Sunday, April 5, 2026

JWST Spies Once-hidden Treasures in the W51 Starbirth Crèche

A mid-infrared view of M51 provided by the James Webb Space Telescope's MIRI instrument. Swirls of interstellar gas are being illuminated by massive young newborn stars.Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Yoo & Ginsburg (UF). Image processing: A Pagan (STScI)

Star formation is a dramatic and complex process that erupts throughout the Universe. Yet, a lot of the action gets hidden by clouds of gas and dust. That's where observatories such as the James Webb Telescope JWST and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) come in handy. They use infrared light and radio waves, respectively, to pierce the veil surrounding the process of starbirth.



Artemis II Mission Shares First Photo of Earth

NASA astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman took this picture of Earth from the Orion spacecraft's window on April 2, 2026, after completing the translunar injection burn. Credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman

NASA astronaut and Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman took this picture of Earth from the Orion spacecraft's window after completing the translunar injection burn. There are two auroras (top right and bottom left) and zodiacal light (bottom right) is visible as the Earth eclipses the Sun.



Saturday, April 4, 2026

If Life Exists in Venus' Atmosphere, It Could Have Come From Space

Photographed in ultraviolet light and rendered in false color, this view reveals the complexities of the clouds that coat Venus. Credit: JAXA/ISIS/DARTS/Damia Bouic

A new study presented at the 2026 LPSC suggests that if life does exist in Venus' clouds, there's a chance it came from Earth.



Friday, April 3, 2026

An Aerobot With ISRU Capabilities Could Explore Venus' Atmosphere for Years

Artist's concept for NASA's High Altitude Venus Operational Concept (HAVOC). Credit: NASA

In a new proposal, a team of scientists explores how aerial robotic platforms (areobots) with in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) capability could operate for years in Venus' atmosphere.



The Habitable Worlds Observatory Will Need Astrometry To Find Life

Artist's concept of the Habitable Worlds Observatory. Credit - NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

We’re getting closer and closer to finding a real Earth-like exoplanet. But finding one is only half the battle. To truly know if we’re looking at an Earth analog somewhere else in the galaxy, we have to directly image it too. That’s a job for the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), a planned space-based telescope whose primary job is to do precisely that. But even capturing a picture and a planet and getting spectral readings of its atmospheric chemistry still isn’t enough, according to a new paper available in pre-print on arXiv by Kaz Gary of Ohio State and their co-authors. HWO will need to figure out how much a planet weighs first.



Thursday, April 2, 2026

The Artemis Generation Begins! Artemis II Launches for the Moon

NASA's Artemis II mission launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 1st, 2026. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky

At 06:25 p.m. EDT (03:25 p.m. PDT) on April 1st, the Artemis II mission lifted off from the historic Launch Pad-39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This mission will send astronauts on a ten-day journey around the Moon and will be the first crewed mission to venture beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) since the Apollo Era.



Why Are Supermassive Black Holes Growing So Slowly?

Astronomers studied more than 1 million galaxies and more than 8,000 growing supermassive black holes (SMBH) over billions of years to try to answer a difficult question. During Cosmic Noon about 10 billion years ago, the growth of SMBH began to slow dramatically. The image on the left represents one of the rapidly-growing SMBH in the past, and the image on the right represents a slower-growing SMBH about 3 billion light-years away. Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State Univ./Z. Yu; Optical (HST): NASA/ESA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/P. Edmonds, L. Frattare

About 10 billion years ago, the growth rate of supermassive black holes began to slow dramatically. To this day, the SMBH growth rate still appears to be low. There are three potential explanations for this, and researchers think they've figured out which explanation fits best.