Space

Dec 3rd, 2024 - A team of astronomers has determined that Venus has never been capable of supporting life, countering decades of theories suggesting that our closest planetary neighbor may have once resembled Earth more closely than it does today. Researchers from the University of Cambridge examined the chemical makeup of Venus's atmosphere and concluded that the planet's interior is currently too arid to have ever contained sufficient water for surface oceans.  Consequently, Venus has likely remained an ... [Read More]

Dec 3rd, 2024 - The NASA project NEOWISE, which has given astronomers a detailed view of near-Earth objects -- some of which could strike the Earth -- ended its mission and burned on reentering the atmosphere after over a decade. On a clear night, the sky is full of bright objects -- from stars, large planets and galaxies to tiny asteroids flying near Earth. These asteroids are commonly known as near-Earth objects , and they come in a wide variety of sizes. Some are tens of kilometers across or larger, while ... [Read More]

Dec 3rd, 2024 - https://theconversation.com/to-map-the-vibration-of-the-universe-astronomers-built-a-detector-the-size-of-the-galaxy-244157 Using the largest gravitational wave detector ever made, we have confirmed earlier reports that the fabric of the universe is constantly vibrating. This background rumble is likely caused by collisions between the enormous black holes that reside in the hearts of galaxies. The results from our detector – an array of rapidly spinning neutron stars spread across the ... [Read More]

Dec 3rd, 2024 - Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more . NASA engineers have successfully restored contact with Voyager 1 and the spacecraft is operating normally after its dwindling power supply caused a weekslong blackout. The issue began in October when the aging probe automatically switched from its primary X-band radio transmitter and began relying on a much weaker S-band radio transmitter to ... [Read More]

Dec 3rd, 2024 - Most people associate the discovery that faraway galaxies are receding from us — and thus, that the universe is expanding — with Edwin Hubble, thanks to his landmark 1929 paper. It was one of the most fundamental discoveries in the history of science. But Hubble did not discover the expansion. In the 1910s, a Lowell Observatory astronomer named Vesto Slipher found that spiral nebulae, as galaxies were called, are "fleeing" from us at what were then unheard-of speeds. This was the ... [Read More]

Dec 3rd, 2024 - The James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST ) has discovered a handful of possible galaxies that could be among the earliest to ever exist. Located 13.6 billion light-years away and just 200 million years after the Big Bang , the five galaxy candidates are the earliest ever detected, and likely some of the first to have formed in the ancient universe. If confirmed by follow-up observations, the ancient galaxies will offer astronomers a test of their best theories of galaxy formation along with unique ... [Read More]

Dec 2nd, 2024 - It may be cold this month, but now is a great time to get outside and explore Jupiter's beauty and might. The fifth planet will not only reach opposition on Dec. 7, it will also be at perigee (closest to Earth) on Dec. 6, putting on its biggest and brightest show of the year. Known for its Great Red Spot, Jupiter also boasts four bright, fast-moving moons: giant Ganymede, cratered Callisto, volcanic Io, and icy Europa. And there's no better time to brave the cold and explore some of the ... [Read More]

Dec 2nd, 2024 - Inside a stellar nursery December 2, 2024, 2:21 PM ET Save NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, K. Pontoppidan, J. Green Day 2 of the 2024 Space Telescope Advent Calendar : This image shows the center of the Serpens Nebula, as captured by the James Webb Space Telescope's Near-InfraRed Camera. The Serpens Nebula, located 1,300 light-years from Earth, is home to a particularly dense cluster of newly forming stars, some of which will eventually grow to the mass of our sun. Webb's image of this nebula reveals a ... [Read More]

Dec 2nd, 2024 - Scientists have been searching for evidence of extraterrestrial life for decades. So, where are all the aliens? Here are 12 intriguing theories ... One night about 60 years ago, physicist Enrico Fermi looked up into the sky and asked, "Where is everybody?" He was talking about aliens. Today, scientists know that there are millions, perhaps billions of planets in the universe that could sustain life. So, in the long history of everything, why hasn't any of this life made it far enough into space ... [Read More]

Dec 2nd, 2024 - Slowly repeating bursts of intense radio waves from space have puzzled astronomers since they were discovered in 2022. In new research , we have for the first time tracked one of these pulsating signals back to its source: a common kind of lightweight star called a red dwarf, likely in a binary orbit with a white dwarf, the core of another star that exploded long ago. A slowly pulsing mystery In 2022, our team made an amazing discovery : periodic radio pulsations that repeated every 18 minutes, ... [Read More]

Dec 1st, 2024 - Their orbit periodically takes them through a cloud of gas, triggering flares. What happens when a gargantuan cloud of gas swallows a pair of monster black holes with their own appetites? Feasting on the gas can cause some weird (heavenly) bodily functions. AT 2021hdr is a binary supermassive black hole (BSMBH) system in the center of a 1 billion light-years away, in the Cygnus constellation. In 2021, researchers observing it using NASA's Zwicky Transient Facility saw strange outbursts that ... [Read More]

Dec 1st, 2024 - The sun is awake. In recent months, Earth's star has ramped up activity, with giant flares erupting off the surface and belching streams of plasma and charged particles into space. Several of the solar storms have been aimed at our planet, and they triggered severe geomagnetic storms and supercharg ed dazzling displays of the northern lights . The sun's flurry of outbursts, coming after years of relative quiet and calm, is a sure sign that the star has entered a busy phase of its natural cycle, ... [Read More]

Dec 1st, 2024 - Astronomers have known for a century that the universe is expanding. We can now trace this expansion over much of its almost 14 billion year history, with important constraints going back to just one second after the Big Bang! The expansion rate today is known as the Hubble constant (H 0 ). We can find H 0 using observations at early or late times in cosmic history, but these give different answers. This discrepancy is known as the "Hubble tension," a real crisis for cosmology. The early route ... [Read More]

Dec 1st, 2024 - A group of stellar scientists from Caltech's science center, IPAC, are sharing the last data drop captured by NASA's celebrated NEOWISE telescope, marking the end of a remarkable journey in space exploration. Launched in 2009 as WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) and later reincarnated as NEOWISE in 2013, the space telescope has spent over a decade tracing the night sky. Its mission: Seek and study the smallest objects in our solar system — asteroids, and comets. These near-Earth ... [Read More]

Dec 1st, 2024 - All Products Tested and Reviewed by WIRED Editors The giant holes in galaxies' centers shouldn't be able to combine, yet combine they do. Scientists suggest that an unusual form of dark matter may be the solution. The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine . Galaxies have been merging into ever-bigger structures over the course of cosmic history. When galaxies merge, the supermassive black holes that sit in their centers must eventually merge, too, forming an even more ... [Read More]

Nov 30th, 2024 - A humble voyager from NASA was launched on October 14, 2024 for its longest journey yet. The valiant vessel, known as the Europa Clipper, was catapulted from the constraining clutches of Earth's gravity. Now it's moving at a speed of 22 miles per second (35 kilometers per second), away from the Sun, and towards a new horizon. Europa Clipper is the largest spacecraft that has ever been developed by NASA for a planetary mission. The voyager has its sights set on Jupiter's frosty moon Europa, ... [Read More]