INFORMATION

An early galaxy cluster named after an Indian lake is teaching astronomers about influences on galaxy evolution in the infant Universe. Astronomer Ronaldo Laishram of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) used the Subaru Telescope’s wide-field camera, Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC), to conduct a large sky survey to look for early galaxies with active star formation. The result was the discovery of a massive protocluster of galaxies that existed some 12.6 billion years ago, very early in cosmic time. Detailed study of this region could give new insight into how galaxies and their clusters form and evolve. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/n3lgqdj via IFTTT

A team of scientists is exploring ways to use dark craters at the lunar poles as sites for ultrastable lasers to aid in surface and near-lunar navigation. The group, led by Physicist Jun Ye, an expert on lasers and precision measurements, were discussing the types of instruments that Artemis astronauts could install and use during their time on the Moon. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/mAZoTFw via IFTTT

Building a permanent base on the Moon sounds like an engineering problem. Design the habitat, sort the power supply, figure out life support, and you're most of the way there. But the engineers who've spent time thinking hard about this will tell you the real challenge isn't the hardware — it's the humans inside it. Now researchers have built a virtual Moon base and run tens of thousands of simulated missions inside it, studying not the rocket engines or the radiation shielding, but the astronauts themselves. What they found could reshape how we plan humanity's return to the lunar surface. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/GwcMsKF via IFTTT

A cloaked alien invasion force is approaching Earth and coming up on Mars. The first officer looks through a viewfinder and says, “Captain, the fourth planet’s atmosphere is behaving strangely. As though it were trying to block incoming energy.” The captain takes a moment, then his (already big) eyes get wide and he exclaims, “It’s a defense shield! The Earthlings are hiding on the fourth planet and are prepared to attack us! Abort the invasion!” The first officer responds, “Aye aye, Captain!” from Universe Today https://ift.tt/wc2JqIe via IFTTT

There's a planet out there called LHS 3844 b, orbiting a star about 48 light-years away. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) found it in 2018 when the planet transited across the face of its star. The James Webb Space Telescope zxeroed in on the planet and found it to be a barren, rocky place with no atmosphere. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/9MZcPTf via IFTTT

We know that stars can engulf planets because stars that swell up to become red giants overwhelm any close-in planets. The Sun will do this to Venus, Mercury, and possibly Earth in a few billion years. But research shows that it can happen when low-mass stars first enter the main sequence. Lithium gives it away. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/6WHlIdX via IFTTT

This ESA/Hubble Picture of the Week captures all the glory of the star-forming region N159. It's in the Large Magellanic Cloud, and is dwarfed by its much larger neighbour, the Tarantula Nebula. But N159 is gorgeous, too, so captivating that it's been featured as a Picture of the Week several times. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/uLZzI7p via IFTTT

Our planet's liquid iron outer core is slowly giving up its secrets to a trio of satellites launched by ESA in 2013. Called Swarm, the three probes have been studying Earth's magnetic field at the source. In the process, they've revealed startling changes in a molten layer region 2,200 kilometers beneath the Pacific Ocean. In 2010, material in that area of Earth's outer core changed direction. Insteading of moving slowly westward, it's now headed east and picking up speed. Scientists are working to figure out why by using the European Space Agency's (ESA) Swarm data and additional information from ESA's CryoSat mission and ground-based instruments. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/KSqpGsF via IFTTT

The LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA (LVK) detector network has a new trick up its sleeve to improve the instruments’ sensitivity to gravitational waves: it’s called Astrophysical Calibration and it plays a role similar to auto-tune in music production. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/tYpeoCd via IFTTT

Physicists have thought for decades that microscopic black holes can theoretically emerge not from exploding stars but from delicate "critical states" in which space and time organise themselves into a crystal like structure. Now, for the first time, researchers from TU Wien and Goethe University Frankfurt have derived an exact mathematical formula describing this bizarre phenomenon using a surprising trick involving infinitely many dimensions! from Universe Today https://ift.tt/f5ex9pg via IFTTT

The JWST has shown us some strange things about supermassive black holes (SMBH) in the early Universe. Many of them are far more massive than we think they should be. Now astronomers working with the JWST have found one that seems to have formed before its galaxy did. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/hRPNKUB via IFTTT

