INFORMATION

The planet Mercury is the first planet from the Sun but also one shrouded in mystery. This is primarily due to the limited number of spacecrafts that have visited it, but this limited data has provided scientists with new and exciting characteristics previously thought impossible. One fascinating aspect is its magnetic field, which was first discovered in March 1974, which both surprised and puzzled scientists due to the planet’s small size, which is measured at about half the size of the continental United States from coast to coast. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/GPf5i2r via IFTTT

On March 10, 2026, the Fermi telescope gamma-ray burst team reported the detection of a long-duration gamma ray burst that occurred when a star exploded inside a dense, highly magnetized cloud of hydrogen gas. That HII region is a bubble of ionized hydrogen created by winds from a massive young star. Astronomers immediately turned as many telescopes as possible to view the burst and its afterglow, including the NSF's Karl Jansky Very Large Array. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/aXtldfV via IFTTT

Every year, thousands and thousands of satellites get launched into orbit around our planet. The result is an increasingly congested "space" above Earth populated by equipment that provides services to the surface. At the same time, these satellites affect ground-based astronomy research and create potential for damage when they eventually fall through Earth's atmosphere to the ground. In addition, near-Earth space hosts old rocket bodies and other materials left in space by past missions. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/1qf5gET via IFTTT

A new study from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) addresses the threat of debris in cislunar space, which could pose threats for future missions bound for the Moon. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/3Vt0TS1 via IFTTT

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory has completed a new survey with the updated Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) in New Mexico. It's called the VLASS, the Very Large Array Sky Survey, and it's the most detailed radio survey of the sky ever completed. The VLA used the power of its 28 movable dishes to complete the survey. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/Sj8MdUF via IFTTT

Planetary debris disks around white dwarfs appear to be more plentiful than thought. That's because some white dwarfs are magnetic, and those magnetic fields create patches of metallic debris near the stars' poles, where it's more difficult to detect. This leads to an underestimation of debris, something new research is trying to correct. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/4o2lSNU via IFTTT

Based on a new analysis of the Chang'e-6 lunar samples, scientists are again questioning the timing and intensity of the Late Heavy Bombardment period. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/Dy2dikT via IFTTT

The search for extrasolar rocky planets circling other stars is more than mere science. It offers researchers a chance to gain crucial insight into how our own planet functions. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/z6aZpbD via IFTTT

In recent years, the idea that galaxy mergers are responsible for quenching galaxies has grown in importance. This paradigm says that galaxies merge, their black holes form a powerful quasar, and that quasar stifles star formation. But new results from the IllustrisTNG simulations shows that this paradigm may not be accurate. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/bBjHITk via IFTTT

Long before a human ever sets foot on the Red Planet, we already know how hard the environment is. Once one finally does, the only things protecting them from that harsh environment will be the infrastructure we’ve built up there, and the spacesuit that keeps that in a protective bubble. Unfortunately, modern space suits aren’t built with Martian gravity, which is 3/8ths of Earth’s, in mind. To prove that point, a team of NASA and industry engineers made a presentation at the 55th International Conference on Environmental Systems (ICES) that showed that the newest generation of spacesuits are simply too heavy to use on Mars. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/Fmk1NDn via IFTTT

Jupiter’s moon, Io, is the most volcanically active planetary body in the solar system, boasting hundreds of active volcanoes spewing molten lava into space. This occurs from a process called tidal heating where Jupiter’s massive gravity constantly stretches and compresses the much smaller moon during the latter’s non-circular orbit. However, a lesser-known fact is that Io’s volcanic gases fuel Jupiter’s aurorae by traveling along Jupiter’s magnetic field lines, resulting in Jupiter’s bright aurorae observed by spacecraft and Earth-based telescopes. But what if this same phenomenon could be used to detect Io-like exomoons, also called exo-Ios, orbiting Jupiter-like exoplanets? from Universe Today https://ift.tt/pdvLWE0 via IFTTT

The samples returned by the Chang'e-6 mission from the far side of the Moon reveal that the two hemispheres have had rather different experiences when it comes to space weather. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/kWR7NYE via IFTTT

