The Most Metal-Free Star Ever Observed is Found In Our Own Backyard

Astronomers find a nearly metal-free star in our own back yard, which tells us a few interesting things about early star formation.

Open Source Mega-Constellations Could Solve Overcrowding

Duplicating expensive resources is expensive and wasteful, and most people would agree it's unnecessary. However, the planned increase in major satellite constellations is currently causing a massive duplication of resources as individual companies and even countries try to set up their own infrastructure in space. What’s more, there is a relatively limited amount of space in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), where many of these satellites are supposed to go - any more than that and a single collision could cause Kessler Syndrome, where many of the ones already in orbit would be destroyed and we wouldn’t be able to launch any more for a long time. A new paper from researchers at the National University of Defense Technology in China suggests an alternative to these multiple megaconstellations - a single, modular system similar to how cloud computing works on the current internet.

Tianwen-2 Probe Takes a Selfie with Earth to Mark China's National Day

The China National Space Administration on Wednesday released a breathtaking image captured by the Tianwen-2 probe, showing the spacecraft and Earth framed together in a "celestial selfie."

Comet A6 Lemmon's Encore October Evening Show

October 2025 may provide a memorable sky scene, as Comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon puts on an encore appearance at dusk. The comet joins Comet R2 SWAN, which slides 0.26 Astronomical Units (AU) past Earth on October 20th. Both are currently fine objects for binoculars or a small telescope, vying for top spot at magnitude +6.

An Ultra-Fast Outflow Causes Scientists To Lower Mass Estimates Of The Brighest Quasar In the Universe

Peering back into the early years of the universe requires scientists to make a lot of assumptions. But sometimes, we get better instruments that then allow them to either confirm or replace those assumptions. That happened recently when it came to our study of J0529, a supermassive black hole that is currently the brightest known quasar in the universe. A new paper from a massive team of researchers used the GRAVITY+ instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) Very Large Telescope (VLT) Interferometer to map this unique object’s Broad Line Region (BLR), and thereby calculated a new, updated mass that is 10 times smaller than previous estimates.

Check Out These Gravitational Lenses Imaged by Webb During its First Run

This ESA/Webb Picture of the Month shows eight stunning examples of gravitational lensing. Gravitational lensing, which was first predicted by Einstein, occurs because massive objects like galaxies and clusters of galaxies dramatically warp the fabric of spacetime. When a massive foreground object lines up just so with a background galaxy, the light from the background galaxy bends as it navigates the warped spacetime on its way to our telescopes.

Black Holes Have No Hair, But They Do Have Comb Overs

Black have no hair, but the material surrounding them does, and the two can interact in unusual ways. As observations from the Event Horizon Telescope show, the magnetic fields surrounding a black hole can change extremely fast.

3I/ATLAS's Coma Proves Another Cometary Formation Theory

Interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS has been constantly changing as it makes its way through our solar system. That’s to be expected, as, for the first time in potentially billions of years, it's getting close to the energy put out by a star. Scientists have been keeping a close watch on those changes, both to ensure there’s nothing unexplainable by our current understanding, but also to compare 3I/ATLAS to both previous interstellar visitors as well as comets in our own solar system. A recent paper from European researchers describes how the changes in a particular material ratio in 3I/ATLAS’ coma fit with our current understanding of cometary geology.

New Research Suggests Red Dwarf Systems are Unlikely to Have Advanced Civilizations

While no evidence of life beyond Earth has been found (yet), it is assumed that life and habitable planets are the norm (per the Copernican Principle). Meanwhile, exoplanet studies have revealed several rocky planets orbiting within the habitable zones of nearby dwarf suns. But as Columbia University Professor David Kipping argues in a recent paper, there is evidence that Earth could be an outlier, while rocky planets orbiting red dwarfs may not be capable of supporting advanced life.

Rogue Planet Found Having Massive "Growth Spurt"

New observations made with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) identified an enormous a rogue planet with the strongest growth rate ever recorded. These observations reveal that this free-floating planet is eating up gas and dust from its surroundings at a rate of six billion tonnes a second.

We Can Do More Exoplanet Science By Understanding the Dark Edge of It's Star

By modeling the limb darkening of a star, astronomers can get a better measure of the transit depth of an exoplanet. This will allow us to get better measurements of the size of exoplanets.

Take a Flight Over the Martian Surface with the ESA's Mars Express

ESA’s Mars Express takes us on another mesmerizing flight over the highlands of Xanthe Terra to the smoother lowlands of Chryse Planitia. Billions of years ago, water surged through this region, creating many of the features we see today.

