INFORMATION

Science fiction is edging closer to reality. A team of scientists has created a detailed roadmap for transforming Mars from a frozen, lifeless desert into a world where plants could grow and humans might one day breathe without spacesuits. The plan isn't about launching missions tomorrow, it’s about whether we should even try, and what recent breakthroughs in biology, climate engineering, and space launch technology tell us about what's now possible. But there's a catch, terraforming a planet like Mars might erase its geological history forever, destroying any traces of ancient Martian life and eliminating our chance to understand how worlds evolve. The question has shifted from "could we turn Mars green?" to something far more profound "should we?” from Universe Today https://ift.tt/hyUPmLx via IFTTT

What if you could photograph something completely invisible? To our rather limited eyes that’s what astronomers seem to do all the time with infra red and radio astronomy to name a few. But, astronomers can do this in a rather intriguing way with something that does seem to be truly invisible! A team of astronomers have captured the latest "image" of a dark matter object a million times more massive than our Sun, not by seeing it, but by watching how it warps the light from galaxies billions of light years beyond it. Using an Earth sized telescope network they have revealed one of the smallest dark matter clumps ever found, offering a glimpse into the hidden structure of our universe. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/iHIySRf via IFTTT

Phosphine has caused quite a stir in the astronomical world lately. That was largely due to its (still hotly debated) detection in the atmosphere of Venus. While the only known way for phosphine to be created on terrestrial worlds, like Venus, is through some sort of biological origin, it is relatively common among larger gas giants and even “brown dwarfs” - failed stars larger than Jupiter but not quite large enough to start their own hydrogen fusion process. Previously, we hadn’t yet seen phosphine in the atmosphere of brown dwarf in other solar systems, but a new paper from a diverse group of researchers, available in pre-print form on arXiv, used data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to find it for the first time. They also realized the mechanism that made it so hard to spot in the first place - the object’s metallicity. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/CX4IDw2 via IFTTT

Between 1 and 7 October , ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and Mars Express spacecraft turned their eyes towards interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, as it passed close to Mars. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/HJkZQ1K via IFTTT

The interior of the mysterious far side of the moon may be colder than the side constantly facing Earth, suggests a new analysis of rock samples co-led by a UCL and Peking University researcher. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/YLABmZe via IFTTT

An asteroid recently made the second closest pass to Earth ever observed on October 1st. And astronomers only found it after it had already completed its closest approach. That offers another lesson in how difficult it is to find small objects coming close to our planet in the vast dark ocean of space. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/8wSVEeb via IFTTT

Did Mars Once Have an Ocean? New Research Suggests Yes kerryhensley45577 Wed, 10/01/2025 - 10:21 Did Mars Once Have an Ocean? New Research Suggests Yes https://ift.tt/6MXuj4z from Universe Today https://ift.tt/FihAaSk via IFTTT

What if our understanding of Uranus and Neptune’s compositions have been wrong, specifically regarding their classifications as “ice giants”? This is what a recent study accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics hopes to address as a team of researchers from the University of Zurich investigated the interior structures of Uranus and Neptune. This study has the potential to help scientists not only better understand the formation and evolution of Uranus and Neptune but could also provide key insights into Jupiter and Saturn, and gaseous exoplanets, too. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/bfsryCS via IFTTT

Astronomers find a nearly metal-free star in our own back yard, which tells us a few interesting things about early star formation. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/vbM9PZ8 via IFTTT

Duplicating expensive resources is expensive and wasteful, and most people would agree it's unnecessary. However, the planned increase in major satellite constellations is currently causing a massive duplication of resources as individual companies and even countries try to set up their own infrastructure in space. What’s more, there is a relatively limited amount of space in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), where many of these satellites are supposed to go - any more than that and a single collision could cause Kessler Syndrome, where many of the ones already in orbit would be destroyed and we wouldn’t be able to launch any more for a long time. A new paper from researchers at the National University of Defense Technology in China suggests an alternative to these multiple megaconstellations - a single, modular system similar to how cloud computing works on the current internet. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/iGFUQ5t via IFTTT

The China National Space Administration on Wednesday released a breathtaking image captured by the Tianwen-2 probe, showing the spacecraft and Earth framed together in a "celestial selfie." from Universe Today https://ift.tt/xVEHwQl via IFTTT

October 2025 may provide a memorable sky scene, as Comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon puts on an encore appearance at dusk. The comet joins Comet R2 SWAN, which slides 0.26 Astronomical Units (AU) past Earth on October 20th. Both are currently fine objects for binoculars or a small telescope, vying for top spot at magnitude +6. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/JOVcW65 via IFTTT

Peering back into the early years of the universe requires scientists to make a lot of assumptions. But sometimes, we get better instruments that then allow them to either confirm or replace those assumptions. That happened recently when it came to our study of J0529, a supermassive black hole that is currently the brightest known quasar in the universe. A new paper from a massive team of researchers used the GRAVITY+ instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) Very Large Telescope (VLT) Interferometer to map this unique object’s Broad Line Region (BLR), and thereby calculated a new, updated mass that is 10 times smaller than previous estimates. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/Pw0apuL via IFTTT

This ESA/Webb Picture of the Month shows eight stunning examples of gravitational lensing. Gravitational lensing, which was first predicted by Einstein, occurs because massive objects like galaxies and clusters of galaxies dramatically warp the fabric of spacetime. When a massive foreground object lines up just so with a background galaxy, the light from the background galaxy bends as it navigates the warped spacetime on its way to our telescopes. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/G3M7Uj9 via IFTTT

