The Universe is a strange place. The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) orbiting observatory recently highlighted this fact, when it was turned on a pulsar to document its powerful cosmic winds. The discovery comes courtesy of ESA’s Resolve instrument, a soft X-ray spectrometer aboard XRISM. The study looked at neutron star GX 13+1. This is a strong X-ray source located in the constellation Sagittarius, very near the galactic plane towards the core of our galaxy. GX 13+1 is about 23,000 light-years distant.

Driving on the Moon for the first time has got to be an exhilarating experience. But driving the same path on the Moon for the 500th time probably won’t be nearly as exciting to whatever poor astronaut got stuck with that duty for the day. With that in mind, a team of researchers led by PhD student Alec Krawciw and Professor Tim Barfoot of the University of Toronto are working on a way to automate the mundane task of driving goods back and forth from a lunar landing site to a nascent lunar exploration base.

Are we alone? It’s probably one of the, if not the most basic questions of human existence. People have been trying to answer it for millennia in one form or another, but only recently have we gained the tools and knowledge to start tractably trying to estimate whether we are or not. Those efforts take the form of famous tools like the Fermi Paradox and the Drake Equation, but there’s always room for a more nuanced understanding. A new paper in Acta Astronautica from Antal Veres of the Hungarian University of Agriculture introduces a new one - The Solitude Zone.

Threats from space aren’t always obvious, but statistically its only a matter of time before one of them happens. One of the most concerning for many space experts is a massive solar storm, like the one that literally lit telegraph paper on fire when it hit back in 1859. In the last 150 years our technology has improved by leaps and bounds, but that also means it's much more susceptible to damage if another event like the “Carrington Event”, as the storm in 1859 is called. Estimates for potential damage range into the trillions of dollars, with full economic recovery taking well over a decade if something isn’t done to mitigate the damage beforehand. As part of that preparedness, the European Space Agency (ESA) has started requiring the operational crew of new satellites, which would be on the frontlines of any solar storm catastrophe, to simulate how they would handle such an event, as described in a recent press release focused on one of those simulations.

A new study has revealed how phosphorus, a nutrient essential for photosynthesis, surged into ancient oceans and started Earth's first major rise in atmospheric oxygen more than 2 billion years ago.

Acting NASA chief Sean Duffy announces that NASA's plan to land astronauts on the Moon by 2027 is no longer achievable and announces new competitions to develop a lunar lander.

The chemistry of a galaxy changes over time as generations of stars live and die, spreading the results of their nucleosynthesis out into space. But stars with different masses produce different elements, and these stars have different lifespans. That means that over time, the materials readily available for planet formation also change.

Astronomers working with the JWST, along with help from the Hubble, have found a red supergiant star that eventually exploded as a supernova. The discovery helps solve the 'red supergiant problem' that confounds efforts to understand how these stars serve as progenitors that eventually explode as Type II supernova.

Dark matter could tint light passing through it, depending on the model. While the effect is tiny, it is just on the edge of our ability to detect it.

For the first time, astronomers have managed to capture a radio image showing two black holes orbiting each other. The observation confirmed the existence of black hole pairs. In the past, astronomers have only managed to image individual black holes.

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.

On bizarre Titan, chemicals can combine in surprising ways, creating host-and-guest relationships. Since Titan is similar to primitive Earth, these new findings could shed light on Earth's prebiotic chemistry. Stay tuned.

All sorts of crazy things have been suggested regarding 3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar object that we’ve discovered. Some are simply conspiracy theories about it being an alien spacecraft, while others have been well-thought out suggestions, like using Martian-based probes to observe the comet as it streaked past the red planet. A new paper pre-published on arXiv and accepted for publication by the Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society by Samuel Grand and Geraint Jones, of the Finnish Meteorological Institute and ESA respectively, falls into the latter category, and suggests utilizing two spacecraft already en route to their separate destinations to potentially detect ions from the object’s spectacular tail that has formed as it approaches the Sun.

Researchers have discovered remnants from the primordial Earth before the giant collision that created the Moon. The ingredients of this "proto-Earth" help tell the tale of the entire Solar System. But there are still unanswered questions regarding all of the material that became the Earth.

An international research team led by the University of Bern analyzed images taken by the Mars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) camera, CaSSIS, and the stereo camera HRSC, utilizing machine learning. Their work reveals that dust devils, a common feature on Mars, are faster than previously thought.

By treating optical telescopes as an array of smaller telescopes, astronomers could observe exoplanets more clearly.

The Search For Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is evolving. We’ve moved on from the limited thinking of monitoring radio waves to checking for interstellar pushing lasers or even budding Dyson swarms around stars. To match our increased understanding of the ways we might find intelligence elsewhere in the galaxy, the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) is working through an update to its protocols for what researchers should do after a confirmed detection of intelligence outside of Earth. Their new suggestions are available in a pre-print paper on arXiv, but were also voted on at the 2025 International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Sydney, with potential full adoption early next year.

Space-based solar power has been gaining more and more traction recently. The recent success of Caltech’s Space Solar Power Project, which demonstrated the feasibility of transmitting power from space to the ground, has been matched by a number of pilot projects throughout the world, all of which are hoping to tap into some of the almost unlimited and constant solar energy that is accessible up in geostationary orbit (GEO). But, according to a new paper from a group of Italian and German researchers, there are plenty of constraints on getting that power down here to Earth - and most of them are more logistical than technical.

What can cryovolcanism on Pluto teach scientists about the dwarf planet’s current geological activity? This is what a recent study published in The Planetary Science Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated potential cryovolcanic sites within specific regions on Pluto. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the current geological activity, including how it can be active while orbiting so far from the Sun.

Mars has experienced multiple ice ages, with each one leaving less ice than the last. By studying craters that serve as “ice archives,” researchers traced how the red planet stored and lost its water over hundreds of millions of years. These frozen records not only reveal Mars’ long-term climate history but also identify hidden resources beneath the surface that could provide drinking water, oxygen, and even rocket fuel for future astronauts.