Astronomy

Humans in space: Are astronauts obsolete?

David Szondy — Sun, 15 Feb 2026 14:03:00 GMT

The Artemis II mission, which will return US astronauts to lunar space, has run into problems that have critics demanding NASA remove the crew from the flight for safety reasons. The bigger question is, why do we have astronauts at all?

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Mars, Moon, Orion Spacecraft, artemis, International Space Station, Apollo, Features, xxShowcase

Don't like ice ages? Blame Mars

David Szondy — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 05:33:00 GMT

Why did the ice ages occur? If you need a scapegoat, a new study by Stephen Kane of UC Riverside suggests pointing the finger at Mars. According to computer models, the pull of the Red Planet may have altered the Earth's orbit until things got nippy.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Climate, Mars, UC Riverside, Weather, Ice, Astronomy

Saturnian moon may be the solar system's biggest slushie

David Szondy — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 03:23:35 GMT

According to a NASA study, Saturn's moon Titan may be the most fantastically large slushie of all time. Based on a reexamination of data from the Cassini probe collected in 2012, the moon's long-suspected global ocean may actually be a slurry of ice and rock.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Cassini, Saturn, Titan

Airless wheel can change shape and drive through fire

Abhimanyu Ghoshal — Wed, 17 Dec 2025 19:01:00 GMT

Sending a rover into space to explore other celestial bodies comes with a dizzying array of challenges, and one of the most complex is ensuring the vehicle doesn't break down out there.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Space exploration, Moon, Rover, Wheel, KAIST

How much faster you'd 'age' on Mars – relatively speaking

David Szondy — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 03:39:34 GMT

If you're going to Mars you'd best take along a jar of anti-aging cream because while you're there you're going to age faster than on Earth thanks to the Theory of Relativity. It's only 477 millionths of a second per day, but that tends to add up.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: relativity, Time, NIST, GPS

Solar arrays will be manufactured in space by 2027

David Szondy — Wed, 03 Dec 2025 00:03:00 GMT

Commercial spaceflight is booming and looks to go into full-on kaboom stage in the near future, sparking the need for an ever-increasing supply of solar panels. To fill this need, Dcubed is developing its ARAQYS system to directly manufacture arrays in orbit.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: 3D Printing, Solar Power

Launch mishap may knock Russia out of astronaut launches for years

David Szondy — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 01:25:30 GMT

Russia has suffered a major setback after the launch of its Soyuz MS-28 mission ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) caused severe damage to the country's only pad capable of handling crewed boosters.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Roscosmos, NASA, Soyuz, International Space Station

Next Starliner flight will carry cargo instead of crew

David Szondy — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 01:47:00 GMT

Boeing has suffered another setback after NASA renegotiated its agreement with the company. Under the new contract, on its next flight o the International Space Station (ISS), Boeing's Starliner capsule will carry only cargo and no crew.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: NASA, Boeing, International Space Station, Starliner

Voyager 1 approaches one light day from Earth

David Szondy — Mon, 24 Nov 2025 00:03:00 GMT

As it heads out of the solar system never to return, the deep space probe Voyager 1 is headed for yet another cosmic milestone. In late 2026, it will become the first spacecraft to travel so far that a radio signal from Earth takes 24 hours, or one light day, to reach it.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: NASA, Voyager, Spacecraft, Solar System, xxViral or high CTR

Like living on Earth? Thank Jupiter

David Szondy — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 05:03:00 GMT

If you've ever wondered why we are here, then you can thank Jupiter for part of the answer. A new study from Rice University suggests that if it weren't for the gas giant, the Earth would have spiraled into the Sun during its formation.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Rice University, Jupiter, Solar System, Earth

Haven Demo lays the groundwork for first private space station

David Szondy — Sat, 08 Nov 2025 09:03:00 GMT

It may look like an ordinary satellite, but the recently launched Haven Demo is a major step toward the first commercial space station. Built by Vast, the 1,100-lb (500-kg) uncrewed spacecraft will test core systems of the planned Haven-1 outpost.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Space Station, Commercial

