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Tech - Universe Today - 15 hours ago

ESA's JUICE Mission Reveals More Activity from 3I/ATLAS

During November 2025, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) used five of its science instruments to observe 3I/ATLAS. The instruments collected information about how the comet is behaving and what it is made of.

Tech - Universe Today - 22 hours ago

Engineering the First Reusable Launchpads on the Moon

Engineers need good data to build lasting things. Even the designers of the Great Pyramids knew the limestone they used to build these massive structures would be steady when stacked on top of one another, even if they didn’t have tables of the compressive strength of those stones. But when attempting to build structures on other worlds, such as the Moon, engineers don’t yet know much about the local materials. Still, due to the costs of getting large amounts of materials off of Earth, they will...

Tech - Universe Today - 1 day ago

Astronomers Find the First Compelling Evidence of "Monster Stars" in the Early Universe

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, a team of international researchers has discovered chemical fingerprints of gigantic primordial stars that were among the first to form after the Big Bang.

Tech - Universe Today - 1 day ago

IMAP's Instruments Are Coming Online

During the deployment of new space telescopes that are several critical steps each has to go through. Launch is probably the one most commonly thought of, another is “first light” of all of the instruments on the telescope. Ultimately, they’re responsible for the data the telescope is intended to collect - if they don’t work properly then the mission itself it a failure. Luckily, the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) recently collected first light on its 10 primary instruments, ...

Tech - Universe Today - 2 days ago

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.

Tech - Universe Today - 2 days ago

Do You Know What Time It Is? If You're On Mars, Now You Do.

Ask someone on Earth for the time and they can give you an exact answer, thanks to our planet's intricate timekeeping system, built with atomic clocks, GPS satellites and high-speed telecommunications networks. Ask for the time on Mars and the answer gets much more complicated.

Tech - Universe Today - 2 days ago

It’s Raining Magnetic 'Tadpoles' on the Sun

Getting close to things is one way for scientists to collect better data about them. But that's been hard to do for the Sun, since getting close to it typically entails getting burnt to a crisp. Just ask Icarus. But if Icarus had survived his close encounter with the Sun, he might have been able to see massive magnetic “tadpoles” tens of thousands of kilometers wide reconnecting back down to the surface of our star. Or maybe not, because he had human eyes, not the exceptionally sensitive Wide-Fi...

Tech - Universe Today - 3 days ago

Could Advanced Civilizations Communicate like Fireflies

In a new paper, a team of researchers explores how non-human species (in this case, fireflies) could inform new approaches in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

Tech - Universe Today - 3 days ago

Could Advanced Civilizations Communicate like Fireflies?

In a new paper, a team of researchers explores how non-human species (in this case, fireflies) could inform new approaches in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

Tech - Universe Today - 3 days ago

Did Astronomers Just Find a ‘Superkilonova’ Double Explosion? Maybe.

Astronomers may have just seen the first ever ‘superkilonova,’ a combination of a supernova and a kilonova. These are two very different kinds of stellar explosions, and if this discovery stands, it could change the way scientists understand stellar birth and death.

Tech - Universe Today - 3 days ago

Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transients Are Likely Large Black Holes Shredding Their Massive Companions

In 2024, astronomers discovered the brightest Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient (LFBOT) ever observed. LFBOTs are extremely bright flashes of blue light that shine for brief periods before fading away. New analysis of this record-breaking burst, which includes observations from the International Gemini Observatory, funded in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation, challenges all prior understanding of these rare explosive events.

Tech - Universe Today - 3 days ago

The JWST Found A Jekyll-and-Hyde Galaxy In The Early Universe

In a glimpse of the early universe, astronomers have observed a galaxy as it appeared just 800 million years after the Big Bang – a cosmic Jekyll and Hyde that looks like any other galaxy when viewed in visible and even ultraviolet light but transforms into a cosmic beast when observed at infrared wavelengths. This object, dubbed Virgil, is forcing astronomers to reconsider their understanding of how supermassive black holes grew in the infant universe.

