A new statistical model reveals more details about the ringdown period of merging black holes.
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There’s nothing like a random celestial coincidence, turned good internet meme. In this case, the chance event is this weekend’s Full Moon, which also happens to be the second Full Moon of May, and is also the most distant and visually smallest Full Moon of the year.
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You’re on a camping trip with your family and your parents tell you to turn off all the lights. But, of course, your little brother wants to shine his flashlight directly at the sky saying aliens will see it. You finally get him to shut off his flashlight, and you give your eyes a few minutes to adjust to the darkness. As they do, more and more stars begin to appear in the night sky that were initially hidden beneath the glare of your (loser) brother’s flashlight. As the stars get brighter and increase in number, you start firing off a slew of questions in your head: How far away are they? Are there planets around them? What kinds of life are on those planets?
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An international team led by Associate Professor Kimihiko Nakajima of Kanazawa University has captured a rare look at the early universe. Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the power of gravitational lensing, the team achieved a definitive characterization of LAP1-B, an ultra-faint galaxy from 13 billion years ago.
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In the heirarchy of black holes, intermediate mass black holes (IMBH) lie in between stellar mass black holes and supermassive black holes. But the problem is that we've never found one. There have been hints, but nothing conclusive. Could gravitational microlensing of Fast Radio Bursts help find them?
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Scientists have captured one of the most detailed observations ever of a failed solar eruption, a powerful blast from the Sun that built into what should have been a billion tonne plasma ejection, then stalled and collapsed back to the surface. Using data from five spacecraft simultaneously, the team identified a double magnetic process that strangled the eruption from both above and below.
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In August 2025, a NASA spacecraft detected a solar radio burst that refused to stop lasting 19 days, nearly four times longer than any previously recorded. A team of researchers used data from four spacecraft spread across the inner Solar System to track the event and pinpoint its source to a magnetic structure called a helmet streamer, likely supercharged by a series of powerful solar eruptions.
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Astronomers have discovered a remarkable triple star system in which two Sun like stars orbit each other every 4.75 days, while a giant star, ten times the size of our Sun circles the pair every 412 days. All three orbit in almost exactly the same plane, and because we view that plane edge on from Earth, the stars eclipse each other in a distinctive pattern that allows all three to be measured simultaneously. The giant is slowly swelling and will eventually overflow its gravitational boundary, triggering a dramatic mass transfer event that could reshape or even destroy the system.
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Our Sun is a loner. It lacks a stellar companion hurtling through interstellar space with it. But we’ve known for a long time that’s actually relatively rare - most stars have at least one gravitationally bound partner. Understanding how exactly those stars are related to each other is critical for observational campaigns - especially for those of exoplanets. So a new paper from researchers at the University of Madrid that categorizes almost every star within ten light years into companion categories is a welcome addition to the literature on the subject, and could be used to inform the next round of planet habitable planet hunting satellites.
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We’ve been reporting a lot lately on the negative impacts of satellite constellations. And unfortunately it’s time for another article about a paper pointing out the potential hazards of them. This one, by lead author Conner Barker of University College London, focuses on the pollution caused by rocket launches - and admittedly contains some good news, but also a cautionary tale that policy makers should be aware of.
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In a stellar flyby, a star approaches our Solar System close enough to create gravitational mayhem. The last one was 70,000 years ago. There are more in the future, and it's possible that they could disrupt comets from the Oort Cloud and send them into the inner Solar System, with the risk of catastrophic impact.
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We've discovered large numbers of small rocky exoplanets, but they're at such great distances that habitability is extremely difficult to determine. New research suggests than since Mars is on the edge of being habitable, studying it in detail can shed light on rocky exoplanets. If we can understand things like tectonic activity and atmospheric escape on Mars, we can understand how they may play out on rocky exoplanets.
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New research led by Penn State scientists suggests that some of the highest-energy cosmic rays may consist of atomic nuclei heavier than iron and could help narrow down the cosmic sources capable of accelerating these particles.
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As part of a commercial partnership, NASA is developing a sophisticated chip that will give spacecraft the processing capabilities to think for themselves.
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A team of South Korean scientists has uncovered new evidence that could help explain how Earth’s atmosphere became rich in oxygen, one of the most transformative events in the planet’s history. Researchers from the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) report the finding of stromatolites, layered structures formed by microbial communities, within the Hapcheon impact crater on the Korean Peninsula. While the Hapcheon crater is only about 40,000 years old, it shows how stromatolites got a boost from the heat in impact crater hydrothermal systems.
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Could the "Great Silence" be the result of extraterrestrial civilizations dying out before they can make contact, or will they evolve to the point where communication with them is no longer possible?