Chinese space oven puts chicken wings on the menu

David Szondy — Wed, 05 Nov 2025 05:04:52 GMT

First Japan wants to make space sake and now China has been roasting New Orleans-style chicken wings and black pepper steaks in a specially made hot-air oven aboard its Tiangong space station, according to China's Global Times state news service.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Tiangong, China, Food

Yes, it rains on the Sun and scientists have finally worked out why

Pranjal Malewar — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 00:32:58 GMT

Did you know it rains on the Sun? Not water, of course. It's solar rain, which occurs in the Sun's corona, the outermost layer composed of intensely hot plasma. This phenomenon involves cooler, heavier blobs of plasma that condense high above the Sun's surface and then plunge back down.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Sun, Astronomy, Weather

New Space Armor shields satellites from hypersonic space debris

David Szondy — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 13:03:00 GMT

With satellites orbiting the Earth exploding into tens of thousands of pieces, the danger of collisions with space debris is a major problem, so Atomic-6 has developed new Space Armor tiles that are lighter and more effective than current systems.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Space Junk, Spacecraft, Protection

Sake to the stars: Japan’s lunar brewing experiment set for takeoff

David Szondy — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 11:03:00 GMT

They're not serving sushi on the Moon – yet – but if or when they do, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and DASSAI want sake on the table. To attain this quaffable goal, the companies are sending a rice fermentation experiment to the International Space Station (ISS).

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Drink, Japan, JAXA, Mitsubishi, International Space Station

Dream Chaser to debut as free-flying spacecraft in 2026

David Szondy — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 23:03:00 GMT

Sierra Space and NASA have renegotiated their contract for the Dream Chaser spaceplane that will allow the spacecraft to make its first orbital flight next year as a free flier instead of visiting the International Space Station (ISS).

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Sierra Space, Dream Chaser, NASA, International Space Station

Extreme battery tech powers one-of-a-kind rover across alien terrain

Ian Baker — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 02:17:23 GMT

It’s hard to think of a more challenging environment for an automotive battery than the surface of the Moon, and preparations for NASA’s Artemis program give us a chance to contrast the pioneering technology of the 1970s with where we are 50 years later.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Rover, Lunar, artemis, NASA, General Motors, Electric Vehicles, Space exploration, Spacecraft

Space travel found to accelerate cellular aging

Pranjal Malewar — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 10:03:00 GMT

Your body's blood-making stem cells, hematopoietic stem cells (HSC), are like factory managers who work best when calm and rested. But when stress hits, like infection or injury, they spring into action, churning out immune cells to defend you. Over time, too much stress wears them down, making them age faster and lose their spark.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: interstellar space, Astronauts, Stem Cells

NASA rover discovers potential signs of ancient life on Mars

Abhimanyu Ghoshal — Sat, 13 Sep 2025 16:03:00 GMT

Over four years since it landed on Mars, NASA's Perseverance Rover might have made serious headway in its mission to find signs of ancient microbial life on the planet.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Mars, NASA, perseverance, JPL

ORNL tackles control challenges of nuclear rocket engines

David Szondy — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 05:48:46 GMT

How do you control a nuclear space propulsion system? Very carefully. To help with this, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has built a simulated nuclear reactor test bed to develop the engines that could send astronauts to Mars and beyond.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: ORNL, NASA, Nuclear Rocket

Mechanical piston CPR could keep astronauts stayin' alive

David Szondy — Sun, 07 Sep 2025 03:03:00 GMT

CPR is a technique that has saved countless lives since the modern version was developed in the 1960s. However, it turns out it doesn't work very well in zero gravity, so a team of European cardiologists has been testing alternatives for astronauts.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Heart attack, First Aid

