Universe Today
Resolving the Kardashev's Conundrum Using a Bitcoin-Inspired Metric
A new study reevaluates the Kardashev Scale using a new framework that includes the Bitcoin network as a means of measuring the trajectory of human development.
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General space and astronomy news
Recent Articles
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Which Types of Civilizations Collapse and Which Can Endure?
New research examines 10 different types of global technological civilizations, how they govern themselves, how they use resources, and other factors, to determine which types may endure and which may be doomed to collapse. Simulations show that resource use plays the key role. The simulations also show which types of detectable technosignatures each may generate.
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An Ancient Merger Could Have Created Titan and the Debris Created Saturn's Rings
New research presents a timeline for recent (astronomically speaking) events in the Saturnian system. It shows that Titan collided with a proto-Hyperion, and the collision smoothed Titan's surface while some of the debris accreted onto a new Hyperion and also created Saturn's rings. The research can also explain some of the Saturnian system's other unusual characteristics.
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New Measurements of Europa's Ice Shell Taint the Icy Moon's Potential Habitability
Jupiter's icy moon Europa is a tantalizing target in the search for habitability in our Solar System. Its thick, global ice sheet overlies a warm, salty, chemically-rich ocean. But for life to exist in that ocean, nutrients need to find their way from the surface to the ocean. New research says that may be very difficult.
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Researchers Use AI To Find Astronomical Anomalies Buried In Archives
AI faces strong skepticism due to its potential for misuse, its drain on resources, and even its potential dumbing down of students. But new results illustrate its uses. A team of astronomers have used a new AI-assisted method to search for rare astronomical objects in the Hubble Legacy Archive. The team sifted through nearly 100 million image cutouts in just two and a half days, uncovering nearly 1400 anomalous objects, more than 800 of which had never been documented before.
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Toxic Hydrogen Cyanide And Its Role In The Origins Of Life
Hydrogen Cyanide, which is toxic, may have played an important role in the emergence of life. Its unique properties, especially in frigid environments in space, may have helped generate the complex molecules necessary for life to appear.
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The Hubble Witnesses Catastrophic Collisions In The Fomalhaut System
For the first time, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have spotted a pair of catastrophic collisions in another solar system. They were observing Fomalhaut, a bright star about 25 light-years away, and detected a pair of planetesimal collisions and their light-reflecting dust clouds. The system is young, and the collisions reflect what our Solar System was like when it was young.
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The First Alien Civilization We Encounter Will Be Extremely Loud
When we gaze up at the night sky, we assume that what we're seeing is a representative population of similar stars at similar distances. But it's not. The stars we see are a mixture of massive and small, distant and near. In fact, we can't even see our closest neighbour, Proxima Centauri. We see these stars because they have large observational signals, and that illustrates one of the problems in astronomy.
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Galactic Empires May Live at the Center of our Galaxy, Hence Why We Don't Hear from Them
In a recent paper, a team of researchers proposes how humanity may someday relocate its entire civilization near the center of our galaxy to take advantage of the relativistic effects of the supermassive black hole there. They also indicate how other advanced civilizations could have done so already.
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Hidden In The Sun's Glare, This Asteroid Is Uncomfortably Close To Earth
Astronomers have detected an extremely fast asteroid in the blinding light of the Sun. Objects are extremely difficult to discern in the Sun's glare, but these 'twilight' asteroids could pose a threat to Earth. It's important that we find them all.
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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.
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Asteroid Bennu Is Like A Time Capsule From The Early Solar System
New research based on samples from asteroid Bennu show that the asteroid contains materials from throughout the Solar System. Some of its materials are from even more distant realms: the asteroid contains stardust from stars that existed long before our Solar System did.
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Uranus' 29th Moon Can't Hide From The JWST
The JWST has found another moon orbiting Uranus. It's the planet's 29th known moon, and it bears the uninspiring, temporary name S/2025 U1. It's too small and faint to be detected by the Hubble, or by Voyager 2, the only spacecraft to visit the ice giant.
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It's Official: Asteroids Ryugu and Bennu Are Siblings
Some scientists thought that the asteroids Ryugu and Bennu were from the same family. Now that they have samples and JWST spectra from both, the verdict is in: They're both from the Polana collisional family, a diverse and widespread family of asteroids.
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Scientists Use Earth's Shadow to Hunt for Alien Probes
For decades, astronomers have searched for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence using radio telescopes and optical instruments, scanning the skies for artificial signals. Now, researchers are taking a different approach, this time looking much closer to home for alien artefacts that might already be in our Solar System.
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This Trans-Neptunian Object Moves in Sync With Neptune. Was it Captured by Neptune?
Astronomers have detected a Trans-Neptunian Object (TNO) that's moving in rhythm with Neptune. It's called 2020 VN40 and is the first confirmed object that orbits the Sun once for every ten Neptune orbits. It could be an example of an object caught by Neptune's gravity.
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Astronomers Use the Colours of Trans-Neptunian Objects' to Track an Ancient Stellar Flyby
Trans-Neptunian Objects reside in the distant Solar System as remnants of the System's early days. They follow unusual orbits and range in colour from reds to greys. New research uses their colours and orbits to show how a stellar flyby can account for their modern-day orbits.
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Would a Planetary Sunshade Help Cool the Planet? This Mission Could Find Out
As worldwide temperatures continue to rise and conventional solutions aren't working fast enough, governments may turn to geoengineering solutions. One idea is to place a giant sunshade somewhat like an umbrella between the Earth and the Sun to block some of the sunlight that reaches our planet. A new mission proposes sending an 81 m² sail to Earth-Sun L1 to measure the effect of blocking a tiny fraction of solar energy.