The weak nuclear force is the eccentric cousin of the four forces — the one that only shakes hands with left-handed particles. That bizarre preference turns out to be absolutely critical for stars, nuclear fusion, and the existence of most matter. And neutrinos love it. There's just one problem: neutrinos appear to only exist in one handedness, which makes no sense at all.
What if the same collisions we think of as forces of destruction were actually the spark that created life on Earth? New research published in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering is making a compelling case that meteor impacts didn't just reshape our planet's surface, instead that they may have built the very cradles where life first emerged.
A crater the size of two football pitches has appeared on the Moon and for the first time, scientists have been able to watch exactly what happened. Captured by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter before and after the impact, this remarkable discovery is giving planetary scientists an unprecedented close up of one of the Solar System's most fundamental processes. Here's what they found.
A brilliant physicist vanished in 1938, leaving behind one strange, quiet paper. It described something that shouldn't exist: a particle that is its own antiparticle. To understand why that matters, we first need to rethink what a particle even is — and that means getting weird with chirality, the Higgs field, and the neutrino's stubborn refusal to follow the rules.
A class of undergraduate students at University of Chicago has used data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to discover one of the oldest stars in the universe, a star that formed in a companion galaxy and migrated to the Milky Way.
The two largest planets in our Solar System, Jupiter and Saturn, have the largest systems of moons. However, Jupiter has more large moons than Saturn, which has only one. Since both planets are gas giants, the reasons for the differences in these satellite systems have long puzzled astronomers. This motivated a collaborative team of researchers from Japan and China to develop a physically consistent model that can explain this.
Space is getting crowded - and not just with satellites, but with the massive amounts of data they’re generating. The amount of information being generated and passed through orbit is exploding. From high-resolution Earth observation images to global maritime monitoring, it’s also become a critical link in our infrastructure. But there’s another space this growing crowd of satellites is dependent on that is also filling up fast - the radio frequency spectrum. If we want to keep expanding our orbital infrastructure, we need to rethink how we move data around. On March 30, 2026, the European Space Agency (ESA) supported a series of eight CubeSats and one specialized payload on SpaceX’s Transporter-16 rideshare mission with the overarching goals of testing high-throughput laser communication, inter-satellite networking, and in-orbit artificial intelligence processing to make space data transfer faster, more secure, and vastly more efficient.
On August 19, 2022, astronomers using the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) on the Hawaiian island of Maui caught the fading remnants of a C-class solar flare. Their observations showed something unusual: very strong spectral fingerprints of calcium II H and hydrogen-epsilon lines. It was the first time these two light signatures were seen in great detail during a flare. According to computer models, those lines were stronger than expected and play a not well-understood role in how flares heat the solar atmosphere where they occur.
The first flyby images of the Moon captured by NASA’s Artemis II astronauts during their historic test flight reveal some regions no human has seen, including a rare in-space solar eclipse. Released Tuesday, astronauts captured the images April 6 during the mission’s seven-hour flyby of the lunar far side, showing humanity’s return to the Moon’s […]
Observing the Taurus Molecular Cloud, a research team led by Kyushu University has found that during the early growth period of a baby star, the protostellar disk blows magnetic flux 1,000 au in size and creates a giant, relatively warm ring. Describing these phenomena as a baby star’s “sneezes,” these expulsions of energy and gas help the star to properly develop.
Reading the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson brings the benefits and pitfalls of efforts to terraform the Red Planet into sharp relief. Since the 1970s, when Carl Sagan first suggested the possibility that we could make Mars more Earth-like, that process has been a staple of science fiction. But there’s always been a significant amount of humanity that thinks we shouldn’t. A new paper available in pre-print on arXiv from Edwin Kite of the University of Chicago and his co-authors skirts around the ethical and moral questions of whether we should and tries to take a long hard look at whether we can.
Two images of protoplanetary disks side-by-side. The left image shows a dark horizontal band covering the star, with broad, colorful, conical outflows above and below it, and a narrow jet pointing directly up and down from the star. The right image shows the star within a yellow dusty disk, with scattered dust creating purple lobes above and below the disk. Each is on a black background with several galaxies or stars around it.
A Mercury lander mission would create opportunities to sample unique geological features. However, extreme temperature fluctuations on Mercury’s surface pose challenges for exploration on the planetary surface. In a narrow region near the terminator, temperate conditions would allow a rover to run on solar power and collect data and surface samples without needing to withstand the extreme heat.
In the vastness of the Universe, any new object with interesting properties can spur the search for similar objects, potentially establishing a new class of stars. In a paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics and an arXiv preprint, researchers from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) describe two stellar remnants that share five properties, including X-ray emission, despite being isolated objects. According to the team, these two remnants are sufficient to define a new class of stars.
