Medford MA (SPX) Sep 03, 2025
What was the universe like in the first few hundreds of millions of years after it came into existence? How did the first stars and galaxies form? Those are questions that astronomers now have a better chance of answering, thanks to a new research program using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which came online in 2022. The MINERVA program, co-led by a Tufts astronomer, will give res

Paris, France (SPX) Sep 03, 2025
The first magnetic fields that emerged after the Universe's birth may have been billions of times weaker than the pull of a refrigerator magnet, with intensities comparable to the magnetism created by neurons in the brain. Despite their weakness, researchers have found that these fields left detectable traces in the cosmic web that spans the Universe. The conclusions come from a collaborat

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 03, 2025
Pixxel has added three new Firefly satellites to orbit aboard SpaceX's NAOS Mission, doubling its commercial constellation to six. The company says this expansion delivers humanity's first daily, high-resolution hyperspectral view of Earth, enabling detailed environmental monitoring and predictive analytics at planetary scale. The Fireflies operate collectively as the most advanced commerc

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 03, 2025
NASA has launched the 2026 Human Lander Challenge (HuLC), inviting student teams across the United States to propose new solutions for advancing human landing system technologies. The initiative supports NASA's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate in preparing for lunar missions under the Artemis program. The competition seeks innovative ideas in known technology development

Paris, France (SPX) Sep 01, 2025
Gaia, the European Space Agency's star-mapping mission, has redrawn our understanding of stellar communities in the Milky Way. After more than a decade of observations, the spacecraft revealed that clusters of stars are not isolated but instead linked in extended chains that stretch across vast galactic distances. Launched in 2013 and operating until early 2025, Gaia has already transforme

Tucson AZ (SPX) Sep 01, 2025
A team of astronomers has detected for the first time a growing planet outside our solar system, embedded in a cleared gap of a multi-ringed disk of dust and gas. The team, led by University of Arizona astronomer Laird Close and Richelle van Capelleveen, an astronomy graduate student at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, discovered the unique exoplanet using the University of Arizona's

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 01, 2025
Rocky material buried deep within Mars has been traced to colossal impacts 4.5 billion years ago, according to new findings from NASA's retired InSight lander. The discovery points to lumps of mantle rock, some up to 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) wide, scattered beneath the surface. Scientists believe massive collisions melted large portions of early Mars into magma oceans while forcing fragmen

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Sep 01, 2025
A team led by Stockholm University has identified a young star surrounded by a disk unusually dominated by carbon dioxide, defying current theories of planet formation. Using the James Webb Space Telescope's MIRI instrument, the researchers found that water vapor is nearly absent in the disk, while carbon dioxide shows up strongly in regions where rocky planets could eventually take shape.

Paris (ESA) Sep 02, 2025
The European Space Agency-led Solar Orbiter mission has split the flood of energetic particles flung out into space from the Sun into two groups, tracing each back to a different kind of outburst from our star. The Sun is the most energetic particle accelerator in the Solar System. It whips up electrons to nearly the speed of light and flings them out into space, flooding the Solar System

London UK (SPX) Sep 01, 2025
Clues about the formation of Earth-like planets have emerged from the Butterfly Nebula NGC 6302, where astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope and ALMA to probe its dusty heart. The combined observations revealed crystalline silicates, irregular dust grains, jets of iron and nickel, and even carbon-based molecules thought to be precursors of life. Lead researcher Dr Mikako Matsuura