Tech - Universe Today - 3 days ago

Using Bent Light to Map Complex Planetary Architectures

With new technologies comes new discoveries. Or so Spider Man’s Uncle Ben might have said if he was an astronomer. Or a scientist more generally - but in astronomy that saying is more true than many other disciplines, as many discoveries are entirely dependent on the technology - the telescope, imager, or processing algorithm, used to collect data on them. A new piece of technology, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, is exciting scientists enough that they are even starting to predict what k...

Tech - Universe Today - 4 days ago

Comet 3I/ATLAS Has A Green Glow In New Color Images From Gemini North

Gemini North captured new images of Comet 3I/ATLAS after it reemerged from behind the Sun on its path out of the Solar System. The data were collected during a Shadow the Scientists session a unique outreach initiative that invites students around the world to join researchers as they observe the Universe on the world’s most advanced telescopes.

Tech - Universe Today - 4 days ago

ESA's XMM-Newton Examines Comet 3I/ATLAS Prior to Closest Earth Passage Friday

Everyone’s favorite interstellar comet posed for one more portrait recently. The European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton mission nabbed 3I/ATLAS on December 3rd from about 283 million kilometers distant. This comes as the comet is set to make its closest passage versus Earth this coming Friday, on December 19th.

Tech - Universe Today - 4 days ago

Why Most Exoplanets Are Magma Worlds

In astronomy, there is a concept called “degeneracy”. It has nothing to do with delinquent people, but instead is used to describe data that could be interpreted multiple ways. In some cases, that interpretation is translated into exciting new possibilities. But many times, when that happens, other, more mundane explanations are ignored for the publicity that the more interesting possibilities provide. That seems to have been the case for many “sub-Neptune” exoplanets discovered recently. Some t...

Tech - Universe Today - 5 days ago

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.

Tech - Universe Today - 5 days ago

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Will Teach Us A Lot More About Cosmic Voids

The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe features massive filaments where galaxy clusters and superclusters reside. In between these filaments are cosmic voids, vast regions that are nearly empty. The Nancy Grace Roman will map and study 80,000 of these voids to place constraints on Dark Energy drives the expansion of the Universe.

Tech - Universe Today - 5 days ago

Astronomers Snap a Rare Photo of a Super-Jupiter with Two Suns

If you read enough articles about planets in binary star systems, you’ll realize almost all of them make some sort of reference to Tatooine, the fictional home of Luke Skywalker (and Darth Vader) in the Star War saga. Since that obligatory reference is now out of the way, we can talk about the new “super-Jupiter” that researchers from two separate research teams, including one at Northwestern University and one at the University of Exeter, simultaneously found in old data from the Gemini Planet ...

Tech - Universe Today - 6 days ago

China's Shenzhou-21's Crew Test New Spacesuits During Spacewalk

The Shenzhou-21 crew on board China's orbiting space station completed its first extravehicular activities on Tuesday, Dec. 9th, during which they validated the new EVA spacesuits.

Tech - Universe Today - 6 days ago

Uranus and Neptune might be rock giants

A team of researchers from the University of Zurich and the NCCR PlanetS is challenging our understanding of the interior of the Solar System's planets. The composition of Uranus and Neptune, the two outermost planets, might be more rocky and less icy than previously thought.

Tech - Universe Today - 6 days ago

It Didn't Take Long For Earth's Ancient Oceans To Become Oxygenated

For roughly two billion years of Earth’s early history, the atmosphere contained no oxygen, the essential ingredient required for complex life. Oxygen began building up in the atmosphere during the period known as the Great Oxidation Event (GOE), but it had to enter the oceans first. When and how it first entered the oceans has remained uncertain.

Tech - Universe Today - 6 days ago

The Radio Signal That Predicts Aurora Storms

Scientists have discovered a crucial clue to understanding one of nature's most spectacular light shows, the aurora. Research from the University of Southampton reveals that just before these magnetospheric substorms erupt, a distinct pattern of low frequency radio waves appears above the aurora, radio emissions that surge in strength precisely as mysterious "auroral beads" transform into full storms. This radio signature, detected by spacecraft and ground observatories across multiple events, p...