This mysterious celestial object is like nothing astronomers have ever seen

Chelsea Haney — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 22:03:00 GMT

Astronomers have discovered a new celestial object, a compact radio beacon located in the galaxy NGS 4945, about 12 million light-years away. Its light is polarized at an almost impossible level that hints at a perfectly aligned magnetic field. The object has been nicknamed "Punctum"; it’s a signal so clean and precise that it stands out like a lighthouse beam cutting through fog.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: ALMA, Telescope

ESA applies CREAM to tackle growing space debris threat

David Szondy — Wed, 27 Aug 2025 01:03:00 GMT

ESA is working on a new system with the unfortunate acronym of Collision Risk Estimation and Automated Mitigation (CREAM) that is designed to automate the labor-intensive process of monitoring, assessing, and responding to possible space debris.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: ESA, Space Junk

A meteorite older than the Earth landed in a living room in Atlanta

Pranjal Malewar — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 01:03:00 GMT

Imagine sipping your coffee when suddenly – BOOM! A sonic tremor rattles your home. That’s exactly what happened to one McDonough resident when a meteorite the size of a cherry tomato punched through his roof, shredded his HVAC duct, and embedded itself in his floor with the force of a close-range gunshot.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Meteorite, Earth, Solar System

Our nearest stellar neighbor may have a habitable world

David Szondy — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 01:06:16 GMT

If Earth needs to borrow a cup of sugar, it's comforting to know that there may be a convenient, possibly habitable, world orbiting Alpha Centauri only 4.34 light years away – at least, if the findings from the James Webb Space Telescope pan out.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: NASA, ESA, James Webb Space Telescope, Exoplanet

Moonquakes threaten future Moon bases

David Szondy — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 21:03:00 GMT

As if hard vacuum, intense cosmic radiation, corrosive dust, meteors, and temperatures whiplashing hundreds of degrees between night and day weren't enough, personnel at future Moon bases will be at significant peril from moonquakes.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Moon, Geology, Seismic, University of Maryland

Solar power plant repurposed to hunt asteroids at night

David Szondy — Sun, 03 Aug 2025 19:03:00 GMT

To keep solar power stations from getting lazy, Sandia National Laboratories scientist John Sandusky is looking to give heliostat mirrors a side hustle. At the National Solar Thermal Test Facility he's experimenting with getting them to hunt for asteroids at night.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Sandia Labs, Solar Power, Asteroid

Why send one copter to Mars when you can send six?

David Szondy — Sat, 02 Aug 2025 03:03:00 GMT

Hoping to push Mars exploration into top gear and do recon for a future crewed landing, AeroVironment has released its concept for a mission consisting of half a dozen autonomous helicopters that would land on the Red Planet under their own power.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: NASA, Mars, Helicopter

NASA turns up the heat to fix Jupiter probe's wonky camera

David Szondy — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 16:03:00 GMT

Using the thermal equivalent of giving it a sharp whack, NASA repaired the camera of its Jupiter-orbiting Juno probe from 370 million miles (590 million km) away after the instrument was put out of commission by the gas giant's radiation belts.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Juno, NASA, Jupiter

Moon's first-ever radio telescope ready for the dark side

David Szondy — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 23:00:50 GMT

Radio astronomers like a bit of peace and quiet, so they're sending an historic first radio telescope to the Moon. To block out Earthside radio signals, the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment (LuSEE-Night) will set up shop on the far side of the Moon.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: NASA, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Moon, Radio

Uranus is warmer than everyone thought

David Szondy — Sun, 27 Jul 2025 12:03:00 GMT

Showing that you shouldn't draw conclusions based on too few facts, new NASA research suggests that a decades-old view of Uranus as an unusually cold planet isn't true, but that it does actually generate its own heat as other worlds do.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Uranus, NASA, Voyager

