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Tech - Universe Today - 2 hours ago

Did Asteroids Invent Gum Billions of Years Ago?

What is “gum”? Most people have probably never considered this question, and might answer something like a chewy material you can put in your mouth. But, to a scientist they might answer something like “nitrogen-rich polymeric sheets”, because precisely defining the chemistry of a material is important to them. Or at least, that’s what they called a type of organic material found in the sample collected of the asteroid Bennu by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. But more informally, scientists have take...

Tech - Universe Today - 14 hours ago

Dust In A Telescope's Eye Could Blind It To Earth 2.0

Hot exozodiacal dust can thwart our efforts to detect exoplanets. It causes what's called coronagraphic leakage, which confuses the light signals from distant stars. The Habitable Worlds Observatory will face this obstacle, and new research sheds light on the problem.

Tech - Universe Today - 16 hours ago

China Outlines Future Plans in New Video, Including Finding Earth 2.0

A video that appeared on CGTN's Hot Take details four missions that China will be sending to space in the coming years, including a survey telescope that will search for Earth 2.0.

Tech - Universe Today - 18 hours ago

Historic May 2024 Gannon Solar Storm Compressed Earth’s Plasmasphere

A powerful geomagnetic superstorm is a once a generation event, happening once every 20-25 years. Such an event transpired on the night of May 10/11, 2024, when an intense solar storm slammed into the Earth’s protective magnetic sheath. Now, a recent study shows just how intrusive that storm was, and how long it took for the Earth’s plasma layer took to recover.

Tech - Universe Today - 19 hours ago

SPHERE Shows Us How Our Solar System Isn't Much Different Than Others

Observations with the SPHERE instrument on the European Southern Observatory's VLT revealed the presence of debris rings similar to structures in our Solar System. SPHERE found rings similar to the Kuiper Belt and the Main Asteroid Belt. Though individual asteroids and comets can't be imaged, these debris rings infer that other solar systems have architectures similar to ours.

Tech - Universe Today - 1 day ago

Scientists and Senators are Excited About the Sugars Found in the OSIRIS-REx Samples

It’s been over two years since the samples from Bennu gathered by OSIRIS-REx were returned to Earth. But there’s still plenty of novel science coming out of that 121.6 g of material. Three new papers were released recently that describe different aspects of that sample. One in particular, from Yoshihiro Furukawa of Tohoku University in Japan and their co-authors, has already attracted plenty of attention, including from US Senator (and former astronaut) Mark Kelly. It shows that all of the build...

Tech - Universe Today - 1 day ago

Long Ago, Mars Had Massive Watersheds Now Finally Mapped

What can mapped drainage systems on Mars teach scientists about the Red Planet’s watery past? This is what a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hopes to address as a team of scientists from the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) conducted a first-time mapping study involving Martian river basins. This study has the potential to not only gain insight into ancient Mars and how much water existed there long ago but also develop new methods for mappi...

Tech - Universe Today - 1 day ago

Why Scientists Are Studying Mayonnaise in Space

Scientists have launched COLIS, a special laboratory aboard the International Space Station designed to study how everyday materials like sunscreens, mayonnaise, and medications behave in near zero gravity. Researchers discovered that gravity influences the long term stability of soft matter far more dramatically than previously understood, affecting how these materials age and restructure at the molecular level. This research could fundamentally improve how we design everything from controlled ...

Tech - Universe Today - 1 day ago

When Ancient Scribes Accidentally Became Scientists

On a summer day in 709 BCE, scribes at the Lu Duchy Court in ancient China looked up to witness something extraordinary. The Sun vanished completely from the sky, and in its place hung a ghostly halo. They recorded the event carefully, noting that during totality the eclipsed Sun appeared "completely yellow above and below." Nearly three millennia later, that ancient observation has helped modern scientists measure how fast Earth was spinning and understand what our Sun was doing at a time when ...

Tech - Universe Today - 1 day ago

New Research Could Explain Why Earth has Active Tectonics and Venus Does Not

An international team has made a significant breakthrough in understanding the tectonic evolution of terrestrial planets. Using advanced numerical models, the team systematically classified for the first time six distinct planetary tectonic regimes. Their work provides a unified theory on the geological evolution of both Earth and Venus.

Tech - Universe Today - 1 day ago

An Adolescent Growth Spurt In Young Stars Helps Giant Planets Form

Intermediate mass stars experience periods of rapid growth in their late stages of formation. The growing young star emits more radiation that encourages greater accretion. Rather than depleting their protoplanetary disks and preventing gas giants from forming, the opposite is true.

Tech - Universe Today - 1 day ago

Lessons from the Past: Responsible Science and Astrobiology

In a recent paper, a team of SETI and astrobiology specialists examines four controversial claims about the existence of extraterrestrial life. From these, they present recommendations for scientists and science communicators when addressing future claims of discovery.