Our Sun is a loner. It lacks a stellar companion hurtling through interstellar space with it. But we’ve known for a long time that’s actually relatively rare - most stars have at least one gravitationally bound partner. Understanding how exactly those stars are related to each other is critical for observational campaigns - especially for those of exoplanets. So a new paper from researchers at the University of Madrid that categorizes almost every star within ten light years into companion categories is a welcome addition to the literature on the subject, and could be used to inform the next round of planet habitable planet hunting satellites. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/RzemtBA via IFTTT

As part of a commercial partnership, NASA is developing a sophisticated chip that will give spacecraft the processing capabilities to think for themselves. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/zQpPjcR via IFTTT

We've discovered large numbers of small rocky exoplanets, but they're at such great distances that habitability is extremely difficult to determine. New research suggests than since Mars is on the edge of being habitable, studying it in detail can shed light on rocky exoplanets. If we can understand things like tectonic activity and atmospheric escape on Mars, we can understand how they may play out on rocky exoplanets. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/9YJel2D via IFTTT

New research led by Penn State scientists suggests that some of the highest-energy cosmic rays may consist of atomic nuclei heavier than iron and could help narrow down the cosmic sources capable of accelerating these particles. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/0DHgu3P via IFTTT

A team of South Korean scientists has uncovered new evidence that could help explain how Earth’s atmosphere became rich in oxygen, one of the most transformative events in the planet’s history. Researchers from the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) report the finding of stromatolites, layered structures formed by microbial communities, within the Hapcheon impact crater on the Korean Peninsula. While the Hapcheon crater is only about 40,000 years old, it shows how stromatolites got a boost from the heat in impact crater hydrothermal systems. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/8mPABET via IFTTT

Could the "Great Silence" be the result of extraterrestrial civilizations dying out before they can make contact, or will they evolve to the point where communication with them is no longer possible? from Universe Today https://ift.tt/GTRyxc0 via IFTTT

It’s 2035 and NASA’s Dragonfly quadcopter has been “hopping” around the surface of Saturn’s largest moon Titan for just over a year taking images, scanning pebbles, drilling holes, and analyzing surface material for potential signs of life. You’re at NASA JPL and just moved to Blue Team (12am-8am) from Red Team (4pm-12am), so you’re hyped up on coffee, Red Bull, and will power. It’s 3:30am, you’ve been analyzing data since you clocked in, and you keep discarding what you’ve been told looks like positive signs of life but is more commonly known as false positives. In the meantime, some microbes on Titan that got scanned by Dragonfly keep posing in front of its main camera with signs saying, “We’re here!” from Universe Today https://ift.tt/AirJZqy via IFTTT

No dust, no way to cool a collapsing gas cloud. No way to cool it, no stars. No dust, no first rung on the ladder from grain to pebble to planet. The substance I spent two articles complaining about turns out to be the substance that makes me possible. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/ZvQFPh9 via IFTTT

NASA’S Juno spacecraft images Jupiter’s tiny moon of Thebe in a recent close approach. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/VytiADq via IFTTT

Planetary nebula are created when a dying star sheds it outer layers. The gas is lit up by the star and all the gorgeous, changing detail is exposed. NGC 1514, the Crystal Ball Nebula, is about 1500 light years away and contains a binary pair in its center. The orbits and winds from the stars create the Crystal Ball's beautiful form. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/XU4YyMn via IFTTT

Two hydrogen atoms can't form an H2 molecule on their own in empty space. They need a surface. The universe has only one surface available, and it's something I have just spent two articles complaining about. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/Meuc68x via IFTTT

Chinese-born cryptocurrency investor Chun Wang has become the latest deep-pocketed space enthusiast to set his sights on a trip around Mars. But first, he wants to take a ride around the moon on SpaceX's Starship. And SpaceX is willing to work with him. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/Bfna2Fu via IFTTT

The Southwest Research Institute-led Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) instruments aboard ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft and NASA’s Europa Clipper made unique observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS in late 2025. SwRI leads the UVS instruments on both spacecraft, simultaneously imaging both hemispheres of the comet and detecting the comet’s ultraviolet emissions. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/zVDmTbP via IFTTT

