Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain With SpaceX champing at the bit to begin construction of a new Starship launch site at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, demolition began on June 12…
Category: Planetary Science
Astronomers map unusual inner workings of a jellyfish galaxy with ‘bunny ears’
A Hubble Space Telescope image of NGC 4858, showing the stellar tendrils extending north from the barred spiral disk. The cold molecular gas in NGC 4858, seen by the ALMA…
Why the moon shimmers with shiny glass beads
SEM images of features on the surface of 74001 black glass beads. Credit: Icarus (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2025.116607 The study combined a variety of techniques—atom probe tomography, scanning electron microscopy, transmission…
Dark energy camera captures sparse pockets of light among dark clouds of Chamaeleon I
The Ominous Chamaeleon I dark cloud. Credit: CTIO / NOIRLab / DOE / NSF / AURA; Image Processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage / NSF NOIRLab), M. Zamani &…
Space storm capture advances coronal mass ejection research
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Local weather alerts are familiar warnings for potentially dangerous conditions, but an alert that puts all of Earth on warning is rare. On May 31, the…
Core components for NASA’s Roman Space Telescope pass major shake test
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center The core portion of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has successfully completed vibration testing, ensuring it will withstand the extreme shaking experienced during…
Astronomers thought the Milky Way was doomed to crash into Andromeda. Now they’re not so sure
For years, astronomers have predicted a dramatic fate for our galaxy: a head-on collision with Andromeda, our nearest large galactic neighbor. This merger—expected in about 5 billion years—has become a…
Milky Way’s chance of colliding with galaxy billions of years from now? New study puts odds at 50-50
In this combination of images from NASA/ESA shows three future scenarios for Milky Way & Andromeda encounter. Top left: Galaxies bypass at 1 million light-year separation. Top right: At 500,000…
Mars Odyssey orbiter captures volcano peeking above morning cloud tops
Arsia Mons, an ancient Martian volcano, was captured before dawn on May 2, 2025, by NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter while the spacecraft was studying the Red Planet’s atmosphere, which…
Private lunar lander from Japan falls silent while attempting a moon touchdown
This image taken from video shows flight controllers at ispace Mission Control in Tokyo awaiting confirmation of their private lunar lander touching down on the moon Friday, June 6, 2025.…