Tech - Universe Today - 6 days ago

A New Laboratory Explores How Planets Begin

Scientists at Southwest Research Institute have opened a new laboratory dedicated to answering one of astronomy's most fundamental questions, where do planets come from? The Nebular Origins of the Universe Research (NOUR) Laboratory will recreate the extreme conditions found in interstellar clouds, vast regions of ice, gas, and dust that existed before our Solar System formed to trace how these primordial materials ultimately evolved into the worlds we see today. By simulating the chemistry of p...

Tech - Universe Today - 6 days ago

2.8 Days to Disaster - Why We Are Running Out of Time in Low Earth Orbit

A “House of Cards” is a wonderful English phrase that it seems is now primarily associated with a Netflix political drama. However, its original meaning is of a system that is fundamentally unstable. It’s also the term Sarah Thiele, originally a PhD student at the University of British Columbia, and now at Princeton, and her co-authors used to describe our current satellite mega-constellation system in a new paper available in pre-print on arXiv.

Tech - Universe Today - 6 days ago

Is the Big Bang a Myth? Part 4: The Emergence of Matter

After the first protons and neutrons formed, after the first light elements formed, the universe…wasn’t really all that great.

Tech - Universe Today - 7 days ago

A Golden Era of Solar Discovery

Scientists have achieved an unprecedented view of the Sun by coordinating observations between two of the most powerful solar instruments ever built. For the first time, observations from the Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii and the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter spacecraft have captured the same solar region simultaneously from different vantage points. This created a stereoscopic view that reveals intricate details of tiny "campfire" features scattered across the Sun's surface. These fl...

Tech - Universe Today - 7 days ago

Radio Observations Find Nothing at Omega Centauri's Heart

Astronomers have performed the deepest radio observations ever of Omega Centauri, searching for signs of an intermediate mass black hole thought to lurk at its center. Despite 170 hours of observations with the Australia Telescope Compact Array achieving unprecedented sensitivity, they detected absolutely nothing where the black hole should be. If an intermediate mass black hole exists in this massive star cluster, as suggested by fast moving stars discovered earlier this year, it must be accret...

Tech - Universe Today - 7 days ago

Did a Rogue Planet Reshape Our Solar System?

Researchers have discovered that a close encounter with a rogue planet or brown dwarf during the Sun's early years could have triggered the reshuffling of our Solar System's giant planets. Running 3000 simulations of stellar flybys, the team found that substellar objects passing within 20 astronomical units of the young Sun could destabilise the planets' orbits just enough to match their current configuration without destroying the delicate Kuiper belt. This flyby scenario represents a new possi...

Tech - Universe Today - 7 days ago

A New Window on the Expansion of the Universe

Astronomers at the University of Tokyo have used gravitational lensing to measure how fast the universe is expanding, adding weight to one of cosmology's most intriguing mysteries. Their technique exploits the way massive galaxies bend light from distant quasars, creating multiple distorted images that arrive at different times. The measurement supports recent observations showing the universe expands faster than predictions based on the early universe suggest, strengthening evidence that the "H...

Tech - Universe Today - 7 days ago

Scientists Find the Strongest Evidence Yet of an Atmosphere on a Molten Rocky Exoplanet

Researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have detected the strongest evidence yet for an atmosphere on a rocky planet outside our solar system. Observations of the ultra-hot super-Earth TOI-561 b suggest that the exoplanet is surrounded by a thick blanket of gases above a global magma ocean.

Tech - Universe Today - 7 days ago

Forget Stardust - It Was Star-Ice All Along

Carl Sagan famously said that “We’re all made of star-stuff”. But he didn’t elaborate on how that actually happened. Yes, many of the molecules in our bodies could only have been created in massive supernovae explosions - hence the saying. Scientists have long thought they had the mechanism for how settled - the isotopes created in the supernovae flew here on tiny dust grains (stardust) that eventually accreted into Earth, and later into biological systems. However, a new paper from Martin Bizza...