Tech - Universe Today - 2 days ago

Ten Versions of Earth's Future Can Help Us Hunt for ET

Searching for technosignatures - signs of technology on a planet that we can see from afr - remains a difficult task. There are so many different factors to consider, and we only have the technological capabilities to detect a relatively small collection of them. A new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv but also accepted for publication into The Astrophysical Journal Letters, from Jacob Haqq-Misra of the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science and his co-authors explores some of those capabil...

Tech - Universe Today - 2 days ago

Helium Streams Observed on Super-Puff Exoplanet

What can an exoplanet leaking helium teach astronomers about the formation and evolution of exoplanet atmospheres? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as an international team of scientists investigated atmospheric escape on a puffy exoplanet. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of gas giant planets, specifically with many gas giant planets observed orbiting extremely close to their stars.

Tech - Universe Today - 2 days ago

A Blueprint For Visiting An Interstellar Comet

arXiv:2512.00492v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We describe how the ESA Comet Interceptor mission, which is due to launch in 2028/29 to a yet-to-be-discovered target, can provide a conceptual basis for a future mission to visit an Interstellar Object. Comet Interceptor will wait in space until a suitable long period comet is discovered, allowing rapid response to perform a fast flyby of an object that will be in the inner Solar System for only a few years; an enhanced version of this concept ...

Tech - Universe Today - 2 days ago

The JWST Discovered Another Perplexing Early Galaxy

The JWST has made a name for itself by discovering mature galaxies in the Universe's early times. This time, a pair of Indian astronomers working with the JWST found a fully-formed spiral galaxy much like the Milky Way only 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. The discovery, and others like it, are forcing scientists to reconsider their understanding of the cosmic timeline.

Tech - Universe Today - 2 days ago

We Are Moving Through The Universe Faster Than We Thought

We've long known that we move through the Universe relative to the cosmic microwave background, but a new study of radio galaxies finds an even faster result, which could contradict the standard model of cosmology.

Tech - Universe Today - 2 days ago

These Two Galaxies Are Tying The Knot And Producing Stars

The European Space Agency has release its ESA/Webb Picture of the Month and it features a pair of dwarf galaxies engaged in a tentative dance, like nervous partners at a social. The pair are a staggering 24 million light-years away. But even at that great distance, the pair of galaxies is the closest-known interacting pair of dwarfs, other than the Milky Way's Magellanic Clouds, where both the stellar populations and the gas bridge linking the galaxies have been observed.

Tech - Universe Today - 3 days ago

How to Catch a Comet That Hasn't Been Discovered Yet

There’s been a lot of speculation recently about interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS - much of which is probably caused by low quality data given that we have to observe it from either Earth, or in some case Mars. In either case it’s much further away that what would be the ideal. But that might not be the case for a future interstellar object. The European Space Agency (ESA) is planning a mission that could potentially visit a new interstellar visitor, or a comet that is making its first pass into th...

Tech - Universe Today - 3 days ago

To Celebrate 25 Years In Service, The Gemini Observatory Imaged The Butterfly Nebula

To celebrate 25 years since the completion of the International Gemini Observatory, students in Chile voted for the Gemini South telescope to image NGC 6302 a billowing planetary nebula that resembles a cosmic butterfly. The International Gemini Observatory is partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by NSF NOIRLab.

Tech - Universe Today - 3 days ago

The Knotty Problem of Matter Asymmetry Might Be Solved By Extending Physics

Why is the Universe filled with matter? Why isn't it an equal amount of matter and antimatter? We still don't know the answer, but a new approach looks at the symmetries of extended models of particle physics and finds a possible path forward. It's a knotty problem that may just have a knotty solution.

Tech - Universe Today - 4 days ago

New Radar Data Dries Up Hope For Subsurface Liquid Water On Mars

Remember back in 2018 when there was a discovery of a briny “lake” underground near the Martian south pole? Pepperidge Farm probably does, and anyone that works there that’s interested in space exploration will be disappointed to hear that, whatever might be causing the radar signal that finding was based on, it’s most likely not a lake. At least according to new data collected by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and published recently in Geophysical Research Letters by lead author Gareth M...

Tech - Universe Today - 4 days ago

The life-giving secret of protoplanetary disks? Dust.

The complex molecules required for life on Earth might never have formed if it wasn’t for cosmic dust.

Tech - Universe Today - 4 days ago

The Universe Was Warm Before It Was Bright

There is a period in the Universe known as the cosmic dark ages. It lies between the recombination of the first atoms and the ignition of the first stars, when the Universe was thought to be cold and dark. Now astronomers have looked at the faint glow of atomic hydrogen to find that while the Universe was dark, it wasn't quite as cold as we thought.

Tech - Universe Today - 5 days ago

Did JWST Find an Exomoon or a Starspot?

Searching for exomoons - moons the orbit around another planet - was one of the most exciting capabilities expected of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) when it launched in late 2021. So, after four years of operation, why hasn’t it found one yet? Turns out it’s really, really hard to find a moon around a planet light-years away. A new paper available in pre-print on arXiv from David Kipping of Columbia University (and Cool Worlds YouTube Channel fame) shows why. They used 60 hours of time o...

