This image provided by Brennan Gilmore shows the bright green comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) on Saturday, Oct. 4, 2025, in Cismont, Va. Credit: Brennan Gilmore via AP Two bright green…
Category: Planetary Science
Foldable solar sails could help with aerobraking and atmospheric reentry
Artist’s concept of NASA’s Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) in orbit. Credit: NASA Use cases for smart materials in space exploration keep cropping up everywhere. They are used in…
Can we hear gravitational-wave ‘beats’ in the rhythm of pulsars?
Credit: CC0 Public Domain Pulsars suggest that ultra–low-frequency gravitational waves are rippling through the cosmos. The signal seen by international pulsar timing array collaborations in 2023 could come from a…
SpaceX launches the 11th test flight of its mega Starship rocket with another win
SpaceX’s mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. Credit: AP Photo/Eric Gay SpaceX launched another of its mammoth Starship rockets on a test…
ESA’s Mars Express and ExoMars orbiters catch a glimpse of 3I/ATLAS
ExoMars TGO images comet 3I/ATLAS. Credit: ESA/TGO/CaSSIS The interstellar object 3I/ATLAS has been something of a mystery ever since it graced our solar system. From all outward appearances, the object…
Unified model explains extreme jet streams on all giant planets
The gas giants Jupiter and Saturn exhibit eastward-flowing equatorial jet streams, while the ice giants Uranus and Neptune have westward-flowing ones. This work demonstrates that, under similar conditions, a jet…
Event Horizon Telescope images reveal new dark matter detection method
Simulated images of the supermassive black hole M87*. Left panel shows radiation from astrophysical plasma and right panel illustrates potential emission from dark matter annihilation. Credit: Yifan Chen. According to…
Young sunlike star reveals rapid two-year magnetic cycle
Credit: AIP/J. Alvarado-Gómez – STScI/NASA Scientists at the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) have uncovered the intricate magnetic heartbeat of a distant star remarkably similar to our own sun—but…
SpaceX targets nighttime launch of competitor Amazon’s satellites
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain SpaceX is set to finish up its third of three contracted launches of competitor Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellites on Thursday night. A Falcon 9 on the…
Simulations unveil the electrodynamic nature of black hole mergers and other spacetime collisions
Spinning black hole with gravitational electric (top) and magnetic fields (bottom). Shown in color is the gravitational electric charge density. Credit: Boyeneni, Wu & Most. Gravitational waves are energy-carrying waves…
