Long-period Radio Transients are sources that emit repeating radio and x-ray signals. The signals are polarized and coherent, and are similar to pulsars in some respects. But the type of astrophysical object responsible for them has been vigorously debated. New research says that at least one of them comes from a cataclysmic variable, a binary star where a white dwarf and a red dwarf orbit closely.
Astrobiologists use new starting points to produce ‘organic’ models of our solar system’s formation.
A SpaceX Falcon upper stage crashed into the Moon on August 5th. NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured images of the crash site from different viewing angles and with different sunlight angles. The images showed that the crater is about 18 meters wide and about 3 meters deep. SpaceX says the crash was an accident.
Mars' moon Deimos has a large crater on its southern pole. It's also covered by a layer of regolith so deep it buries many other, smaller craters. New research shows that an impact is responsible for both, and that the moon is rather fragile and porous, like a rubble pile asteroid.
Some signs of an alien civilization are easier to spot than signs of life itself. On technosignatures, from CFCs and industrial gases to the pandemic dip in pollution, and why Earth's most detectable moment might be right now.
This NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month takes us to a fantastical realm within our home galaxy, where piercing starlight and billowing winds sculpt dust clouds into inventive shapes. This scene is from the Carina Nebula, which lies just 7500 light-years away in the constellation Carina (the Keel).
Something's wetting the surface of dwarf planet Pluto along the northern edge of Sputnik Planitia, and planetary scientists have found a good explanation for it. A recent study of new Horizons images taken during the 2015 flyby revealed evidence that liquid nitrogen is rising up through cracks in Sputnik Planitia. That's the giant heart-shaped glacial basin we see in all the Pluto images taken by the spacecraft.