Superluminous supernovae are the royalty in the supernova world. They're up to 100 times brighter than a standard supernova, and astrophysicists want to know why. New research shows that magnetars are responsible. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/S6WEsXN via IFTTT

Spacecraft often use planets for gravity-assist or "slingshot" maneuvers. NASA's Psyche mission used Mars for that purpose during a May 15th flyby. The flyby accelerated the spacecraft and aimed it at its eventual destination, the asteroid 16 Psyche. The flyby was also an opportunity to take some pictures of Mars, and to test and calibrate the spacecraft's science instruments. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/CMd59K0 via IFTTT

In 2014, researchers presented the discovery of water vapour plumes being emitted from Jupiter's moon Europa. This caused quite a stir; it meant that the moon's buried ocean was accessible without contending with the thick ice shell that concealed it. But new research by the same researchers questions those detections. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/kEUFON1 via IFTTT

When people eventually head to the Moon for long-term exploration and habitation, they'll need equipment and habitats made of well-tested materials. That's where NASA's Lunar Environment Test Rig (LESTR) comes in handy. It simulates extreme cold lunar night conditions right here in a NASA Glenn lab, testing equipment in temperatures ranging from 40K to 125K (-233 C to -148 C) in a vacuum. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/qyBPbAV via IFTTT

Galaxies grow through mergers and collisions, and astronomers want to know more about the mergers in the Milky Way's past. But mergers can stir up the stars in the resulting galaxy, making it difficult to determine exactly when an ancient merger occurred. A new study led by researchers at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC) may have overcome that challenge. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/2jEvFra via IFTTT

Years of grievance against dust. It ruins lungs, suits, rovers, and Mars missions. The first installment of an apology, sort of, to the most annoying substance in the cosmos. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/GMwcSNR via IFTTT

In the closing decades of the 20th century, several proposed explanations were put forward for why humanity has not yet found evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence in the cosmos. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/OQStrBZ via IFTTT

You’re doing some late afternoon work on the habitat as part of humanity’s first exoplanet settlement, but the sun is going down so you’re trying to speed things up. Just as the light dims, everything suddenly starts getting brighter. You look up and see the sun starting to rise again, except it’s your second sun. You kick yourself for not checking the daily sunrise and sunset logs, but you’re happy you get to put in a bit more work before you eat dinner. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/h3VIswp via IFTTT

There's a distinct category of exoworlds out there that orbit two stars. They're called "circumbinary" planets and up until recently, astronomers had only found about 18 of them among the 6000+ other known exoplanets and candidates. Now, a team at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia, have found 27 more potential circumbinary worlds. They credit a new method, called apsidal precession, for their finding. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/CMQocJU via IFTTT

During the 1970s, the first interstellar probes were launched, carrying messages specifically designed to be intelligible to extraterrestrial species. The messages were essentially a "message in a bottle" intended for an advanced civilization, should they find the probes someday. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/fODmRzC via IFTTT

Our Solar System is currently passing through the Local Interstellar Cloud, a region of highly diluted gas and dust between the stars. On its path, Earth continuously accumulates iron-60, a rare radioactive isotope of iron produced in stellar explosions. This has now been confirmed by an international research team led by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) through the analysis of Antarctic ice tens of thousands of years old. From the steady but time-varying influx, the researchers conclude that the radioactive isotope has been stored within the cloud since a long-past stellar explosion. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/TeGsU3J via IFTTT

How can astronomers observe ancient galaxies when they're so challenging to resolve? By looking at a whole bunch of them at once in a single spectral line and seeing how it changes over time. That's what a new instrument called the Tomographic Ionized-carbon Mapping Experiment (TIME) does. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/qHsQJ57 via IFTTT

We may be getting better images of the Milky Way's supermassive black hole in the future. Astronomers used 10 years of observations of a distant blazar to detect turbulence in the Milky Way's interstellar medium. This turbulence makes images of Sagittarius A-star blurry. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/4Bye3od via IFTTT