Black have no hair, but the material surrounding them does, and the two can interact in unusual ways. As observations from the Event Horizon Telescope show, the magnetic fields surrounding a black hole can change extremely fast. from Universe Today https://www.universetoday.com/articles/black-holes-have-no-hair-but-they-do-have-comb-overs via IFTTT

Interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS has been constantly changing as it makes its way through our solar system. That’s to be expected, as, for the first time in potentially billions of years, it's getting close to the energy put out by a star. Scientists have been keeping a close watch on those changes, both to ensure there’s nothing unexplainable by our current understanding, but also to compare 3I/ATLAS to both previous interstellar visitors as well as comets in our own solar system. A recent paper from European researchers describes how the changes in a particular material ratio in 3I/ATLAS’ coma fit with our current understanding of cometary geology. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/IJM9vtD via IFTTT

While no evidence of life beyond Earth has been found (yet), it is assumed that life and habitable planets are the norm (per the Copernican Principle). Meanwhile, exoplanet studies have revealed several rocky planets orbiting within the habitable zones of nearby dwarf suns. But as Columbia University Professor David Kipping argues in a recent paper, there is evidence that Earth could be an outlier, while rocky planets orbiting red dwarfs may not be capable of supporting advanced life. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/9JHMBE4 via IFTTT

New observations made with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) identified an enormous a rogue planet with the strongest growth rate ever recorded. These observations reveal that this free-floating planet is eating up gas and dust from its surroundings at a rate of six billion tonnes a second. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/NEBAPRi via IFTTT

By modeling the limb darkening of a star, astronomers can get a better measure of the transit depth of an exoplanet. This will allow us to get better measurements of the size of exoplanets. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/TCVbRQr via IFTTT

ESA’s Mars Express takes us on another mesmerizing flight over the highlands of Xanthe Terra to the smoother lowlands of Chryse Planitia. Billions of years ago, water surged through this region, creating many of the features we see today. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/zg2Qetd via IFTTT

Jupiter and its moons are busy in October. If skies are clear, be sure to set your alarm and follow the largest planet in our solar system this month. While massive Jupiter always warrants a view through even a small telescope, its four major Galilean moons warrant special interest, as we’re in the midst of a season of rare double shadow transits. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/w2sfmMd via IFTTT

Enceladus’ ice continues to get more and more intriguing as researchers continue to unlock more secrets taken from a probe over ten years ago. When Cassini crashed into Saturn in 2017, it ended a 13 year sojourn that is still producing new research papers today. A recent one in Nature Astronomy from the researchers at the Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Stuttgart found hints of organic molecules discovered for the first time on the icy moon, some of which could serve as precursors to even more advanced biomolecules. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/IVWPQUK via IFTTT

Modeling something like geysers on a far-away moon seems like it should be easy. How much complexity could there possibly be when a geyser is simply a hole in some ice shooting superheated water through it? The answer is pretty complex, to be honest - enough that accurate models require a supercomputer to run on. Luckily, the supercomputing cluster at the University of Texas, known as the Texas Advanced Computing Center, gave some time to researcher modeling Enceladus’ ice plumes, and their recent paper in JGR Planets discusses the results, which show there might not be as much water and ice getting blown into orbit as originally thought. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/TwYJ1tD via IFTTT

Interest in icy moons has been growing steadily as they become more and more interesting to astrobiologists. Some take the majority of the attention, like Enceladus with its spectacular geysers. But there are interesting ones that might be hiding amongst even thicker ice shells in the Uranian system. A new paper published in Icarus from researchers at the Planetary Science Institute, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of North Dakota, looks at what Ariel, the fourth biggest moon in the Uranian system, might look like under its icy surface. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/V5Ut0pJ via IFTTT

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has a data scale problem. There are just too many places to look for an interstellar signal, and even if you’re looking in the right place you could be looking at the wrong frequency or at the wrong time. Several strategies have come up to deal narrow the search given this overabundance of data, and a new paper from Naoki Seto of the Kyoto University falls nicely into that category - by using the Brightest Of All TIme (BOAT) Gamma Ray Burst, with some help from our own galaxy. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/ZO0eWyL via IFTTT

Dark matter, as its name suggests, is really dark, so dark in fact that it doesn’t interact in any way with light or any other part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Even thought it makes up about 80 percent of all matter in the universe and plays a vital role in galaxy formation we still don’t really know what it is. Of all the methods and techniques used to try and unravel this mystery, never would I think I would be writing about the Moon and how it could help us. However, a new piece of research suggests that future missions to the far side of the Moon could help us determine the mass of individual dark matter particles. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/TfW1zFs via IFTTT

Gamma ray bursts are among the most luminous explosions in the universe, briefly outshining entire galaxies in a violent flash of energy. For decades, scientists have debated what powers these incredibly powerful detonations and, to date, the leading candidates have been black holes or highly magnetised neutron stars called magnetars. Distinguishing between the two has proven frustratingly difficult though but a new study has just provided the clearest evidence yet that magnetars can indeed power some of these extreme events, and they did it by detecting something unexpected, the "heartbeat" of a newborn star. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/qwdOH6B via IFTTT

arXiv:2508.00249v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Any population of artificial radio broadcasts in a galaxy contributes to its integrated radio luminosity. If this radio emission is bright enough, inhabited galaxies themselves form a cosmic population of artificial radio galaxies. We can detect these broadcasts individually or set constraints from their collective emission. Using the formalism in Paper I and II, I set bounds on the artificial radio galaxy population using both of these methodol... from Universe Today https://ift.tt/RQJc9Pf via IFTTT