Tech - Universe Today - 5 days ago

Jupiter’s Fast Rotation Creates Uneven Water Zones

What can water in Jupiter’s atmosphere teach scientists about the planet’s composition? This is what a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the distribution of water with Jupiter’s atmosphere. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand Jupiter’s atmospheric dynamics, composition, and evolutionary history.

Tech - Universe Today - 5 days ago

New Radiation-Proof Method Could Boost Space Solar Panels

What steps can be taken to improve and enhance the lifetime of space solar cells? This is what a recent study published in Joule hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated new methods for improving both the lifetime and performance of space solar cells from the harshness of space weather and radiation. This study has the potential to help scientists and engineers develop new space technologies, especially as several private companies and government organizations are ex...

Tech - Universe Today - 5 days ago

The Case for an Antimatter Manhattan Project

Chemical rockets have taken us to the Moon and back, but traveling to the stars demands something more powerful. Space X’s Starship can lift extraordinary masses to orbit and send payloads throughout the Solar System using its chemical rockets but it cannot fly to nearby stars at thirty percent of light speed and land. For missions beyond our local region of space, we need something fundamentally more energetic than chemical combustion, and physics offers or in other words, antimatter.

Tech - Universe Today - 5 days ago

Why NASA Needs Space Gardeners

Growing fresh lettuce and strawberries might sound mundane until you consider doing it on the Moon or Mars. An international team has created a roadmap for cultivating plants in space, addressing one of NASA's highest priority challenges for long duration missions. These aren't just about providing fresh food for astronauts, plants in space will recycle air and water, produce pharmaceuticals, process waste, and support mental health during years long journeys to distant worlds. With the first lu...

Tech - Universe Today - 5 days ago

Mars Has Static Electricity!

A team of scientists have detected electric discharges on Mars for the first time, confirming a phenomenon that was theorised for decades but never directly observed until now. The Perseverance rover's microphone accidentally captured the electromagnetic and acoustic signatures of sparks generated inside Martian dust devils, similar to the static shocks you might experience touching a metal door handle. This discovery changes our understanding of Mars's atmospheric chemistry and could explain lo...

Tech - Universe Today - 5 days ago

Tentative Exomoon Signal in HD 206893 B

Have scientists finally confirmed the existence of the first exomoon? This is what a recent study accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics hopes to address as a large international team of researchers investigated new methods for identifying an exomoon orbiting a gas giant exoplanet. This study has the potential to help scientists develop new methods for finding exomoons, the latter of which has yet to be confirmed.

Tech - Universe Today - 6 days ago

Gaia Constraints on a 10 Myr Nearby Supernova

What can an ancient supernova teach scientists about Earth and celestial objects? This is what a recently submitted study to Astronomy and Astrophysics hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the interaction of the remnants of supernova that occurred 10-million years ago with Earth. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand how Earth is influenced by celestial objects and what this could mean for the future of life on Earth, along with potentially habitable ...

Tech - Universe Today - 6 days ago

New Model Explains Giant Planet Jet Streams

What can equatorial jet streams on gas giant planets teach scientists about gas giant planetary formation and evolution? This is what a recent study published in Science Advances hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the mechanisms of jet streams on gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) and ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). This study has the potential to help scientists better understand not only the formation and evolution of giant planets in our solar system, but exoplanets, too.

Tech - Universe Today - 6 days ago

Scientists Investigate the Biological Effects of Spaceflight Using Worms

A crew of tiny worms will be heading on a mission to the International Space Station in 2026 that will help scientists understand how humans can travel through space safely, using a Leicester-built space pod.

Tech - Universe Today - 7 days ago

How Hidden Stars Shape Our Search for Technosignatures

How can star populations help astronomers re-evaluate the search for intelligent extraterrestrial life, also called technosignatures? This is what a recently submitted study hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the parameters of identifying locations of technosignatures, also called extraterrestrial transmitters. This study has the potential to help astronomers constrain the criteria for finding intelligent life in both our galaxy and throughout the universe.

Tech - Universe Today - 7 days ago

Water Retention on Earth-Like Planets Around Variable Stars

What can star variability—changes in a star’s brightness over time—teach astronomers about exoplanet habitability? This is what a recent study accepted to The Astronomical Journal hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the interaction between a star’s activity and exoplanetary atmospheres. This study has the potential to help astronomers better understand how star variability plays a role in finding habitable exoplanets, specifically around stars that are different from our Sun.

Tech - Universe Today - 7 days ago

The Ultraviolet Mystery Inside Newborn Stars

Young stars buried deep in molecular clouds are bathed in ultraviolet radiation, but they shouldn't be. Protostars are too cold and dim to produce UV light themselves, yet James Webb Space Telescope observations of five stellar nurseries in Ophiuchus reveal its unmistakable signature affecting the surrounding gas. Astronomers tested the obvious explanation that nearby massive stars illuminate these birthplaces but subsequently ruled it out. The UV radiation must be coming from inside the star fo...