The Traveling Salesman is a classic problem in mathematics that requires a solution to the most efficient path to take to visit a given number of cities in the least amount of time. But scale this relatively simple concept up to space travel and the calculation becomes much more complex. Instead of visiting a stationary spot on Earth, when calculating the most efficient path to visit asteroids you must account for the fact they are traveling tens of thousands of miles an hour, and their exact position will change based on when a spacecraft leaves. This is known as the Asteroid Routing Problem, and a new paper from a group of Canadian and European researchers lays out a framework that can find the exact solution to any particular combination of asteroids to be visited. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/pYjzVrh via IFTTT

Hawking faced a question with no answer hiding behind it. The best boundary condition for the universe, he decided, was that there was no boundary at all. To make that statement into physics, he had to do something deeply strange to time. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/6fX5unl via IFTTT

Enigmatic crownlike surface formations on Venus hold keys to understanding our twin planet’s deep interior. Or so says a new paper presented at the recent European Geosciences Union 2026 general assembly in Vienna. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/J3FUl8d via IFTTT

A study led by UC Riverside physicist Hai-Bo Yu suggests that a new type of dark matter could explain three astrophysical puzzles across vastly different environments. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/NDXHhZ1 via IFTTT

We may be getting better images of the Milky Way's supermassive black hole in the future. Astronomers used 10 years of observations of a distant blazar to detect turbulence in the Milky Way's interstellar medium. This turbulence makes images of Sagittarius A-star blurry. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/0MsN35a via IFTTT

A study of NASA's Black Marble data reveals a pattern of regional volatility in nighttime illumination across the planet. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/6kLgnob via IFTTT

Right now, as you read this, Earth is drifting through a cloud of debris from an ancient stellar explosion. Stardust, real stardust, is raining down on us so thinly scattered that we have only just found the proof. Locked inside Antarctic ice cores up to 80,000 years old, an international team led by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf has discovered traces of iron-60, a radioactive isotope that can only be created in the heart of an exploding star. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/VoXSinK via IFTTT

For ten years, astronomers at UCLA have been pointing one of the world's most powerful radio telescopes at the stars and listening. Not for pulsars or gas clouds, or the hiss of the cosmic microwave background, but for something far more extraordinary. A signal from another civilisation. The result of a decade's work, 70,000 stars, and 100 million candidate signals is now in and every single one of them was us! But far from being a disappointment, the findings are among the most rigorous and revealing in the history of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/PqcaSxb via IFTTT

University of Cincinnati astrophysicist Paul Smith is part of an international team studying TOI-2031Ab, a gas giant orbiting a star 901 light years from Earth. Smith and his colleagues used the James Webb Space Telescope to study its atmosphere. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/3MEye6s via IFTTT

Every time an astronomer points a telescope at a distant supernova, they're trying to measure how far away it is. But the light from these stellar explosions arrives tangled up with interference from dust, the age of the host galaxy and the chemical make up of the original star . Unpicking it all has always been a painstaking business. Now a team of researchers has used artificial intelligence to cut through the noise in a single step, potentially making cosmological measurements four times more precise. In a universe full of unanswered questions, that's a very significant leap forward. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/V2OnHSf via IFTTT

During the 1970s, pioneering experiments were conducted that are known today as Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI). At the same time, NASA launched four spacecraft bound for interstellar space, each carrying "messages in a bottle" intended for extraterrestrial beings. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/pDyjsKV via IFTTT

The search for life elsewhere focuses on biosignatures. These are chemicals in atmospheres that can only be attributed to life. But despite the prowess of the JWST, finding slam-dunk proof of life on other worlds is a confounding exercise. New research suggests that rather than focus on individual chemicals, we should look for statistical patterns. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/IjsDxp6 via IFTTT

When NASA's Artemis II spacecraft carried four astronauts around the Moon earlier this year, the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope was quietly watching from a quiet valley in West Virginia. The Green Bank Telescope tracked the Orion capsule across 213,000 miles of empty space with a precision that would embarrass most speedometers and what it produced isn't just an engineering triumph. It's a glimpse of how the world's most sensitive ears are becoming indispensable to the future of human spaceflight. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/Vf78jWX via IFTTT