Catching the October Action With Jupiter’s Moons

Jupiter and its moons are busy in October. If skies are clear, be sure to set your alarm and follow the largest planet in our solar system this month. While massive Jupiter always warrants a view through even a small telescope, its four major Galilean moons warrant special interest, as we’re in the midst of a season of rare double shadow transits.

New Organic Molecules Found In Old Cassini Data

Enceladus’ ice continues to get more and more intriguing as researchers continue to unlock more secrets taken from a probe over ten years ago. When Cassini crashed into Saturn in 2017, it ended a 13 year sojourn that is still producing new research papers today. A recent one in Nature Astronomy from the researchers at the Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Stuttgart found hints of organic molecules discovered for the first time on the icy moon, some of which could serve as precursors to even more advanced biomolecules.

Enceladus Isn't Throwing As Much Ice Into Orbit As We Thought

Modeling something like geysers on a far-away moon seems like it should be easy. How much complexity could there possibly be when a geyser is simply a hole in some ice shooting superheated water through it? The answer is pretty complex, to be honest - enough that accurate models require a supercomputer to run on. Luckily, the supercomputing cluster at the University of Texas, known as the Texas Advanced Computing Center, gave some time to researcher modeling Enceladus’ ice plumes, and their recent paper in JGR Planets discusses the results, which show there might not be as much water and ice getting blown into orbit as originally thought.

Ariel Had A 170km Deep Sub-Surface Water Ocean

Interest in icy moons has been growing steadily as they become more and more interesting to astrobiologists. Some take the majority of the attention, like Enceladus with its spectacular geysers. But there are interesting ones that might be hiding amongst even thicker ice shells in the Uranian system. A new paper published in Icarus from researchers at the Planetary Science Institute, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of North Dakota, looks at what Ariel, the fourth biggest moon in the Uranian system, might look like under its icy surface.

Setting Bounds On SETI

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has a data scale problem. There are just too many places to look for an interstellar signal, and even if you’re looking in the right place you could be looking at the wrong frequency or at the wrong time. Several strategies have come up to deal narrow the search given this overabundance of data, and a new paper from Naoki Seto of the Kyoto University falls nicely into that category - by using the Brightest Of All TIme (BOAT) Gamma Ray Burst, with some help from our own galaxy.

Astronomers Detect the First "Heartbeat" of a Newborn Star

Gamma ray bursts are among the most luminous explosions in the universe, briefly outshining entire galaxies in a violent flash of energy. For decades, scientists have debated what powers these incredibly powerful detonations and, to date, the leading candidates have been black holes or highly magnetised neutron stars called magnetars. Distinguishing between the two has proven frustratingly difficult though but a new study has just provided the clearest evidence yet that magnetars can indeed power some of these extreme events, and they did it by detecting something unexpected, the "heartbeat" of a newborn star.

Galaxies with High Radio Emissions Could be Home to Many Advanced Civilizations

arXiv:2508.00249v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Any population of artificial radio broadcasts in a galaxy contributes to its integrated radio luminosity. If this radio emission is bright enough, inhabited galaxies themselves form a cosmic population of artificial radio galaxies. We can detect these broadcasts individually or set constraints from their collective emission. Using the formalism in Paper I and II, I set bounds on the artificial radio galaxy population using both of these methodol...

Could a Primordial Black Hole Explain that Mysterious Neutrino?

If a new proposal by MIT physicists bears out, the recent detection of a record-setting neutrino could be the first evidence of elusive Hawking radiation.

Measuring Earth's Wobble Without Looking at the Stars

Most people are familiar with the fact that the Earth spins on its axis once every day. The spin however, isn’t as steady as you might think. Like a spinning top slowing down, Earth’s axis wobbles, scribing out a circle on the night sky that currently points very close to the Pole Star in the northern hemisphere. This wobble is driven by the shape of the Earth and for decades, this wobble has been tracked by a network of radio telescopes. A team of astronomers have measured this wobble to a level of accuracy that has never been achieved before.

Kepler Reveals the True Source of the Signal Coming From KOI-1755

Researchers Uncover True Source of KOI-1755 Transit Signal Using Kepler Space Telescope kerryhensley45577 Mon, 09/08/2025 - 10:36 Researchers Uncover True Source of KOI-1755 Transit Signal Using Kepler Space Telescope https://ift.tt/smj5SRI

The Asteroid Belt's Slow Disappearing Act

Asteroids have held a special place in my heart ever since I saw one silently drift between Earth and the Moon a good few years ago. Never studied them properly so more of a passing interest but any time a story relating to asteroids pops up it peaks my interest. For the most part, the origin of an asteroid is the asteroid belt, a ring of rocky debris orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. A new study has calculated precisely how fast this reservoir of space rocks is being depleted from collisions and gravitational interactions that evict asteroids and just where that material ends up.