Tech - Universe Today - 7 days ago

Modeling Venus Volcanic Plumes to Cloud-Level Heights

What is the importance of studying explosive volcanism on Venus? This is what a recent study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the potential altitudes of explosive volcanism on Venus. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the present volcanic activity on Venus, along with gaining insight about its formation and evolution and other planetary bodies throughout the solar system and beyond.

Tech - Universe Today - 8 days ago

Nancy Grace Roman Has Been Shaken, Frozen, and Screamed At. Now It's Ready For Its Next Round of Tests

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope continues its inexorable march toward launch. It recently completed another series of tests that brings it a few steps closer to a launch pad in Florida. This time, the telescope was split into two separate parts - an inner portion and an outer portion, each of which went through separate tests throughout the fall.

Tech - Universe Today - 8 days ago

Massive Computer Simulation Creates a Hyper-Realistic Model of the Milky Way

Research led by the RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS) in Japan has successfully performed the world’s first Milky Way simulation that accurately represents more than 100 billion individual stars over the course of 10,000 years.

Tech - Universe Today - 8 days ago

Galaxies Struggle To Grow In Crowded Environments

New research shows how a galaxy's surroundings influence its development. Its size, shape, and growth rate are all affected. It's all based on "the finer details of the cosmic landscape."

Tech - Universe Today - 8 days ago

The Star That Shouldn't Exist

A red giant orbiting a dormant black hole is spinning impossibly fast and contains chemistry that makes it look ancient when it's actually relatively young. By listening to faint vibrations rippling through the star, astronomers have decoded a violent secret, that this star likely collided with and absorbed another star billions of years ago, an explosive merger that left it chemically confused and rotating once every 398 days. The discovery reveals how even quiet black hole systems can have tur...

Tech - Universe Today - 8 days ago

After a Century of Searching, We May Have Finally Seen Dark Matter

Ninety five years after Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky inferred its existence from galaxies moving impossibly fast, researchers may have detected the first direct evidence of dark matter, the invisible scaffolding that holds the universe together. Using gamma ray data from NASA's Fermi Space Telescope, a Japanese physicist has identified a halo of extremely energetic photons around the Milky Way's center that matches predictions for annihilating dark matter particles. If confirmed, humanity has f...

Tech - Universe Today - 9 days ago

Devastating Stellar Storm Seen on Red Dwarf Star

On Earth, Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) like the one we experienced earlier this month are aesthetic, even disruptive events, sending aurora southward and interrupting radio signals. But around other stars, they could prove lethal to life. This point was driven home by a recent CME detection from an M-class red dwarf star. This marks the first detection of an energetic Type II radio burst from a nearby star.

Tech - Universe Today - 9 days ago

Why Being in the "Right Place" Isn't Enough for Life

A planet’s habitability is determined by a confluence of many factors. So far, our explorations of potentially habitable worlds beyond our solar system have focused exclusively on their position in the “Goldilocks Zone” of their solar system, where their temperature determines whether or not liquid water can exist on their surface, and, more recently, what their atmospheres are composed of. That’s in part due to the technical limitations of the instruments available to us - even the powerful Jam...

Tech - Universe Today - 9 days ago

Astronomers Pinpoint 3I/ATLAS's Path Based on Data from Mars

Since comet 3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar object, was discovered on 1 July 2025, astronomers worldwide have worked to predict its trajectory. ESA has now improved the comet’s predicted location by a factor of 10, thanks to the innovative use of observation data from our ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) spacecraft orbiting Mars.

Tech - Universe Today - 9 days ago

Hong Kong's Mission to Watch the Moon Get Bombarded

In 2028, Hong Kong will launch its first dedicated lunar orbiter not to study craters or map minerals, but to monitor something far more urgent, the constant barrage of meteoroids slamming into the Moon's surface at thousands of kilometres per hour. As China prepares to build a permanent lunar research station, understanding this relentless bombardment has become a matter of safety for future astronauts living and working on the Moon.

Tech - Universe Today - 9 days ago

The Strange Physics Beneath Icy Moons

Beneath the frozen shells of Saturn's tiny moons, hidden oceans might occasionally boil, not from heat, but from dropping pressure as ice melts from below. This strange phenomenon could explain the bizarre geology of worlds like Miranda and Mimas, and reshape our understanding of where to search for life in the outer Solar System. A new study reveals how these distant water worlds operate under physics unlike anything on Earth.

Tech - Universe Today - 9 days ago

What Seven Decades of Hunting for Aliens Tells Us

Seven billion year old meteorites carrying DNA building blocks. Frozen water on Mars. Amino acids floating in interstellar dust clouds. After seventy years of searching, we've found the ingredients for life scattered throughout the universe but have we found life itself? A new review examines every major claim of extraterrestrial life, from ancient space rocks to UFO sightings, revealing what the evidence actually supports and where wishful thinking has filled the gaps.

