Ion thruster. Credit: NASA Sending an object to another star is still the stuff of science fiction. But some concrete missions could get us at least part way there. These…
Category: Planetary Science
Discovery of carbon-storing molecules in a distant interstellar cloud may shed light on how our own solar system formed
The Taurus Molecular Cloud, in which TMC-1 is located, appears in the top portion of the image as a dark cloud blocking the light from the background stars as seen…
Weather clears for SpaceX Crew-8 to head home to Florida
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain The four members of the SpaceX Crew-8 mission climbed on board the Crew Dragon Endeavour on Wednesday to prepare for their return trip to Earth from…
China’s ‘Thousand Sails’ joins Starlink as the latest mega-satellite constellation in orbit
The first batch of Thousand Sails satellites head to orbit. Credit: CNSA With “Thousand Sails,” China joins the race to fill up Low Earth Orbit with mega-satellite constellations. It’s getting…
NOAA releases imagery from world’s first operational space-based coronagraph
Credit: NOAA Headquarters NOAA today shared the first images from the Compact Coronagraph (CCOR-1), a powerful solar telescope onboard the new GOES-19 satellite. CCOR-1, the world’s first operational, space-based coronagraph,…
Betelgeuse Betelgeuse? Bright star Betelgeuse likely has a ‘Betelbuddy’ stellar companion
Graphical depiction of Betelgeuse and the Betelbuddy. Credit: Lucy Reading-Ikkanda/Simons Foundation One of the brightest stars in the night sky, Betelgeuse, may not be on the brink of exploding as…
New research shows most space rocks crashing into Earth come from a single source
The sight of a fireball streaking across the sky brings wonder and excitement to children and adults alike. It’s a reminder that Earth is part of a much larger and…
Physicists show that neutron stars may be shrouded in clouds of axions
An axion cloud around a neutron star. While some axions escape the star’s gravitational pull, many remain bound to the star and over a long period of time form a…
Hubble captures a new view of galaxy M90
This eye-catching image offers us a new view of the spiral galaxy Messier 90 from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker, J This NASA/ESA Hubble…
First results from the Axion Dark-Matter Birefringent Cavity experiment establish a new technique for axion search
Experimental setup at MIT, picture by Swadha Pandey. Our four-mirror detector is housed inside two steel vacuum chambers connected by a pipe. The platform in front of the near vacuum…