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It’s 2035 and NASA’s Dragonfly quadcopter has been “hopping” around the surface of Saturn’s largest moon Titan for just over a year taking images, scanning pebbles, drilling holes, and analyzing surface material for potential signs of life. You’re at NASA JPL and just moved to Blue Team (12am-8am) from Red Team (4pm-12am), so you’re hyped up on coffee, Red Bull, and will power. It’s 3:30am, you’ve been analyzing data since you clocked in, and you keep discarding what you’ve been told looks like positive signs of life but is more commonly known as false positives. In the meantime, some microbes on Titan that got scanned by Dragonfly keep posing in front of its main camera with signs saying, “We’re here!”
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You’re on the fourth human mission to Mars, and you’ve been tasked with establishing the first self-sustaining food crop on a Martian settlement. You’re nervous because you’re using a new type of fungi called beneficial fungi, which you’re told will help enhance Martian regolith, enabling it to be used for growing crops. You were privately told that doing this will not only get a high school named after you, but you will successfully feed future settlers without the need to bring food from Earth. But you really only care about having your name on a high school.
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SpaceX's next-generation Starship V3 rocket got off to a glorious start for its first test flight, and although not all of its engines fired fully according to plan, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the mission "scored a goal for humanity."
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No dust, no way to cool a collapsing gas cloud. No way to cool it, no stars. No dust, no first rung on the ladder from grain to pebble to planet. The substance I spent two articles complaining about turns out to be the substance that makes me possible.
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NASA’S Juno spacecraft images Jupiter’s tiny moon of Thebe in a recent close approach.
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Planetary nebula are created when a dying star sheds it outer layers. The gas is lit up by the star and all the gorgeous, changing detail is exposed. NGC 1514, the Crystal Ball Nebula, is about 1500 light years away and contains a binary pair in its center. The orbits and winds from the stars create the Crystal Ball's beautiful form.
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Life on Earth relies on energy from astrophysical sources. But what if the astrophysical source isn't a star, but a supermassive black hole and its active galactic nuclei? Life needs shelter from their powerful energy, and the only shelter is distance. New research shows that SMBH and their AGN could strip away exoplanet atmospheres and destroy their ozone at vast distances.
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Two hydrogen atoms can't form an H2 molecule on their own in empty space. They need a surface. The universe has only one surface available, and it's something I have just spent two articles complaining about.
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The Southwest Research Institute-led Ultraviolet Spectrograph (UVS) instruments aboard ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft and NASA’s Europa Clipper made unique observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS in late 2025. SwRI leads the UVS instruments on both spacecraft, simultaneously imaging both hemispheres of the comet and detecting the comet’s ultraviolet emissions.
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Chinese-born cryptocurrency investor Chun Wang has become the latest deep-pocketed space enthusiast to set his sights on a trip around Mars. But first, he wants to take a ride around the moon on SpaceX's Starship. And SpaceX is willing to work with him.
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Superluminous supernovae are the royalty in the supernova world. They're up to 100 times brighter than a standard supernova, and astrophysicists want to know why. New research shows that magnetars are responsible.
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Dust scatters light, absorbs light, re-emits light, and ruins everything. It's why our maps of the Milky Way were wrong before 1930, and it's why one of the biggest cosmological announcements of the 2010s quietly evaporated.
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It’s getting crowded up there. Over the past few years, the advent of SpaceX’s Starlink and other players in the mega-satellite constellation game are adding an exponential load of satellites and orbital debris to the low Earth orbit environment. But all that goes up, must eventually come down. Now, a new study looks at solar activity over time as a predictor for how reentries trend.
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Neutrinos, the second most common fundamental particles in the universe, are notoriously difficult to detect. So far we’ve only been able to do so by building giant vats of water far underground with hundreds of photodetectors watching for brief flashes of light. But a new CubeSat mission hopes to change that dynamic and enable the neutrino detectors of the future a much less constrained and expensive existence - in space.
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Some animals can move efficiently beneath granular surfaces. These include the sandfish (Scincus scincus), a lizard native to the Sahara. It can burrow into the sand and then literally "swim" through the desert sand to hunt or escape predators. German researchers are working on a rover wheel design that mimics that swimming motion. In testing, the wheel system outperformed regular wheels.
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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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Exoplanet hunters are keen to find the next extrasolar earthlike planet, one that may harbor life as we know it. But preliminary results from a new study indicate that our galaxy may be filled with a plethora of exo-Venuses. Yet as one exoplanetary researcher notes: the template for such exo-worlds --- our own Venus --- has been ‘criminally underexplored.’
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Spacecraft often use planets for gravity-assist or "slingshot" maneuvers. NASA's Psyche mission used Mars for that purpose during a May 15th flyby. The flyby accelerated the spacecraft and aimed it at its eventual destination, the asteroid 16 Psyche. The flyby was also an opportunity to take some pictures of Mars, and to test and calibrate the spacecraft's science instruments.