Little Red Dots are one of the mysteries uncovered by the JWST. Astronomers have been trying to figure out what they are, and have come up with multiple possibilities. New research says they could be ancient Globular Clusters with supermassive stars in their centers. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/zxKRqsv via IFTTT

We’ve been covering the journey of the Habitable Worlds Observatory for some time now. Over the past few years, it's gone from a proposal to a relatively fleshed-out plan for how and what the next Great Observatory should do—in this case, look at and characterize potentially habitable exoplanets. Back in August 2024, NASA set up the HWO Technology Maturation Project Office (TMPO) to coordinate the technological and scientific development needed to make the mission a success. They recently released a comprehensive plan for the first steps of that process in pre-print form on arXiv, and it’s very clear on what needs to happen before the Mission Concept Review (MCR) at the end of the decade. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/0MB7Dth via IFTTT

A black hole merger is one of the Universe's most energetic and massive events. During such a collision, two black holes orbit closer and closer until they collide and become a much more massive black hole. The event also gives off radiation and, as it happens, gravitational waves. They help tell the story of the two objects involved in the collision. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/s0jgKhn via IFTTT

Scientists at ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration have demonstrated how clouds in a sub-Neptune's atmosphere shape the interior structure of the planet. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/2rC5YsJ via IFTTT

Through the Photonics-Enabled Exoplanet Spectroscopic System (PEEPSS) program, researchers are developing a technology that will assist NASA's planned Habitable World's Observatory (HWO). from Universe Today https://ift.tt/fxoV6mS via IFTTT

One of the challenges of searching for “technosignatures” (i.e. signs that intelligent life somewhere in the universe has created technology) is understanding what to look for. Technology is a very broad area, and different types would show up as different features. One of the most commonly cited is a Dyson sphere, which attempts to encapsulate a star and capture it’s outgoing light to produce energy. But while we’ve looked for the mid-infrared waste heat these structures would produce for decades, we haven’t found a definitive instance of one. According to a new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv by Turkish high school student Sahin Torlakcik, that might be because we are looking for the wrong type of energy all together. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/j8T5asA via IFTTT

Sub-Neptune exoplanets, exoplanets that are slightly smaller than Neptune, have been designated as the most common type of planet in the Milky Way Galaxy based on their vast discovery numbers, totaling almost 3,300 out of the more than 6,300 confirmed exoplanets to date. Despite these numbers, the characteristics of sub-Neptunes remain relatively unknown. This is primarily due to our own solar system not having its own sub-Neptune to use as an analog, along with their atmospheres being thick and hazy. As a result, this makes telescopic observations, even from powerful instruments like NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, extremely difficult. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/DbduZKC via IFTTT

Researchers from the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with international collaborators, carried out the first spatially resolved dual-frequency spectral study of the M87 black hole using observations obtained in 2018 with the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) and the Global Millimeter VLBI Array (GMVA). from Universe Today https://ift.tt/m7HKsEQ via IFTTT

Searching for extraterrestrial intelligence has so far meant primarily focusing on one particular type of signal - and that signal has normally been based on what our own current cutting edge technology is. But what if that’s the wrong way to look for signs of an alien intelligence? What if a resource-conscious civilization decided it was too complicated to send femto-second lasers in high energy bursts out across the universe. A new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv, from researchers Dániel Apai, Chia-Lung Lin, and Kevin Wagner, suggest that might actually be what happens, and that we should start looking for long-duration pulsing interstellar beacons. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/vUip7mt via IFTTT

Juno's Microwave Radiometer (MWR) was built peer deep down into Jupiter's massive atmosphere. But during the spacecraft's extended mission, it's been studying the Galilean moons. During two flybys of volcanic Io, the spacecraft its MWR to measure the heat flowing from deep within the moon. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/c0IznMV via IFTTT

When we think of Mars as the “Red Planet”, the image that comes to mind is just that - a lot of red. That comes from the oxidization of the dust and rocks that cover the planet's surface, but there are some instances where the Red Planet still has a few visual tricks up its sleeve. One such trick was recently captured by the European Space Agency’s venerable Mars Express orbiter, which captured what seems to be a set of metallic waves inside a giant impact basin. But on closer inspection, it becomes clear they aren’t liquid metal or some sort of alien architecture, but a manifestation of Mars’ complex environment. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/d8KL2lS via IFTTT

