely on the Moon. In April 2023, NASA 's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter detected unusual surface changes and debris near the intended landing site, suggesting potential remnants of the unsuccessful landing. Further analysis is planned to verify these findings. The ispace HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lunar lander was launched on December 11, 2022, a privately funded spacecraft planned to land on the lunar surface. ... [Read More]

May 29th, 2023 - Flight controllers at ESA's mission control center in Germany have been busy this week, working with instrument teams on the final deployments to prepare ESA's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) for exploring Jupiter. It has been six weeks since Juice began its journey, and in that time the Flight Control Team have deployed all the solar panels , antennas, probes and booms that were tucked away safely during launch. The last step has been the swinging out and locking into place of the probes ... [Read More]

May 29th, 2023 - Astronomers have found that renegade objects from alien star systems could be captured by Earth's gravity and linger in orbit around our planet for potentially millions of years. However, most of these objects would likely be too small to detect with current telescopes, according to a new study published May 17 on the preprint server arXiv . "Objects entering the solar system from the interstellar space outside of it can be trapped into bound orbits around the sun as a result of a close passage ... [Read More]

May 29th, 2023 - After a successful mission to Mars, the Emirati space agency is planning a tour of the debris field between Mars and Jupiter, with a focus on one of its most intriguing objects. Building off the success of its Hope spacecraft, which is still circling and studying Mars , the United Arab Emirates announced on Monday plans for an ambitious follow-up mission: a grand tour of the asteroid belt. "The asteroid belt mission was the right amount of challenge," said Sarah al-Amiri, chairwoman of the ... [Read More]

May 29th, 2023 - NASA has shared more dazzling images of the universe .  Four new images, released last week, provide a peek at two galaxies, a nebula, and a star cluster. The images were made possible by data collected from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Hubble Space Telescope.  "Each image combines Chandra's X-rays — a form of high-energy light — with infrared data from previously released Webb images, both of which are invisible to the unaided ... [Read More]

May 27th, 2023 - Astronomers studying black holes have serendipitously found another rarity: A dead star rocketing away from its birth supernova, leaving a comet-like trail of radio emission in its wake. Named PSR J1914+1054g, the star is just the fourth known of its kind: a radio pulsar kicked at high velocity across space, for which astronomers have observed not just the pulsar but the trail behind it known as a bow-shock nebula , and the supernova remnant from which it was kicked. A team of scientists led by ... [Read More]