We’ve spent decades scratching the surface of Mars trying to uncover life there. But we’ve been searching a barren wasteland bombarded by radiation and bathed in toxic perchlorates. The entire time, it's likely that it’s been too hostile to harbor extant life. So if we want a better shot at finding currently living life on Mars, we need to go underground. That is exactly the purpose of Orpheus, a proposed Mars vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) hopper mission put forth by Connor Bunn and Pascal Lee of the SETI Institute at the 57th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC).
The Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (SuperCDMS) experiment has reached its coldest operating temperature, hundreds of times colder than outer space.
New research shows that Earth formed from inner Solar System material. Isotopic geochemistry analysis found no evidence that material from beyond Jupiter contributed to Earth's bulk composition. The results also support the idea that Earth's water wasn't delivered by comets.
Japan’s space agency, JAXA, has been knocking it out of the park with small-body exploration missions for decades. They had historic successes with both Hayabusa and Hayabusa2, and they are going to visit the Martian Moons soon with the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission. But after that, they are aiming for something much more pristine and arguably more difficult - a comet. The Next Generation Small-Body Return (NGSR) was recently described in a paper at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), and is under assessment as a large-class mission for the 2030s.
The water locked up in the Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) of the Moon’s south pole is a critical resource if we are ever going to get a permanent lunar presence off the ground. But while we know the water ice there exists, we don’t really know how much. We have to move from general estimates to mineable-scale prospecting data. That is what Oasis-1, the newly proposed lunar prospecting mission from Blue Origin that was recently introduced at the 2026 Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) is meant to do.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Astronomers have long argued that dark matter is the invisible scaffolding that holds galaxies together. Without its immense gravitational pull, the rotational spins of galaxies would force them to simply fly apart. But now, scientists have found a string of galaxies that seem to be missing their dark matter entirely. The latest in this string, known as NGC 1052-DF9, is described in a new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv, by Michael Keim, Pieter van Dokkum and their team from Yale. It lends credence to a radical theory of galaxy formation known as the “Bullet Dwarf” collision scenario, which has been a controversial idea for the last decade.
For some time, astronomers have theorized that there is a connection between planetary mass and rotation. Using the W.M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawai'i, a team of astronomers confirmed this relationship by studying dozens of gas giants and brown dwarfs in distant star systems.
The planet Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, and also the most difficult for spacecraft to visit and explore. This is because as spacecraft get closer to Mercury, the Sun’s enormous gravity pulls in the spacecraft, greatly increasing its speed and making it hard to slow down without large amounts of fuel. But what if a spacecraft could both travel to and explore Mercury without fuel? This could drastically reduce mission costs while delivering impactful science.
The planet Venus is often called “Earth’s twin” due to the similar sizes, but the reality couldn’t be farther from the truth. Unlike Earth, which is hospitable to an estimated billions of lifeforms, Venus is not hospitable to life as we know it, at least on its surface. This is because the surface of Venus not only experiences an average temperature of 464 degrees Celsius (867 degrees Fahrenheit), but it also has crushing pressures approximately 92 times of Earth, or equivalent to approximately 1 kilometer (3,000 feet) below the ocean. These extreme surface conditions are why the longest spacecraft to survive on the Venusian surface is just over two hours.
Ordinary telecoms grade optical fiber could help planetary scientists better characterize the moon’s deep interior as well as its lava tubes, say two new journal papers.
The Universe expanded rapidly soon after the Big Bang, and we aren't sure why. But a theory of quadratic quantum gravity might be the answer.
The ice giant Uranus is one of the most fascinating objects in the solar system, with its sideways rotation, intricate ring system, and unique family of moons. However, it is also one of the least explored objects in the solar system, owing to its extreme distance from the Sun. With NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft remaining as the only spacecraft to visit Uranus, scientists continue to design and envision mission concepts for returning to explore Uranus and its icy secrets.
Less than two days from now, NASA’s Artemis II mission is scheduled to lift off for its historic 10-day journey around the Moon, marking the first time humans have ventured beyond Low Earth Orbit for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972, and possibly even set new distance records for traveling beyond Earth. However, Artemis II is only scheduled as a flyby mission and will not be landing humans on the lunar surface, with this endeavor being scheduled for later missions.
Astronomers studying the ultra-faint dwarf galaxy Pictor II have found an extremely chemically peculiar star that contains traces of elements created by the first stars in the Universe. It's called PicII-503, a "second-generation star" that is one of the most chemically primitive stars ever found.
This collection of images from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes contains regions where stars are forming. Often nicknamed “stellar nurseries,” they are cosmic gardens from which stars – not plants – emerge from the interstellar soil of gas and dust.
Mars today is a frozen, barren world where liquid water can briefly appear on its surface but evaporates almost instantly in the thin atmosphere, unable to persist in any meaningful quantity. But a handful of pale, bleached rocks spotted by NASA's Perseverance rover are telling a very different story about the planet's past, one of tropical downpours, sodden landscapes, and conditions that might once have been hospitable to life.