A Black Hole Merger's "Kick" Was Measured For The First Time

Black hole mergers are some of the most violent events in the universe. Just how violent is becoming more clear in part due to a new paper published in Nature Astronomy. For the first time, it tracks the “recoil” that the newly formed black hole gets from asymmetric gravitational waves that are released during the merger. Turns out they are strong enough to “kick” the new, supermassive combined black hole into motion at a speed of thousands of kilometers a second.

Scientists Discover First Evidence of Lava Tubes on Venus

Venus has often been called Earth’s sister planet however there are stark differences between them. Among the similarities are a number of geological features and lava tubes are just one example. These natural tunnels form when the surface of a lava flow cools and solidifies while hot lava continues to flow beneath. They are common in Iceland and Hawaii and now, for the first time they have been found on Venus too.

Constraining Proxima b’s Atmosphere, Orbit, and Albedo with RISTRETTO

What new methods can be employed to help astronomers distinguish the light from an exoplanet and its host star so the former’s atmosphere can be better explored? This is what a recent study accepted to Astronomy & Astrophysics hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated how a novel and proposed telescopic instrument that could be capable of characterizing exoplanet atmospheres in new and exciting ways. This study has the potential to help scientists develop novel tools for examining exoplanets and whether they could possess life as we know it, or even as we don’t know it.

NASA is Looking to Launch Artemis II by February

NASA announced that Artemis II, the first crewed mission to the Moon since the Apollo Era, will launch by February 2026. The crew has named their spacecraft "Integrity" to honor the efforts those working tirelessly to realize NASA's long-awaited return to the Moon.

Primordial Black Holes Could Be Triggering Type Ia Supernovae

A new article published in The Astrophysical Journal explores a new theory of how Type Ia supernovae, the powerful stellar explosions that astronomers use to measure distances across the universe, might be triggered. Traditionally, these supernovae occur when a white dwarf star explodes after interacting with a companion star. But this explanation has limitations, leaving open questions about how these events line up with the consistent patterns astronomers actually observe.

A Herd of Tumbleweed Rovers Could Explore Mars

Tumbleweeds offer iconic visual depictions of desolate landscapes. Though typically associated with the American West, the most common type of tumbleweed actually originated in Europe, and is known scientifically as salsola targus, or more commonly as Russian thistle. So its only fitting that a team led by European scientists has some up with an idea based on the tumbleweed’s unique properties that could one day have groups of them exploring Mars.

Next Generation Chip Could Find Help Find Alien Life

Are we alone in the universe? It’s a question that has plagued us since the ancient Greeks posed it for the first time in the 5th century and since then we have tried all manner of ways to reach out to our alien cousins….if they exist. We have fixed golden plaques to space probes, beamed messages out from radio telescopes and in 2012 even sent 10,000 ‘X’ (formerly twitter) messages out to three star systems with the hashtag #ChasingUFOs! A new tool has been developed, rather mundane compared to these other examples, which is no bigger than a soft drink can and could detect signs of life on alien worlds with unprecedented precision.

The JWST Searches For Stars In A Glowing Gas Cloud

The JWST examined the most vigorous star-forming region in the entire galaxy. It's called Sagittarius B2, and while astronomers have studied it in detail, no other telescope reveals its details the way the JWST can.

Can IMAP Solve the Mystery of the Bubble in Space!

When astronauts head out into space they are protected from deadly radiation by their spacecraft and on space walks, their space suit. Back on Earth, we too are protected but by an invisible bubble that’s known as the heliosphere. The heliosphere has been subjected to numerous studies over the years but NASA’s newest mission is set to give us the most detailed of it map ever created.

This Rapidly-Growing Black Hole Could Explain The JWST's Puzzling Findings

NASA's Chandra X-ray space telescope has found a black hole that's growing at an extremely rapid pace. The telescope is seeing the black hole, which has about one billion solar masses, when the Universe was less than one billion years old. Studying its rapid accretion could explain how some black holes become so massive so soon after the Big Bang.

Mars Had Multiple Episodes of Hability, Says New Research

The Search for Australia's Hidden Impact Crater

A team of scientists in south Australia have discovered tiny pieces of glass that tell the story of a catastrophic event that happened 11 million years ago, an asteroid impact so massive it should have left a crater the size of a major city, yet mysteriously, no one has found it. This discovery represents only the sixth known tektite field ever identified on Earth. The glassy fragments, scattered across the landscape are forcing scientists to reconsider what they know about ancient asteroid impacts and the geological features they leave behind.

Spaceflight as a Model for Studying Age-Related Muscle Decline

How does spaceflight influence sarcopenia, which is a common age-related muscle decline, specifically for elder adults? This is what a recent study published in Stem Cell Reports hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated how microgravity influences muscle cell function. This study has the potential to help scientists, mission planners, astronauts, and the public better understand the long-term health impacts of microgravity on muscle decline and the steps that can be taken to mitigate it.