Tech - Universe Today - 9 days ago

A Natural Laboratory Of Spiralling Dust Shells

The JWST has done it again. It's revealed new details hidden from lesser telescopes. The space telescope has detected four spiral dust shells around Apep, a triple star system about 15,000 light-years away.

Tech - Universe Today - 9 days ago

Life Is Just Matter With Meaning

What are the physics of life? That is more than just a philosophical question - it has practical implications for our search for life elsewhere in the galaxy. We know what Earth life looks like, on a number of levels, but finding it on another planet could require us to redefine what we even mean by life itself. A new paper from Stuart Bartlett of Cal Tech and his co-authors provides a new framework for how life could be defined that could reach beyond just what we understand from our one Pale B...

Tech - Universe Today - 11 days ago

Modeling the Fight Between Charged Lunar Dust and Spacecraft Coatings

Understanding how exactly lunar dust sticks to surfaces is going to be important once we start having a long-term sustainable presence on the Moon. Dust on the Moon is notoriously sticky and damaging to equipment, as well as being hazardous to astronaut’s health. While there has been plenty of studies into lunar dust and its implications, we still lack a model that can effectively describe the precise physical mechanisms the dust uses to adhere to surfaces. A paper released last year from Yue Fe...

Tech - Universe Today - 11 days ago

The Moss That Survived Nine Months in Space

Moss spores spent nine months strapped to the outside of the International Space Station, exposed to vacuum, cosmic radiation, temperature swings from minus 196°C to 55°C, and unfiltered solar ultraviolet light. Over 80 percent survived the ordeal and returned to Earth still capable of growing into new moss plants. This remarkable resilience, demonstrated by one of Earth's earliest land plants, suggests that life's fundamental mechanisms may be far more robust in the face of space conditions tha...

Tech - Universe Today - 11 days ago

Two Years of Listening to the Universe's Most Violent Events

The world's gravitational wave detectors just wrapped up their longest and most productive observation campaign, capturing 250 new collisions over two years of continuous listening. These ripples in spacetime, created by black holes and neutron stars spiralling into each other across the universe, have given scientists their first direct evidence for Stephen Hawking's 1971 theory about black hole surface areas, revealed second generation black holes born from previous mergers, and detected the m...

Tech - Universe Today - 11 days ago

Finding 40,000 Asteroids Before They Find Us

Astronomers have just catalogued the 40,000th near Earth asteroid, a milestone that marks humanity's transformation from passive targets to active defenders of our planet. These space rocks, ranging from house sized boulders to some the size of mountains, follow orbits that bring them uncomfortably close to Earth. Each discovery adds another piece to our planetary defence puzzle, though current surveys have found only about 30 percent of the mid sized asteroids that could still cause regional de...

Tech - Universe Today - 12 days ago

The Box vs The Bulldozer: The Story of Two Space Gas Stations

Using in-situ propellant has been a central pillar of the plan to explore much of the solar system. The logic is simple - the less mass (especially in the form of propellant) we have to take out of Earth’s gravity well, the less expensive, and therefore more plausible, the missions requiring that propellant will be. However, a new paper from Donald Rapp, the a former Division Chief Technologist at NASA’s JPL and a Co-Investigator of the successful MOXIE project on Mars, argues that, despite the ...

Tech - Universe Today - 12 days ago

NASA Finally Releases Images of 3I/ATLAS Taken by Its Missions at Mars

Two orbiters and a rover captured images of the interstellar object from the closest location any of the agency’s spacecraft may get that could reveal new details.

Tech - Universe Today - 12 days ago

Blue Origin to Build a "Super Heavy" Rocket to Compete with Starship

Blue Origin announced a series of upgrades to New Glenn designed to increase payload performance and launch cadence, while enhancing reliability. The enhancements span propulsion, structures, avionics, reusability, and recovery operations, and will be phased into upcoming New Glenn missions beginning with NG-3.

Tech - Universe Today - 13 days ago

New Research Suggest Earth and Theia were Neighbors Before They Collided

About 4.5 billion years ago, the most momentous event in the history of Earth occurred: a huge celestial body called Theia collided with the young Earth. How the collision unfolded and what exactly happened afterward has not been conclusively clarified. What is certain, however, is that the size, composition, and orbit of Earth changed as a result—and that the impact marked the birth of our constant companion in space, the moon.

Tech - Universe Today - 13 days ago

Is the Universe Infinite?

The surface of the Earth is finite. We can measure it. If it was expanding, then its size would grow with time. And once again, good ol’ Earth helps us understand what the universe might be doing beyond our observable horizon.

