NASA Selects GIMLI to Search the Marius Lunar Pit for a Potential Lunar Base Site

NASA has selected a Planetary Science Institute-led proposal to investigate whether a potentially large underground cave extends beyond the opening of a lunar pit.

New Study Shows That Earth and Mars Had Different Origins

A surprising discovery suggests that Mars and Earth formed through different processes, which could help scientists confirm whether exoplanets are habitable.

Thousands of Black Holes Could Be Lurking in Our Backyard—and You Can Help Find Them

According to stellar evolution models, there should be hundreds of millions of black holes floating around in our galaxy. But so far we’ve only found 70. That’s in large part because they are so hard to find, but a citizen science project from the University of Southampton is actively seeking out these hidden monsters with the help of tens of thousands of amateur astronomers through a project on Zooniverse called [Black Hole Hunters](https://ift.tt/ZOwzmjg).

Wandering Black Holes May Hold Clues to the Evolution of the Universe

According to new research, "wandering" black holes may have left an imprint on the Universe as they traveled for billions of years.

Galaxy Evolution Can be Affected by Black Hole Jets

In recent decades, astronomers have found evidence that supermassive black holes can really mess with their galaxies' evolution. They gobble up material intended for star formation, quenching the birth of stars. Conversely, jets streaming away from those hungry monsters can also energize gas-rich regions and enhance the chances of a galaxy birthing batches of stars in those areas.

To Keep GPS Constellations From Drifting, Look To The Moon

Global Positioning Systems are a key feature in everyday life for much of the world’s population. Whether it’s ensuring a ship delivers its goods safely, or you’re able to avoid a road closure on your commute home, GPS can help. But the system has a weakness - it relies on ground stations that could suffer from blackouts, natural disasters, or cyber attacks. And if those ground stations go offline for long enough, the whole system itself can begin to “drift”. Aerospace engineers have been attempting to counteract this problem for years, but so far with little success. But a new paper from a research team led by Xia Lin and Baojun Lin at the Shanghai Engineering Center for Microsatellites, and published in Satellite Navigation, explains a potential answer to this problem - link the GPS satellites up with some in orbit around the Moon.

A Buried Volcano on the Moon Hints At An Ancient Lunar Dynamo

Scientists know for certain the moon doesn’t currently have a magnetosphere. But they’ve been debating for decades about whether it ever did. Data from both Apollo samples and orbital scientific instruments have proven divisive, and so the debate still rages. But a new paper from researchers at ETH Zurich, DLR, and the Institute of Applied Geosciences hopes to resolve the debate once and for all - by definitively proving that the Moon did, indeed, once have a magnetic dynamo.