A Mission To Observe Earth's "Halo" Is On Its Way

Some NASA missions are designed for very specific tasks, but all of them help feed into our understanding of our universe, and in some cases our pale blue dot, work. A new mission to study one of the more esoteric parts of the atmosphere is scheduled to launch today, and over the next 2-3 years will monitor the outer reaches of our planet’s atmosphere.

Liquid Water Flowed On Ryugu More Than One Billion Years After It Formed

Researchers working with a sample from asteroid Ryugu discovered that water flowed on the asteroid almost one billion years after it formed. The finding suggests that carbon-rich asteroids could've delivered far more water to Earth than thought.

Lunar Astronauts Could Grow Their Own Tea

A team of researchers from Kent have demonstrated that it is possible to grow tea in lunar soil as part of a wider field of work to explore how future astronauts living and working on the moon can grow their own food.

Could Dark Energy Be Evolving Over Time?

A new study, based on years of precise data from telescopes such as the Dark Energy Survey in Chile, above, suggests that the mysterious force known as dark energy may be evolving over time rather than constant.

The Galaxy's Influence on Earth can be Found in Crystals

Earth’s History Written in the Stars: Zircon Crystals Reveal Galactic Influence kerryhensley45577 Tue, 09/16/2025 - 10:27 Earth’s History Written in the Stars: Zircon Crystals Reveal Galactic Influence https://ift.tt/AImOUWT

How Do You Build Something On Mars?

Let’s say you’ve picked the perfect spot for building a settlement on Mars. But this opens up some pretty nasty questions. Building…what? And building….with what?

The Homebuyer's Guide to Martian Settlement

Let’s say you’re in charge of a Mars mission. Okay boss, where do we land?

Catch a Far-Flung Partial Solar Eclipse This Weekend

Subtle astronomical events can still produce memorable scenes, hidden away in distant locales. Such a spectacle goes down on Sunday/Monday, September 21st/22nd, with a partial solar eclipse. Although the eclipse only skims the southernmost portion of the South Pacific, viewers along the eastern coast of Australia, Antarctica and all of New Zealand will see an unforgettable sight, as a partially-eclipsed Sun rises out of the sea.

Practicing for Mars Here on Earth

Before we get to Mars, we’re going to have to practice. And develop radical leaps in technology, but also practice.

Saturn 'On Razor's Edge' at Opposition for 2025

It seems like most of the planets have fled the evening scene. But that’s about to change this week. Saturn reaches opposition on Sunday, September 21st, passing closest to the Earth at just over 8.5 Astronomical Units (AU) or 1.3 million kilometers distant, and rising opposite to the setting Sun. This marks the best time to view the ringed world, as it dominates the night sky from sunset until sunrise.

Rare Triple Conjunction Smiles at Dawn on September 19th

Sometimes, it seems as if the Universe is literally smiling down upon us. If skies are clear this coming Friday September 19th, be sure to wake up early to catch a bizarre celestial scene as Venus, Regulus and the slim crescent Moon huddle together in the eastern dawn. This triple play is a complicated one, evolving one of the best conjunctions for 2025.

Clusters and Chains of Stars Reveal a Dynamic Milky Way

Gaia Proves Our Skies Are Filled with Chains of Starry Gatherings Gaia Proves Our Skies Are Filled with Chains of Starry Gatherings https://ift.tt/ow5pINq

What's So Fundamental About the Fundamental Constants?

What are the constants of nature? What do they do? What do they tell us…and what do they not tell us?

Lasers Can Melt Through Extraterrestrial Ice Efficiently

Lasers aren’t just useful for entertaining cats or pointing out features of powerpoint slides. They can also drill holes on icy extraterrestrial bodies from comets to Mars polar caps. At least according to a new paper in Acta Astronautica by researchers at the Technical University of Dresden, who describe a new laser drill for use on icy surfaces throughout our solar system.

This Trio Of Robots Could Explore Lunar Caves

Seeking refuge in caves is natural. Animals do it, and so did our ancestors. Future lunar astronauts may do the same when they visit the Moon. Lunar caves can provide protection from the harsh radiation that bathes the Moon, the wild temperature swings on its surface, and from meteorites that can damage spacesuits and equipment. But these caves need to be explored first, and new research outlines how a team of three diverse robots working together could do the job.

New Study Follows Planetary Nebula Through 130 Years of Evolution

A study published in a recent edition of Astrophysical Journal Letters by researchers at the University of Manchester and Hong Kong University has charted the growth and evolution of IC418, spanning observations going all the way back to years after its discovery in the late 19th century.