Tech - Universe Today - 14 days ago

How a Detergent Ingredient Unlocked the Potential of Nanotubes

Material science plays a critical role in space exploration. So many of the challenges facing both crewed and non-crewed missions come down to factors like weight, thermal and radiation tolerance, and overall material stability. The results of a new study from Young-Kyeong Kim of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology and their colleagues should therefore be exciting for those material scientists who focus on radiation protection. After decades of trying, the authors were able to create a...

Tech - Universe Today - 14 days ago

AI Cracks Galaxy Simulation

Scientists have achieved a breakthrough that seemed impossible just months ago, they have simulated our entire Milky Way galaxy down to each of its 100 billion individual stars. By combining artificial intelligence with supercomputer power, researchers created a model that captures everything from galactic arms to the explosive deaths of individual stars, completing in days what would have taken conventional simulations 36 years. This fusion of AI and physics represents a significant shift in ho...

Tech - Universe Today - 14 days ago

Ancient Underground Water Suggests Mars May Have Been Habitable Longer than Previously Thought

Scientists from New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) have uncovered new evidence that water once flowed beneath the surface of Mars, revealing that the planet may have remained habitable for life much longer than previously thought.

Tech - Universe Today - 14 days ago

Yes, the Universe Can Expand Faster Than Light

An expanding universe complicates this picture just a little bit, because the universe absolutely refuses to be straightforward.

Tech - Universe Today - 14 days ago

How to Imagine an Expanding Universe

I honestly don’t have a decent analogy for you to explain how the universe is expanding without a center and without an edge. It just does, whether we can wrap our minds around it or not. But I CAN give you a way to think about it.

Tech - Universe Today - 14 days ago

How Mega-Constellations Are Learning to Manage Themselves

Satellite megaconstellations are quickly becoming the backbone of a number of industries. Cellular communication, GPS, weather monitoring and more are now, at least in part, reliant on the networks of thousands of satellites cruising by in low Earth orbit. But, as these constellations grow into the tens of thousands of individual members, the strain they are putting on the communications and controls systems of their ground stations is becoming untenable. A new paper from Yuhe Mao of the Nanjing...

Tech - Universe Today - 15 days ago

Where Was the Big Bang?

Let’s start out with something that we can say for certain: we live in an expanding universe.

Tech - Universe Today - 15 days ago

Tracking Mars' Ice Ages From Space

Travelling up from Mars’s equator towards its north pole, we find Coloe Fossae: a set of intriguing scratches within a region marked by deep valleys, speckled craters, and signs of an ancient ice age.

Tech - Universe Today - 15 days ago

The Man in the Moon Gets a New Scar

The Moon gains new craters all the time, but catching one forming is surprisingly rare. Between 2009 and 2012, something struck our celestial companion just north of Römer crater, creating a bright 22 metre scar with distinctive rays of ejected material spreading outward. While the Moon's most dramatic bombardment ended billions of years ago, this fresh impact reminds us that our nearest neighbour continues to be peppered by space rocks, offering scientists a rare opportunity to study crater for...

Tech - Universe Today - 15 days ago

Seeing an Interstellar Comet Through Martian Eyes

When an interstellar comet tears through our Solar System at 250,000 kilometres per hour, pinning down its exact trajectory becomes a race against time. ESA astronomers achieved something unprecedented in October 2025, using observations from the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter to improve predictions of comet 3I/ATLAS's path by a factor of ten. By triangulating data from Mars with Earth based observations, scientists demonstrated a powerful technique for tracking fast moving objects that could prove i...

Tech - Universe Today - 15 days ago

Some Exoplanets Can Create Their Own Water Through Crust-Atmosphere Reactions

Exoplanets need not acquire their water from external sources like asteroids and comets. New experiments show that at least one common type of exoplanet can generate its own water. Interactions between hydrogen and silicates on sub-Neptunes can create water that could make some of the habitable.

Tech - Universe Today - 15 days ago

A Star Blew A "Diamond Ring" Bubble In Space

A gaseous, dusty structure in the Cygnus X star formation region is reminiscent of a glowing diamond ring. There are others that are similar, but they're spherical and this one is flat. A team of researchers have figured out why.

Tech - Universe Today - 16 days ago

Astronomers Spot "First Stars" Billions of Years After They Were Supposed to Die

Over the course of billions of years, the universe has steadily been evolving. Thanks to the expansion of the universe, we are able to “see” back in time to watch that evolution, almost from the beginning. But every once in a while we see something that doesn’t fit into our current understanding of how the universe should operate. That’s the case for a galaxy described in a new paper by PhD student Sijia Cai of Tsinghua University’s Department of Astronomy and their colleagues. They found a gala...

Tech - Universe Today - 16 days ago

Is LCDM Cosmology Doomed?

All of the proposals floating around out there for invoking dynamical dark energy are a little on the weak side. In many cases, they raise more questions than answers.

