The Orion orbiterNASAThe newly released NASA budget introduces major changes: the Orion spacecraft and the Lunar Gateway space station are among the projects to be canceled. With a total of $18.8 billion, the budget reflects a $6 billion — or 24% — reduction, signaling a shift in the agency’s investments toward crewed missions to...
Credit: PixabayJapanese astronomers have found that the unknown X-ray source AX J145732−5901 is a galaxy cluster behind the galactic plane. The researchers outlined these findings in a paper released on April 30 on the arXiv preprint server.Discovery and Early Observations of AX J145732−5901 with ASCANASA launched the ASCA satellite in 1993 to study distant...
An artist's impression of a magnetar. (ESA)On the edge of our galaxy, one of the universe’s rarest stellar objects just became even more puzzling.Using data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Gaia observatory, astronomers examined the environment around SGR 0501+4516, a magnetar — a highly magnetized type of neutron star. Their findings suggest that...
Credit: PixabayIn 2020, astronomers discovered WD 1856+534 b, a gas giant about 81 light-years from Earth. With about six times Jupiter’s mass, this “super-Jupiter” became the first known exoplanet to transit a white dwarf.JWST Observations Confirm WD 1856+534 b as the Coldest Exoplanet Ever DetectedIn a recent study, an international team of astronomers reported...
Credit PixabayWe've found that a meteorite impacted northwest Scotland 1 billion years ago—200 million years more recently than earlier estimates. Our findings are published today in the journal Geology.This impact now coincides with some of the earliest known land based, non-marine microbial fossilsh, providing fresh insights into how meteorite collisions may have influenced our...
Credit: Illustration of a lone stellar-mass black hole. (FECYT/IAC)For the first time, a solitary black hole drifting through the cosmos has been confirmed. After much excitement, a closer examination has unveiled the true nature of this mysterious object.The latest analysis reveals that the black hole has a mass approximately 7.15 times that of the Sun,...
Something's going on beneath the surface of North AmericaNASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio The Blue Marble Next Generation data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC) and NASA's Earth ObservatoryA study published in the journal Nature Geoscience has revealed a subtle yet significant phenomenon beneath the North American continent: its ancient bedrock is...
While most cameras were looking up at the 2012 peak of the Lyrid meteor shower, astronaut Don Pettit aboard the International Space Station trained his video camera on Earth below. Footage from that night is now revealing breathtaking images of Earth at night with meteors burning up in the atmosphere.The constellation Lyra, visible in...
Credit: NasaWhen we observe the cosmos, a striking pattern emerges: Earth spins, the Sun spins, and even our Milky Way galaxy is rotating. Now, a bold new model proposes that the entire Universe might also be rotating. If proven, this revelation could resolve one of modern cosmology’s most persistent puzzles.We’ve long known that the...
An artist's impression of the Milky Way's hydrogen halo, with the Magellanic Clouds at eight o'clock. (NASA/CXC/M.Weiss; NASA/CXC/Ohio State/A. Gupta et al)A new sky survey has revealed the long-sought whereabouts of half of the Universe’s visible matter—solving a mystery that had puzzled scientists for decades.The Hidden Clouds Around GalaxiesThis elusive matter turns out to be...
