ESA's Mars orbiters watch solar superstorm hit the Red Planet

What happens when a solar superstorm hits Mars? Thanks to the European Space Agency’s Mars orbiters, we now know: glitching spacecraft and a supercharged upper atmosphere.

This Isn't Just Another Rocky World Orbiting a Red Dwarf. This One's Special

Rocky planets are found in abundance around M-type stars (red dwarfs), so finding another one doesn't always generate headlines. But an international team of astronomers say that one recent M-dwarf rocky planet found by TESS is especially noteworthy. This one can serve as a benchmark for comparative studies of this type of exoplanet and their at-risk atmospheres.

Why Are Interstellar Comets So Weird? Part 3: They SHOULD Be Weird

So why should we expect interstellar comets like 3I/ATLAS and 'Oumuamua and even to some extent Borisov to be different-different?

"Ionic Liquids" Could Redefine the Habitable Zone

“Follow the water” has been a guiding mantra of astrobiology, and even space exploration more generally for decades. If you want to find life, it makes sense to look for the universal solvent that almost all types of life on Earth use. But what if life doesn’t actually need water to live or even evolve? A recent paper, available in pre-print on arXiv by researchers at MIT, including Dr. Sara Seager, and the University of Cardiff, proposes an alternative to water as the basis for life - ionic liquids (ILs) and deep eutectic solvents (DES). These liquids could allow life to exist in environments we had once thought were far too hot, too cold, or too barren to support life, and could dramatically change our search for it throughout the cosmos.

New Study Says There's a Way to Make Dyson Bubbles and Stellar Engines Stable

While megastructures are clearly speculative, new research shows that they can (in theory) be built in a way that ensures long-term stability. These findings can provide insight into the properties of potential technosignatures in search for extraterrestrial intelligence studies.

Finding Gold In A Stellar Explosion

NASA telescopes have detected what could be the most distant gamma-ray burst ever detected. A merging pair of neutron stars generated when they merged and exploded as a kilonova. It happened in an unusual location: a tidal stream of debris created by a group of merging galaxies.

Why Are Interstellar Comets So Weird? Part 2: Why Comets Are Like Cats

Once you start listing the properties of 3I/ATLAS, it becomes clear pretty quickly that this thing is distinctly different from any other comet we've ever seen. Here's just a small taste.