Tech - Universe Today - 16 days ago

The JWST Makes Some Headway Understanding Little Red Dots

Researchers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have confirmed an actively growing supermassive black hole within a galaxy just 570 million years after the Big Bang. Part of a class of small, very distant galaxies that have mystified astronomers, CANUCS-LRD-z8.6 represents a vital piece of this puzzle that challenges existing theories about the formation of galaxies and black holes in the early Universe. The discovery connects early black holes with the luminous quasars we observe ...

Tech - Universe Today - 16 days ago

We've Long Thought The Surface Area Of A Black Hole Can't Decrease. Now We Have Data To Back It Up.

Observations of a merging black hole further supports the Area Theorem of black hole thermodynamics, which states that the event horizon of a black hole produced by two merging black holes must have a surface area no less than the areas of the original two.

Tech - Universe Today - 17 days ago

Hunting For "Wnadering" Black Holes In Dwarf Galaxies

Tracking down black holes at the center of dwarf galaxies has proven difficult. In part that is because they have a tendency to “wander” and are not located at the galaxy’s center. There are plenty of galaxies that might contain such a black hole, but so far we’ve had insufficient data to confirm their existence. A new paper from Megan Sturm of Montana State University and her colleagues analyzed additional data from Chandra and Hubble on a set of 12 potential Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) galaxy...

Tech - Universe Today - 17 days ago

Hunting For "Wandering" Black Holes In Dwarf Galaxies

Tracking down black holes at the center of dwarf galaxies has proven difficult. In part that is because they have a tendency to “wander” and are not located at the galaxy’s center. There are plenty of galaxies that might contain such a black hole, but so far we’ve had insufficient data to confirm their existence. A new paper from Megan Sturm of Montana State University and her colleagues analyzed additional data from Chandra and Hubble on a set of 12 potential Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) galaxy...

Tech - Universe Today - 17 days ago

What's Driving Dark Energy?

To be fair, all scientific models are in some sense wrong

Tech - Universe Today - 17 days ago

The Andromeda Galaxy Quenches Its Satellite Galaxies Long Before They Fall In

Galaxies grow massive through mergers with other galaxies. Massive galaxies like the Milky Way and Andromeda not only merge with other large galaxies, they also absorb their much smaller satellite dwarf galaxies. But these smaller galaxies can become quenched long before they're absorbed, and new research examines this process at Andromeda (M31).

Tech - Universe Today - 18 days ago

How Three Runaway Stars Solved A Galactic Mystery

All motion is relative. That simple fact makes tracking the motion of distant objects outside our galaxy particularly challenging. For example, there has been a debate among astronomers for decades about the path that one of our nearest neighbors, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), took over the last few billion years. A new paper from Scott Lucchini and Jiwon Jesse Hand from the Harvard Center for Astrophysics grapples with that question by using a unique technique - the paths of hypervelocity s...

Tech - Universe Today - 18 days ago

How Dark Energy Changed Cosmology Forever

Let’s rewind the clock back…oh, I don’t know, let’s say a hundred years.

Tech - Universe Today - 18 days ago

Capturing A Supernova Explosion Only Hours After It Began

Observations of a supernova explosion have revealed its shape only one day after it was first detected. The exact nature of supernovae explosions are unclear and the subject of ongoing, detailed debate. These new observations with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope will advance the debate.

Tech - Universe Today - 18 days ago

Searching For Exoplanets In The Remnants Of A Dwarf Galaxy

Astronomers have found more than 6,000 exoplanets in the Milky Way. They've even begun to characterize the atmospheres of some of them. But the Milky Way has consumed many of its dwarf satellites. How have exoplanets fared in these remnants? How are they different? To answer those questions, astronomers have to find some of these planets, and a new survey is poised to do just that.

Tech - Universe Today - 19 days ago

Asteroid 2024 YR4 Was Earth's First Real-Life Defense Test

At this point in history, astronomers and engineers who grew up watching Deep Impact and Armageddon, two movies about the destructive power of asteroid impacts, are likely in relatively high ranking positions at space agencies. Don’t Look Up also provided a more modern, though more pessimistic (or, unfortunately, realistic?), look at what might potentially happen if a “killer” asteroid is found on approach to Earth. So far, life hasn’t imitated art when it comes to potentially one of the most ca...

Tech - Universe Today - 19 days ago

DESI's Dizzying Results

In March of 2024 the [DESI collaboration](https://www.desi.lbl.gov/collaboration/) dropped a bombshell on the cosmological community: slim but significant evidence that dark energy might be getting weaker with time.

Tech - Universe Today - 19 days ago

Astronomers Detect the Early Shape of a Star Exploding for the First Time

Swift observations with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) have revealed the explosive death of a star just as the blast was breaking through the star’s surface. For the first time, astronomers unveiled the shape of the explosion at its earliest, fleeting stage. This brief initial phase wouldn’t have been observable a day later and helps address a whole set of questions about how massive stars go supernova.