In his blockbuster 1982 novel "Space", the writer James A. Michener wove a gripping tale of astronauts trapped on the Moon during a major solar storm. Warnings from Earth didn't come soon enough to save them from death by radiation sickness. To avoid such a tragedy happening with the Artemis crews (as with the Apollo crews of the past), NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will monitor the Sun. If it acts up, the teams will be able to send warnings and instructions to the Artemis crews to pro tect them.
Finding life beyond our solar system goes beyond measuring an exoplanet’s size, as rocky, Earth-sized worlds might not have the conditions for life as we know it. While exoplanets can be directly imaged by blocking their star’s glare, these images are fuzzy and lack resolution to provide enough details about the habitability. Therefore, astronomers are limited to studying an exoplanet’s atmosphere, and this has proven to be quite beneficial in teaching scientists about an exoplanet’s formation and evolution, and whether it contains the necessary ingredients for life as we know it.
Asteroids don’t get the love they deserve. They don’t get “cool points” because they’re not a planet or a potential life-harboring moon. They’re “just a bunch of rocks”. But asteroids are so much more, as they are time capsules of the early solar system that have survived billions of years untouched by weathering or plate tectonics. One of the most intriguing asteroids that has been explored is asteroid Bennu, and specifically how its physical characteristics greater differed from Earth-based observations in 2007 after NASA OSIRIS-REx spacecraft visited Bennu in 2018.
Liquid water is considered essential for life. Surprisingly, however, stable conditions that are conducive to life could exist far from any sun. A research team from the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS at LMU and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) has shown that moons around free-floating planets can keep their water oceans liquid for up to 4.3 billion years by virtue of dense hydrogen atmospheres and tidal heating—that is to say, for almost as long as Earth has existed and sufficient time for complex life to develop.
The criteria for finding an Earth-like planet unofficially comes down to two things: water and the habitable zone. But a phenomenon known as atmospheric escape often “escapes” the minds of many astronomy fans, and it turns out that atmospheric escape is one of the key characteristics for finding an Earth-like world. Although extensive research has been conducted on how the planet Mars might have lost its atmosphere, and potentially the ability to sustain life, how would the atmosphere enveloping a Mars-like exoplanet respond to stars different from our own?
Water is the difference between a temporary visit and a permanent home. If humanity is serious about building a lasting presence on the Moon, finding usable ice near the lunar south pole isn't just a scientific curiosity, it's a practical necessity. Now NASA is sending a clever instrument that hunts for water without digging a single hole, using the behaviour of subatomic particles to sniff out hidden ice deposits up to three feet underground.
In September 2022, humanity crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid - on purpose. The objective of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was to see if we could intentionally modify the orbit of Dimorphos, the small moonlet orbiting the larger asteroid Didymos. According to all accounts, the mission worked spectacularly, but it was a one-way trip, so our ability to see what happened to the binary asteroid system has so far been limited to ground-based telescopes. That wasn’t good enough for the planetary defense community, so they planned a follow up mission called Hera, which, according to a recent press release from its operator, the European Space Agency (ESA), just successfully completed its most dramatic deep-space orbital maneuver.
A team led by Professor Mian Long from the Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, investigated the effects of space microgravity on cultured liver cells aboard the China Space Station.
Juno observations show that Jupiter's lightning, already known to be powerful, is far more energetic than thought. Lightning triggered by a stealth superstorm in 2021-22 could be up to one million times more powerful than terrestrial lightning.
Venus is increasingly becoming a touch point for our studies of the exoplanets, as missions like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)and the upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) begin to characterize rocky exoplanets around other stars. Understanding the difference between the evolutions of Venus and Earth, which ended up with such different results, is a key to understanding whether we might be looking at an Earth-analogue or a hellish landscape like Venus. A new paper by Rodolfo Garcia of the University of Washington and his colleagues, which is available in pre-print form on arXiv, simulates Venus’ 4.5 billion year evolution as part of the solar system to try to understand some of those differences.
NASA is serving up a double scoop of delicious Saturn imagery in two flavors — near-infrared from the James Webb Space Telescope, and visible light from the Hubble Space Telescope.
We’re getting close to launch day for Dragonfly! Engineers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, have officially kicked off the integration and testing stage for the car-sized, nuclear-powered helicopter bound for Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. According to a press release for APL, after years of designing, tweaking, and testing individual components in laboratories and on computer simulations, various organizations have started testing actual hardware ahead of the mission’s planned 2028 launch.
You’re the Lead Botanist on the third human mission to Mars whose primary job involves growing food for the crew throughout the long mission. While you’re very familiar with the infamous “poop potatoes” from the 2025 film The Martian, the greatest minds in science had since devised a more efficient, and less messy, method for growing food on Mars: cyanobacteria.
