Monday, October 27, 2025

The Quest for Corrosion Proof Satellites

Two CubeSats orbiting around Earth after being deployed from the ISS Kibō module's Small Satellite Orbital Deployer. The environment for satellites in low Earth orbit makes them susceptible to atmospheric drag and to corrosion (Credit : NASA)

Satellites orbiting Earth face a constant assault from highly reactive single atom of oxygen which are created when solar radiation splits oxygen molecules in the upper atmosphere. These atoms don't just create drag that pulls spacecraft back to Earth, they also bind to satellite surfaces, causing corrosion that limits most satellites to roughly five year lifespans. A team of engineers at the University of Texas at Dallas have been developing a protective coating using techniques borrowed from microelectronics and optical manufacturing to counter the effects. The process the team have developed enables satellites to withstand conditions even harsher than those found in space. If successful, this coating could not only extend satellite lifetimes but enable spacecraft to operate in very low Earth orbit, a region currently too hostile for most missions.



A Fibre Optic Breakthrough Reveals the Universe in Sharper Detail

Reconstructed image of the compact, fast-rotating asymmetric disc around Beta Canis Minoris as captured by the new photonic lantern. The white scale bar at the bottom right marks 1 milli-arcsecond, equivalent to a 6 feet scale at the distance of the moon (Credit: Yoo Jung Kim/UCLA)

Astronomers have discovered a clever way to make a single telescope capture sharper details than should be physically possible. The technique involves feeding starlight through a special optical fibre called a photonic lantern. Anyone else thinking of a certain glowing green lantern from a movie? Alas not, instead of special powers, it splits light according to its spatial patterns like separating a musical chords into individual notes. The researchers achieved resolution that has never been achieved before without linking multiple telescopes together. When they tested the technique on a star 162 light-years away, they not only proved it works but stumbled upon an unexpected discovery, that the star's surrounding gas disc is mysteriously lopsided.



Sunday, October 26, 2025

The Tycho Supernova's Hidden Secret

Tycho's Supernova Remnant. In 1572, the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe observed and studied the explosion of a star that became known as Tycho's supernova (Credit : NASA/CXC/Rutgers/J.Warren & J.Hughes)

The famous Tycho supernova of 1572, witnessed by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, didn't explode in empty space as has been assumed. New analysis reveals it detonated inside a planetary nebula, the ghostly shell of gas expelled by an earlier dying star. The evidence lies in two "ear" shaped structures that were sticking out from the remnant's main shell, matching similar features in three other supernovae previously identified as explosions within planetary nebulae. This discovery supports the "core-degenerate" model where a white dwarf star merges with a companion star's core, with the explosion occurring hundreds of thousands of years later while the nebula remains intact. Most strikingly, if Tycho follows this pattern, it suggests that 70-90% of normal Type Ia supernovae may actually be supernovae inside planetary nebulae!



Saturday, October 25, 2025

Galactic Empires May Live at the Center of our Galaxy, Hence Why We Don't Hear from Them

Artist's impression of an SMBH at the center of an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN). Credit: ESA/ATG

In a recent paper, a team of researchers proposes how humanity may someday relocate its entire civilization near the center of our galaxy to take advantage of the relativistic effects of the supermassive black hole there. They also indicate how other advanced civilizations could have done so already.



AI Learns to Identify Exploding Stars with Just 15 Examples

Diagram displaying how Google Gemini was used to analyze images and identify changes, including explosive events. (Credit: Stoppa & Bulmus et al., Nature Astronomy (2025))

How can artificial intelligence (AI) help astronomers identify celestial objects in the night sky? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated the potential for using AI to conduct astrophysical surveys of celestial events, including black holes consuming stars or even exploding stars themselves. This study has the potential to help astronomers use AI to enhance the field by reducing time and resources that have traditionally been used to scan the night sky.



Friday, October 24, 2025

This New Super Earth May Have Liquid Water And It's In Our Neighbourhood

This artist's illustration shows GJ 251c, its sibling planet, and the red dwarf they both orbit. GJ 251 c is a rocky super-Earth in its star's habitable zone. At only 18 light-years away, it's a strong candidate for direct imaging. Image Credit: University of California Irvine; Michael Marcheschi / m2design

Astronomers have found a new super-Earth only about 20 light years away. At that distance, it's a candidate for direct imaging.



Are We In The Solitude Zone Of The Universe?

The Very Large Array looking at the Milky Way. Credit - NRAO/AUI/NSF, Jeff Hellerman

Are we alone? It’s probably one of the, if not the most basic questions of human existence. People have been trying to answer it for millennia in one form or another, but only recently have we gained the tools and knowledge to start tractably trying to estimate whether we are or not. Those efforts take the form of famous tools like the Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation, but there’s always room for a more nuanced understanding. A new paper in Acta Astronautica from Antal Veres of the Hungarian University of Agriculture introduces a new one - The Solitude Zone.