Tech - Universe Today - 7 days ago

Is the Big Bang a Myth? Part 3: The Splitting of the Forces

The early universe was a very different place than today. And by “early” I don’t mean a billion or even ten billion years ago. The universe is about 13.77 billion years old, and when it was only a handful of seconds old, it was completely unrecognizable.

Tech - Universe Today - 8 days ago

Recent Surveys Reveal Dwarf Galaxies May Not Contain Supermassive Black Holes

A new study, analyzing over 1,600 galaxies observed with Chandra over two decades, suggests that smaller galaxies do not contain supermassive black holes nearly as often as larger galaxies do.

Tech - Universe Today - 8 days ago

Is the Big Bang a Myth? Part 2: The Primaeval Atom

In the early 20th century, after years of effort, Albert Einstein developed his general theory of relativity. This was a massive improvement in our understanding of gravity, giving us a sophisticated view into the inner workings of that fundamental force.

Tech - Universe Today - 9 days ago

Why Old Moon Dust Looks So Different from the Fresh Stuff

Tracking down resources on the Moon is a critical process if humanity decides to settle there permanently. However, some of our best resources to do that currently are orbiting satellites who use various wavelengths to scan the Moon and determine what the local environment is made out of. One potential confounding factor in those scans is “space weathering” - i.e. how the lunar surface might change based on bombardment from both the solar wind and micrometeroid impacts. A new paper from a resear...

Tech - Universe Today - 9 days ago

Measuring Radio Leaks from 36,000 Kilometres Up

Radio astronomers hunting for the faint whispers of the early universe face an unexpected threat from above: satellites designed to be silent are leaking radio noise into space. New research using the Murchison Widefield Array has set the first limits on unintended radio emissions from distant geostationary satellites, revealing that most remain mercifully quiet in the frequency range crucial for next-generation telescopes. The findings offer cautious hope that the Square Kilometre Array, set to...

Tech - Universe Today - 9 days ago

Thank The JWST For Confirming The First Runaway Supermassive Black Hole

Astronomers have been observing the Cosmic Owl for years, wondering if what they were seeing was a long-predicted runaway black hole. Now, 50 years after scientists first predicted the phenomenon, the JWST has provided the clinching evidence.

Tech - Universe Today - 9 days ago

Hubble Catches Another Glimpse of 3I/ATLAS

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope reobserved interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on 30 November with its Wide Field Camera 3 instrument. At the time, the comet was about 286 million km from Earth. Hubble tracked the comet as it moved across the sky.

Tech - Universe Today - 9 days ago

The Search for Life Tops NASA's Science Goals for the First Human Mars Mission

A new report identifies searching for life as the top science priority for humanity's first landing on Mars, ranking it above understanding water cycles, mapping geology, or even studying how the Martian environment affects astronaut health. The report outlines four possible exploration campaigns, with the highest ranked approach calling for missions totalling 330 sols at a single scientifically rich site where crews could investigate everything from ancient lava flows to active dust storms. By ...

Tech - Universe Today - 9 days ago

Is the Big Bang a Myth? Part 1: Creation Stories

Let’s say you are transported back in time to some ancient culture. And along the way you somehow forget everything you knew about modern cosmology (don’t worry about the details, it’s just to get us going here, pretend if you have to that it’s a very strange and selective sort of amnesia introduced by the time traveling device).

Tech - Universe Today - 9 days ago

Gravitational Lenses Deliver a Verdict on the Hubble Tension

The Hubble Tension is one of the great mysteries of cosmology. Solving it might require a fundamental change in how we understand the universe - but scientists have to prove it actually exists first. A new paper from a collective of cosmologist researchers known as the TDCOSMO Collaboration adds further fuel to that first with updated measurements of the “Late Universe” measurement of the Hubble Constant using gravitational lenses of quasars, which shows that the Tension might exist after all.