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New Mexico State University (NMSU) astronomy graduate student Khagendra Katuwal studied 70 coronal holes on the sun to better understand the connection between solar activity and space weather. His paper was recently published in The Astrophysical Journal.
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In 2014, researchers presented the discovery of water vapour plumes being emitted from Jupiter's moon Europa. This caused quite a stir; it meant that the moon's buried ocean was accessible without contending with the thick ice shell that concealed it. But new research by the same researchers questions those detections.
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Typically when we think of astronomy, we think of pictures of M87 captured on a backyard telescope or the soaring colorful peaks of the Eagle Nebula seen by Hubble. But perhaps the most influential type of astronomy of the last 100+ years doesn’t directly result in the stunning pictures we’re so accustomed to today. It captures radio waves from some of the most interesting objects in the universe. And in her new book, The Echoing Universe: How Radio Astronomy Helps Us See the Invisible, Dr. Emma Chapman, a radio astronomer at the University of Nottingham, tracks how these longest wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum have influenced the practice of astronomy and our understanding of our place in the universe.
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Ingenuity, the Mars helicopter, which performed the first controlled, powered flight on another planet, was an excellent demonstration of human ingenuity. But it was just that - a demonstrator. The intention with Ingenuity was simply to prove that we could, in fact, fly on another planet. But now we’ve proved that we can, it’s time to do something more useful with that new ability - like do actual science. A new mission designed to do just that recently passed a critical testing milestone, opening the way for future Mars helicopter missions that will make Ingenuity look like our very first steps.
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When people eventually head to the Moon for long-term exploration and habitation, they'll need equipment and habitats made of well-tested materials. That's where NASA's Lunar Environment Test Rig (LESTR) comes in handy. It simulates extreme cold lunar night conditions right here in a NASA Glenn lab, testing equipment in temperatures ranging from 40K to 125K (-233 C to -148 C) in a vacuum.
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Galaxies grow through mergers and collisions, and astronomers want to know more about the mergers in the Milky Way's past. But mergers can stir up the stars in the resulting galaxy, making it difficult to determine exactly when an ancient merger occurred. A new study led by researchers at the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC) may have overcome that challenge.
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Years of grievance against dust. It ruins lungs, suits, rovers, and Mars missions. The first installment of an apology, sort of, to the most annoying substance in the cosmos.
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In the closing decades of the 20th century, several proposed explanations were put forward for why humanity has not yet found evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence in the cosmos.
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Ever since the JWST found over-massive black holes in the early Universe, researchers have been trying to understand them. Theory showed that black holes and their galaxies grew in synchronization with each other. That can't explain the JWST's findings, but new research might.
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No quantum gravity. The wrong peak in the wave function. Boltzmann Babies. Roger Penrose pointing out that the arrow of time was smuggled in through the back door. The no-boundary proposal is beautiful. It is also possibly wrong in many specific ways.
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You’re doing some late afternoon work on the habitat as part of humanity’s first exoplanet settlement, but the sun is going down so you’re trying to speed things up. Just as the light dims, everything suddenly starts getting brighter. You look up and see the sun starting to rise again, except it’s your second sun. You kick yourself for not checking the daily sunrise and sunset logs, but you’re happy you get to put in a bit more work before you eat dinner.
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There's a distinct category of exoworlds out there that orbit two stars. They're called "circumbinary" planets and up until recently, astronomers had only found about 18 of them among the 6000+ other known exoplanets and candidates. Now, a team at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia, have found 27 more potential circumbinary worlds. They credit a new method, called apsidal precession, for their finding.
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During the 1970s, the first interstellar probes were launched, carrying messages specifically designed to be intelligible to extraterrestrial species. The messages were essentially a "message in a bottle" intended for an advanced civilization, should they find the probes someday.
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Our Solar System is currently passing through the Local Interstellar Cloud, a region of highly diluted gas and dust between the stars. On its path, Earth continuously accumulates iron-60, a rare radioactive isotope of iron produced in stellar explosions. This has now been confirmed by an international research team led by the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) through the analysis of Antarctic ice tens of thousands of years old. From the steady but time-varying influx, the researchers conclude that the radioactive isotope has been stored within the cloud since a long-past stellar explosion.
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Asteroid mining seems simple in theory. A spacecraft flies up to a giant rock in space, scoops out some material, and either processes it on site or returns it back to a huge central processing facility. But in practice, it is certainly not that simple, and a new paper from some Spanish researchers, available in pre-print form on arXiv, showcases one of the reasons why - many small asteroids are spinning ridiculously fast.
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How can astronomers observe ancient galaxies when they're so challenging to resolve? By looking at a whole bunch of them at once in a single spectral line and seeing how it changes over time. That's what a new instrument called the Tomographic Ionized-carbon Mapping Experiment (TIME) does.
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