Tech - Universe Today - 19 days ago

Remember That Paper Claiming The Universe Is Decelerating? Here's What A Nobel Laureate Has To Say About It

So I got an email from Adam Reiss. You know, the guy who was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Saul Perlmutter and Brian Schmidt for discovering the rate of cosmic expansion is accelerating. He pointed out a few issues with the decelerating Universe paper, and with his permission I'd like to share them with you.

Tech - Universe Today - 19 days ago

Sunday Night Doubleheader: Catch the 2025 Leonid Meteors and an Aurora Encore

Keep an eye on the sky Sunday night and early Monday morning for the Leonid meteors, and a possible second auroral storm. Once every other generation, the Lion roars. If skies are clear Monday morning, keep an eye out for one of the best annual November showers, the Leonid meteors. Also as an extra treat, the skies may stream with aurora once again.

Tech - Universe Today - 20 days ago

Cohesion, Charging, And Chaos On The Lunar Surface

Most people interested in space exploration already know lunar dust is an absolute nightmare to deal with. We’re already reported on numerous potential methods for dealing with it, from 3D printing landing pads so we don’t sand blast everything in a given area when a rocket lands, to using liquid nitrogen to push the dust off of clothing. But the fact remains that, for any long-term presence on the Moon, dealing with the dust that resides there is one of the most critical tasks. A new paper from...

Tech - Universe Today - 20 days ago

Chinese Astronauts Return After a Delay Imposed by Space Junk

The Shenzhou-20 mission's three-person crew has returned home after more than a week of delays caused by damage to their spacecraft, allegedly caused by an impact with a tiny piece of space debris.

Tech - Universe Today - 20 days ago

The Seven Sisters Have Thousands of Hidden Siblings

Astronomers have discovered that the famous Pleiades star cluster, otherwise known as the "Seven Sisters" is actually the bright core of a sprawling family of stars spread across nearly 2,000 light years. By combining stellar spin measurements with precise motion tracking, researchers identified over 3,000 related stars and revealed the Pleiades is twenty times larger than previously thought.

Tech - Universe Today - 20 days ago

The Solar System Is Racing Through Space Far Faster Than Expected

Astronomers have discovered that our Solar System is moving through the universe more than three times faster than cosmological models predict, a finding that challenges fundamental assumptions about how the universe works. By analysing the distribution of distant radio galaxies using advanced statistical methods, the team detected motion so unexpectedly rapid it earned the rare five sigma statistical significance that scientists consider definitive evidence.

Tech - Universe Today - 21 days ago

Life Might Show Up As Pink And Yellow Clouds On Distant Worlds

Carl Sagan, along with co-author Edwin Salpeter, famously published a paper in the 70s about the possibility of finding life in the cloud of Jupiter. They specifically described “sinkers, floaters, and hunters” that could live floating and moving in the atmosphere of our solar system’s largest planet. He also famously talked about how clouds on another of our solar system’s planets - Venus - obfuscated what was on the surface, leading to wild speculation about a lush, Jurassic Park-like world fu...

Tech - Universe Today - 21 days ago

NASA Faces Another Shift in Its Leadership and in Its Vision

The next few months are likely to bring a dramatic transition for NASA, under the leadership of a new administrator who has new ideas about changing the course of the space agency.

Tech - Universe Today - 21 days ago

An Explanation For The JWST's Puzzling Early Galaxies

The JWST surprised when it detected very early galaxies that were extremely luminous. This suggested that they were more massive than researchers thought they could be. Not enough time had passed for them to grow so large. New research has an explanation.

Tech - Universe Today - 21 days ago

Machine Learning Discovers Quasars Acting as Lenses

Astronomers have used machine learning to discover seven new quasar lens systems, arrangements where a quasar's host galaxy bends light from a more distant galaxy behind it. The find more than doubles the number of known candidates and demonstrates how artificial intelligence can unearth astronomical needles in haystacks containing hundreds of thousands of objects. A team of researchers are training neural networks on synthetic data to revolutionising the search for these rare natural lenses.

Tech - Universe Today - 21 days ago

China's 900 Metre Impact Crater Rewrites Recent History

Scientists have discovered a 900 metre wide impact crater in southern China, the largest modern meteorite scar on Earth. The Jinlin crater triples the size of the previous record holder and suggests that recent extraterrestrial impacts have been far more dramatic than anyone realised.

Tech - Universe Today - 21 days ago

The Standard Cosmological Model Is The Simplest Model Of The Universe, But Not The Only One

A new study of supernovae suggests that the standard model of cosmology isn't quite right. If the data holds up, what other cosmological models might work better?

Tech - Universe Today - 21 days ago

Miniature Binary Star System Hosts Three Earth-sized Exoplanets

A new discovery adds to the growing menagerie of exoplanets. These days, word of a new exoplanet discovery raises nary an eyebrow. To date, the current number of known exoplanets beyond our solar system stands at confirmed 6,148 worlds and counting. But a recent study out of the University of Liège in Belgium titled Two Warm Earth-sized Planets and an Earth-sized Candidate in the Binary System TOI-2267 shows just how strange these worlds can be.