Tech - Universe Today - 10 days ago

Lake-Star Analog for Europa’s Manannán Spider

What geological features on Earth can be used to better understand unique geological features on Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa? This is what a recent study published in The Planetary Science Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated potential Earth analogs for studying a unique geological feature on Europa scientists identified almost 30 years ago. This study has the potential help scientists gain insights into Europa’s unique geological features, some of which scientists hypot...

Tech - Universe Today - 10 days ago

Did Life Begin in Prebiotic Surface Gels?

Surface-bound gels may have provided the structure and chemistry necessary for life to take root on Earth. These findings could also have implications in the search for life beyond Earth.

Tech - Universe Today - 10 days ago

A New Five-Year Survey Of The Magellanic Clouds Will Answer Some Questions About Our Neighbours

The Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) is forming a new research group that will focus solely on the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The pair of irregular dwarf galaxies are satellites of the Milky Way, and are natural, nearby laboratories for studying how galaxies form and evolve. The research group will make heavy use of the spectroscopic 4MOST survey from the VISTA telescope.

Tech - Universe Today - 10 days ago

Why 2025 is an Amazing Year to Catch the Geminid Meteors

It’s one of the better annual meteor showers, and 2025 is shaping up to give sky watchers a chance to see it at its best. If skies are clear this weekend, be sure to be vigilant for the Geminid meteors.

Tech - Universe Today - 10 days ago

The Telescope That Will Study Our Nearest Exoplanet

Scientists at the University of Geneva have successfully tested key components of RISTRETTO, a new spectrograph designed to analyse light from Proxima b, the nearest exoplanet to Earth. The instrument uses coronagraphic techniques and extreme adaptive optics to block a star's overwhelming glare and detect planets that shine 10 million times fainter. Simulations suggest RISTRETTO could not only spot Proxima b with just 55 hours of observation time but potentially identify oxygen or water in its a...

Tech - Universe Today - 10 days ago

A New Technique Reveals the Hidden Physics of the Universe's Giants

Astronomers have developed a new technique called "X-arithmetic" that reveals the hidden physics inside galaxy clusters. By analysing Chandra X-ray Observatory data at different energy levels and painting the results in vibrant colours, researchers can now distinguish between sound waves, black hole inflated bubbles, and cooling gas, enabling them to classify structures by what they are rather than how they look. The method has already exposed striking differences between galaxy clusters and gal...

Tech - Universe Today - 10 days ago

Reading the "Light Fingerprints" of Dead Satellites

There are already tens of thousands of pieces of large debris in orbit, some of which pose a threat to functional satellites. Various agencies and organizations have been developing novel solutions to this problem, before it turns into full-blown Kessler Syndrome. But many of them are reliant on understanding what is going on with the debris before attempting to deal with it. Gaining that understanding is hard, and failure to do so can cause satellites attempting to remove the debris to contribu...

Tech - Universe Today - 10 days ago

The Primordial Black Hole Saga: Part 4 - Hidden Singularities

The challenge is that nothing in this universe is simple. And if there’s one thing you take away from today’s episode, then let it be that. Don’t ever let yourself fall into the trap of simple answers for difficult questions. We’re cosmologists, we study the universe as it is, not as we wish it would be.

Tech - Universe Today - 11 days ago

The Solution To Finding An Atmosphere On TRAPPIST-1 e

arXiv:2512.07695v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: One of the forefront goals in the field of exoplanets is the detection of an atmosphere on a temperate terrestrial exoplanet, and among the best suited systems to do so is TRAPPIST-1. However, JWST transit observations of the TRAPPIST-1 planets show significant contamination from stellar surface features that we are unable to confidently model. Here, we present the motivation and first observations of our JWST multi-cycle program of TRAPPIST-1 e...

Tech - Universe Today - 11 days ago

New Results from the JWST Suggest that TRAPPIST-1e Might Have a Methane Atmosphere, Though Caution is Advised

An international team of astronomers has published a series of papers detailing their observations of the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1e using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Their results, though ambiguous, are a big step towards exoplanet characterization.

