Understanding that even planets in pristine solar systems have some orbital tilt puts Earth’s solar system into a larger perspective, researchers say. Scientists have long puzzled over why all planets…
Category: Space
Ghostlike dusty galaxy reappears in James Webb Space Telescope image
Color composite of galaxy AzTECC71 from multiple color filters in the NIRCam instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: J. McKinney/M. Franco/C. Casey/University of Texas at Austin. It first…
ESA’s Cheops Helps Unlock Rare Six-Planet System
ESA’s CHaracterising Exoplanet Satellite (Cheops) has provided the crucial pieces of data to understand a mysterious exoplanet system that had been perplexing researchers for years. The star HD110067 lies around…
NASA’s Fermi Mission Nets 300 Gamma-Ray Pulsars … and Counting
A new catalog produced by a French-led international team of astronomers shows that NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered 294 gamma-ray-emitting pulsars, while another 34 suspects await confirmation. This is 27…
Aurorae from the tropics to the polar regions
A Japanese auroral drawing showing an observation at Okazaki on 4 February 1872, as reproduced with courtesy of Shounji Temple (contrast enhanced). Credit: ©︎ Shounji Temple In early November of…
First launch of Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket planned for June-July
The Ariane 6 rocket undergoes a successful dress rehearsal at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana last week. The European Space Agency announced on Thursday that the long-delayed first launch of…
Telescope Detects Second Highest-Energy Cosmic Ray Ever
In 1991, the University of Utah Fly’s Eye experiment detected the highest-energy cosmic ray ever observed. Later dubbed the Oh-My-God particle, the cosmic ray’s energy shocked astrophysicists. Nothing in our…
The Moon is 40M Years Older Than Previously Thought
Researchers recalculated the age of the Earth’s moon by analyzing tiny lunar zircon crystals gathered by Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972. Although previous assessments estimated the moon to be over…
NASA orbiter snaps stunning views of Mars horizon
This unusual view of the horizon of Mars was captured by NASA’s Odyssey orbiter using its THEMIS camera, in an operation that took engineers three months to plan. It’s taken…
