The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has Discovered 11,000 New Asteroids, and It's Barely Even Started!

Rubin’s largest asteroid haul yet, gathered before the Legacy Survey of Space and Time even begins, is just the “tip of the iceberg”

What Happens When Light Goes Boom? Part 4: What Brad Bradington Is Good For

Cherenkov radiation isn't just a beautiful phenomenon. It turns up in nuclear reactors, in the upper atmosphere, in gamma ray telescopes on three continents, in a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice, and in hospital imaging suites. Here's what a light boom is actually good for.

"Immature" Lunar Soil Could Be Suitable for Roadways on the Moon

Using lunar regolith simulant, a team of researchers demonstrated that "immature" regolith similar to what is expected around the Moon's southern polar region is suitable for rovers to drive on.

What Happens When Light Goes Boom? Part 3: Brad Bradington Sprints

We have the crowd. We have the star. Now it's time to put them together. Here's exactly what happens — and why — when a charged particle outruns the local speed of light in a material. Also: why it's always blue.

Small Trojan Asteroids Defy Expectations

Understanding the beginning of the solar system requires us to look at some very strange places. One such place is at the so-called “Trojan” asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit in front of and behind it. But for a long time, these cosmic time capsules have held a mystery for astronomers: why are they color-coded? The populations of larger asteroids are very clear split into two distinct groups - the “reds” and the “less reds”, because apparently they’re all red to some extent. A new paper from researchers in Japan tried to solve this mystery by taking a close look at even smaller asteroids, and their findings, published in a recent edition of The Astronomical Journal, actually brings up a completely different question - why don’t smaller Trojan asteroids have the same color-coding?

Life Beyond Biosignatures: A New Method In The Search For Life

Researchers from the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) and National Institute for Basic Biology have developed a new method to detect extraterrestrial life without relying on traditional biosignatures. By modelling how life might spread between planets, they demonstrate that life could be detected through statistical patterns across planetary populations rather than on individual planets. This "agnostic biosignature" approach could assist in guiding future searches for life beyond Earth.

To Survive Deep Space, Astronauts May Owe a Debt to Microscopic Worms

Living long-term on the Moon means surviving the devastating toll that deep space takes on a human body. Astronauts in low gravity environments suffer muscle and bone loss, vision-altering fluid shifts, and heavy radiation exposure - all of which are incredibly hazardous to our biology. So, to help future lunar explorers survive, a new crew just arrived at the International Space Station (ISS). That might not sound surprising, except this crew is composed of worms.