Tech - Universe Today - 11 days ago

A Supermassive Black Hole That Behaves Like The Sun

An international team of astronomers observed a sudden outburst of matter near the supermassive black hole NGC 3783 at speeds reaching up to 20% of the speed of light. During a ten-day observation, mainly with the XRISM space telescope, the researchers witnessed its formation and acceleration. Scientists often find that these outbursts are powered by strong radiation, but this time the most likely cause is a sudden change in the magnetic field, similar to bursts on the Sun that cause solar flar...

Tech - Universe Today - 11 days ago

The JWST Just Identified A Supernova From Only 730 Million Years After The Big Bang

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has confirmed the source of a super-bright flash of light known as a gamma-ray burst, generated by an exploding massive star when the Universe was only 730 million years old. For the first time for such a remote event, the telescope provided a detection of the supernova’s host galaxy. Webb’s quick-turnaround observations verified data taken by telescopes around the world that had been following the gamma-ray burst since its onset, which occurred in mid...

Tech - Universe Today - 11 days ago

The Primordial Black Hole Saga: Part 3 - Primordial Ooze

The early universe was a pretty intense place to be. And not just “early” as in a few billion years ago. I mean early early, just a few seconds after the Big Bang. The universe is small, less than a meter across. It’s hot, with temperatures so high it doesn’t even make sense to say them – they’re just stupidly high numbers with no connection to our everyday existence.

Tech - Universe Today - 11 days ago

The British Robots Bringing Heavy Industry to Orbit

The UK is actively trying to support the infrastructure to make it a significant player in the coming age of the space economy. It recently received 560 proposals to it’s National Space Innovation Program, and handed out £17M in grants to 17 different organizations following five main themes. One of those is an effort by the University of Leicester and The Welding Institute (TWI) to develop a robotic welder for use in repairing and manufacturing in space, as described by a new press release from...

Tech - Universe Today - 11 days ago

A 50 Million Light Year Structure Caught Spinning

Astronomers have discovered a filament 50 million light years long containing hundreds of galaxies, all spinning together. This immense structure, located 140 million light years away, challenges current models of galaxy formation by showing that large scale rotation can persist far longer and more coherently than theories predicted. The discovery offers a rare glimpse into how galaxies acquire their spin and reveals the Cosmic Web as a more dynamically active place than previously imagined.

Tech - Universe Today - 12 days ago

How Mars Controls Earth's Climate

A new study reveals that Mars plays a surprisingly crucial role in Earth's climate cycles, with new simulations showing that the mass of our planetary neighbours directly controls the timing and intensity of Milankovitch cycles that drive ice ages. By varying Mars's mass from zero to ten times its current value in computer models, researchers discovered that a more massive Mars strengthens the ~100,000 year climate cycles and creates the 2.4 million year "grand cycle" that influences Earth's lon...

Tech - Universe Today - 12 days ago

Euclid Reveals What Wakes Sleeping Black Holes

The European Space Agency's Euclid telescope has delivered an unprecedented set of observations of one million galaxies that shows that galaxy collisions play a dominant role in awakening supermassive black holes from their sleep. Using revolutionary AI-powered analysis methods, astronomers discovered that merging galaxies contain up to six times more active black holes than isolated galaxies, with the most luminous black holes found almost exclusively in collision zones.

Tech - Universe Today - 12 days ago

The Nancy Grace Roman Telescope Is Complete!

Construction is complete on the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and its ahead of schedule. After extensive testing, the new flagship telescope should be ready to launch in Fall, 2026.

Tech - Universe Today - 12 days ago

The Longest GRB Ever Detected Is An Intriguing Puzzle

In July 2025, telescopes detected a gamma-ray burst (GRB) that lasted seven hours. Most GRBs last only milliseconds, or a few minutes. Only a handful have lasted longer than that, and July's GRB was the longest ever detected. It hints at a new, exotic type of explosive event, and astronomers have a few candidates.

Tech - Universe Today - 12 days ago

What Do Super Jupiters Look Like?