The worlds of the Solar System offer up exciting and (so far) mostly pristine places for planetary scientists to study. As space missions continue to travel to Mars, Europa, asteroids, and other worlds, questions keep coming up about keeping them safe for continued exploration and observations. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/LmU3etN via IFTTT

Combining over 20 years of archival data from Hubble with new data from the James Webb Space Telescope, a team of astronomers has found the first of the "missing" black holes. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/t8MZYK2 via IFTTT

The collapsing stars Eddington swore couldn't exist turned out to be everywhere, and half a century later the world handed Chandrasekhar his Nobel. How the 1.4 solar mass limit became one of the most important numbers in modern astronomy. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/AXP85kd via IFTTT

Astronomers aren't certain where Fast Radio Bursts come from. But they still have utility. They can use them to find the Universe's "missing matter." from Universe Today https://ift.tt/LwSKymg via IFTTT

Martian dust storms are some of the most fascinating and mysterious planetary surface processes ever observed, as Earth, Mars, and Saturn’s moon Titan are the only known planetary bodies to have active dust storms. However, the major difference for Mars is its dust storms can blanket the entire planet at once, resulting in the surface becoming completely unobservable and blocking out sunlight, with the scientific community concerned this might hinder robotic, and even human, space exploration. But what if covering the surface and blocking sunlight wasn’t the only issue Martian global dust storms pose for future missions? from Universe Today https://ift.tt/WkZIwsA via IFTTT

NASA's Psyche mission used a gravity assist maneuver at Mars to gain velocity and adjust its trajectory to its eventual target. The asteroid 16 Psyche is a metal-rich asteroid that may be the remnant rocky core of a protoplanet. The flyby not only shepherded the spacecraft on to its target, it was also an opportunity to test Psyche's science instruments and cameras. NASA has released a timelapse of the flyby. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/3OBsaMq via IFTTT

Spiral galaxies, including grand spirals like the Whirlpool galaxy, are plentiful. But it's still a mystery how their spiral arms form and persist for hundreds of millions of years, and why some galaxies have one, two, or three or more arms. New research based on Euclid data finds links between galaxy mass, star formation rate, and number of arms, and hints at their formation. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/dmzFX8f via IFTTT

Our ability to track and visualize small rocks in space is still improving. And occasionally we’ll find a space rock that will remind us of that fact. One such rock is detailed in a new paper, led by Davide Farnocchia of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and recently published in Nature Astronomy, where the research team discovered what they thought was a normal, run of the mill asteroid, was actually a “dark comet”. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/cJGfbMO via IFTTT

Scientists have painted the most detailed portrait yet of the planetary system orbiting Barnard’s Star. Unfortunately, the picture is not encouraging, as all four planets appear to be "extremely uninhabitable." from Universe Today https://ift.tt/B735bR1 via IFTTT

Astronomers have found four new white dwarfs within about 65 light years. Even though the sky has been studied thoroughly, these escaped detection. That's because they're tight binaries with red dwarf partners, and the much brighter red dwarfs hide the white dwarfs. The binaries used to share common envelopes. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/0PJIKhq via IFTTT

A Sun-like star orbits the supermassive black hole in our Milky Way so closely that it comes within the distance of Neptune's orbit of the Sun. It has a top speed of more than 8% of light speed. With such extreme motion the star gives astronomers the opportunity to test the limits of general relativity. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/7N8EZeP via IFTTT

The story of Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who as a teenager on an ocean voyage worked out that white dwarf stars have a maximum mass of 1.4 Suns. A tour of degeneracy pressure, the relativistic insight everyone else missed, and the number that would define his life. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/8XaKJ0h via IFTTT

Astronomers have solved a decades old puzzle about the Sun's missing silver, not by finding something new, but by modelling something old far more accurately. A revised, more realistic model of the Sun's atmosphere reveals it actually contains 55 per cent more silver than previously calculated, finally matching what meteorites have been telling us all along. It's a quiet reminder that some of the biggest revelations in astronomy come not from new data, but from asking familiar questions with sharper tools. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/PfgY7wc via IFTTT