Super-Jupiters have masses a dozen times that of Jupiter, but they are often illustrated as having a very Jupiter-like appearance. A new study finds that the classic banded-cloud look of Jupiter is very different from the look of the largest worlds.

Tech - Universe Today - 12 days ago

The Primordial Black Hole Saga: Part 2 - Not Your Normal Black Holes

At the same time that Vera Rubin was turning cosmology upside down with conclusive evidence for the existence of dark matter, Stephen Hawking was doing…Stephen Hawking things.

Tech - Universe Today - 12 days ago

NASA Researchers Test Mars Tech In Deserts Throughtout the Country

Engineers can be split into two camps - those who just release whatever they’re building and try to fix whatever might be wrong with it as they get feedback on it, and those who test their product in every possible way before releasing it to the public. Luckily, NASA engineers are in the latter camp - it wouldn’t look great if all of the probes we send throughout the solar system failed because of something we could have easily tested for here at home. However, finding analogues for the places w...

Tech - Universe Today - 13 days ago

Direct Images Of Nova Explosions Reveal Their Complexity

Astronomers have captured images of two nova explosions only days after they exploded. The detailed images show that these explosions are more complex than thought. There are multiple outflows and, in some cases, delayed ejection of material.

Tech - Universe Today - 13 days ago

Applying the Principles of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle to Space

In a new study, sustainability and space scientists discuss how the principles of reducing, reusing, and recycling could be applied to satellites and spacecraft.

Tech - Universe Today - 13 days ago

It's the JWST's Turn To Look For An Intermediate Mass Black Hole

Astronomers have acquired evidence that Omega Centauri, the largest-known globular cluster in the Milky Way, hosts an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH). These elusive objects should exist, according to theory, but have been difficult to verify. The IMBH in Omega Centauri is considered a candidate black hole, and new research examined the region with the JWST for any conclusive evidence.

Tech - Universe Today - 13 days ago

The Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole Isn't As Destructive As Thought.

New research and observations with the VLT's ERIS instrument show that some stars are following predictable orbits near Sagitarrius A-star, the Milky Way's supermassive black hole. This goes against the established idea that the black hole's enormous gravity destroys stars and gas clouds. Even a binary star system in the region seems to go about its business unaffected.

Tech - Universe Today - 13 days ago

The Primordial Black Hole Saga: Part 1 - The Dark Matter Mystery

Do I really need to go over the evidence for dark matter again? Okay, fine, for those of you in the back who weren’t paying attention the first time.

Tech - Universe Today - 13 days ago

Inspired by Schools of Fish, This Magnetic Material Swarms to Eat Carbon Dioxide

Removing, or “scrubbing”, carbon dioxide from the air of confined spaces is a critical component of any life support system on a spacecraft or submarine. However, modern day ones are energy intensive, requiring temperatures of up to 200℃ to operate. So a research lab led by Dr. Hui He at Guangxi University in China has developed what they call “micro/nano reconfigurable robots” (MNRM) to scrub CO2 from the air much more efficiently. Their work is described in a new paper in Nano-Micro Letters.

Tech - Universe Today - 14 days ago

Researchers at SwRI May Have Solved the Mystery of Uranus' Radiation Belts

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists believe they may have resolved a 39-year-old mystery about the radiation belts around Uranus.

Tech - Universe Today - 15 days ago

Russia Loses Launch Capability After Accident at Baikonur Cosmodrome

A severe accident at the Baikonur Cosmodrome involving a wrecked maintenance cabin has indefinitely delayed Russia's ability to launch crewed missions and payloads to the International Space Station (ISS).

Tech - Universe Today - 15 days 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 - 16 days 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 days 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 - 16 days 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 - 16 days 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 - 16 days 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 - 17 days 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 - 17 days 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 - 17 days 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 - 17 days 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 - 17 days 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 - 17 days 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 - 17 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 - 18 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 - 18 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 - 18 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 - 18 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 - 18 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 - 18 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 - 19 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 - 19 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 - 19 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 - 20 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 - 20 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 - 20 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 - 21 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 - 21 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 - 21 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.