Astronomers have detected an atmosphere around a rocky planet in another star's habitable zone for the very first time. It’s a milestone that brings us a step closer to answering whether life could exist beyond our Solar System. Predicted by a mathematical model before it was ever observed, and confirmed using a rare planetary alignment 48 light years away, this discovery does more than identify one intriguing world, it provides us with a whole new way to search for others like it. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/PSgyxID via IFTTT

Old rocks exposed on the rim of Jezero Crater preserve a roughly 4-billion-year-old cosmic “weather report” from the solar system’s most dynamic era. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/7BTjrp3 via IFTTT

Before Artemis astronauts land on the Moon’s surface in 2028, NASA will conduct the Artemis III demonstration mission in 2027, allowing teams on Earth and in orbit to practice rendezvous and docking operations between commercial human landing systems and the Orion spacecraft. Data from that mission, along with future uncrewed demonstration missions at the Moon, from Universe Today https://ift.tt/EbSQB7d via IFTTT

The Submillimeter Array's (SMA) new semi-automated alert system demonstrates how the radio interferometer quickly responds to discoveries from space-based telescopes. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/Yehy2N0 via IFTTT

Finding microfossils of Earth’s oldest complex life is a bit like chasing an astrobiological rainbow. The eukaryotic pot of gold at rainbow’s end always seems just a bit out of reach. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/yWmL26U via IFTTT

The Dark Energy Camera (DECam) has a massive 570 megapixel camera, and its new image is of the Corona Australis Molecular Cloud. Corona Australis is one of the closest star-forming regions to Earth. It's not as well-studied as the Orion Molecular Cloud or Ophiuchus, but as DECam's new iage of Corona Australis shows, it's just as fascinating. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/7zV4QJf via IFTTT

An accelerating observer finds their empty vacuum glowing with real particles, a bizarre effect called Unruh radiation. It's a cousin to Hawking radiation, but with no black hole required, just a rocket and its throttle. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/ueMaSH9 via IFTTT

Space Telescope Maps Magnetic Fields of "Lighthouse" Pulsar kerryhensley45577 Mon, 07/13/2026 - 10:49 Space Telescope Maps Magnetic Fields of "Lighthouse" Pulsar https://science.nasa.gov/missions/ixpe/nasa-space-telescope-maps-magnetic-fields-of-lighthouse-pulsar/ from Universe Today https://ift.tt/UOJpWKq via IFTTT

The United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently approved the first test launch of Reflect Orbital’s Eärendil-1 satellite. Sporting an 18 by 18 meter-wide reflector once unfurled, the satellite will test the ability to reflect sunlight back to Earth, on demand. The company envisions more than 50,000 reflectors girding the Earth in low Earth orbit by 2035, while many in the astronomical community have raised concerns on the project's impact. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/X1mDGwn via IFTTT

Researchers utilized 30 years of Landsat satellite imagery to analyze the color and spectral signatures of Adélie penguin guano across Antarctica, marking the first time space-based observations have captured food-web and population dynamics at a continental scale. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/mn7dcBl via IFTTT

A team of astronomers have discovered a third planet orbiting the star Beta Pictoris. The new planet, Beta Pictoris d, is 100 times fainter than Beta Pictoris b — the first planet discovered in the same system — and is among the lightest exoplanets ever to be imaged from the ground. After spotting the planet using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), the team found it had been hiding in archive observations spanning more than a decade. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/8feJmEB via IFTTT

Move fast enough and the entire universe compresses into a searing, blueshifted cone of light aimed at your face. How relativistic aberration and the Doppler effect warp your view of the cosmos as you approach lightspeed. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/HPIFA5l via IFTTT

After chasing a small asteroid across a billion kilometres of space, China's Tianwen-2 probe has finally caught up, closing to within twenty kilometres of its target and beginning detailed scientific study. What it uncovers next could help settle a genuinely intriguing question, whether this quiet companion of Earth is simply another asteroid, or a long lost piece of the Moon itself. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/6ZnGOqL via IFTTT

Astronomers using the U.S. National Science Foundation Very Large Array (NSF VLA) have detected an extraordinary burst of radio light from a rare cosmic event in which an intermediate-mass black hole tears apart a star, revealing what appears to be the off-axis afterglow of a powerful jet. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/b5PEGn2 via IFTTT