Breakthrough cryocooler makes crewed Mars missions possible

David Szondy — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 04:29:03 GMT

NASA has tested a kind of super-fridge that may hold the key to any future crewed mission to Mars. Without the new cryogenic cooler, a ship to Mars would reach the Red Planet with empty fuel tanks, which would ruin everyone's day.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Mars, NASA, Cryogenics

This comet may be older than our solar system

Pranjal Malewar — Sun, 20 Jul 2025 09:03:00 GMT

Most comets, including the well-known Halley's, loop through our solar system like cosmic time capsules that formed alongside our Sun and planets around 4.5 billion years ago. But every now and then, something far stranger streaks across the sky; an interstellar nomad, either forged in alien star systems or eternally drifting unclaimed through the void.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Comets, interstellar space, Cosmic, Universe, Solar System

Hypersonic SABRE engine reignited in Invictus Mach 5 spaceplane

David Szondy — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 13:33:00 GMT

Proving that you can't keep a good technology down, Reaction Engines' Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine (SABRE) has a new lease on life after a British-led consortium announced Invictus, a new program to build a Mach 5+ spaceplane.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Reaction Engines, Hypersonic, Spaceplane, Aircraft

A dead Mars may have been inevitable – and the Sun is to blame

David Szondy — Sat, 12 Jul 2025 15:03:00 GMT

New discoveries by NASA's Curiosity Mars rover may not only explain why the Red Planet is a dry, lifeless desert, but that it may have been on an inevitable path to being a dead world despite being so similar to Earth. And the Sun is to blame.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: University of Chicago, NASA, Curiosity Rover, Mars

Like it or not, radar means ET knows we're here

David Szondy — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 06:58:18 GMT

If you're hoping that we can avoid the attention of alien civilizations by lying low, it's a bit late now. A new study released by the Royal Astronomical Society indicates that our radar systems are already screaming our location to ET eavesdroppers.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Royal Astronomical Society, SETI, Radar, University of Manchester

Lockheed Martin offers to rescue Mars mission from budget death

David Szondy — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 02:03:00 GMT

NASA's beleaguered Mars Sample Return mission may get a reprieve from an unexpected source. Lockheed Martin has proposed a streamlined, lower-cost alternative that could slash the mission’s price tag by more than half.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Lockheed Martin, NASA, Mars

World's largest digital camera captures first astro imagery

Paul Ridden — Sat, 28 Jun 2025 13:03:00 GMT

After more than two decades of planning and building, the world's largest digital camera at the heart of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory on the summit of Cerro Pachón in Chile has snapped its first imagery – from test observations spanning a 10-hour window.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Telescope, Observatory, SLAC, Cameras, Astrophotography, Astronomy, Imaging

Space probe creates its first on-demand solar eclipse

David Szondy — Sat, 28 Jun 2025 12:03:00 GMT

ESA has found a way to make its own solar eclipses more or less on demand and all it took was a pair of robotic spacecraft flying in a formation precise to within a millimeter of each other thousands of miles from Earth. Simple.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: ESA, Sun, ECLIPSE

France's VORTEX spaceplane to land like a jet, operate like a shuttle

David Szondy — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 09:03:00 GMT

What will the orbital spacecraft of tomorrow look like? If Dassault Aviation has its way, it could be similar to its Véhicule Orbital Réutilisable de Transport et d’Exploration (VORTEX) reusable spaceplane unveiled at the recent Paris Air Show.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Spaceplane, France, Dassault Aviation

Largest map of the universe reveals unbelievable number of galaxies

Jay Kakade — Sun, 22 Jun 2025 11:03:00 GMT

For years, astronomers have been working to piece together the story of our universe, but the critical early chapters remained largely incomplete. Our telescopes simply haven't been sensitive enough to pick up those faintest traces of light from the farthest reaches of the universe. Until now that is. A new collaborative project dubbed the COSMOS-Web field has compiled the most comprehensive cosmic map ever, including images of the early universe as far back as 13.5 billion years.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: James Webb Space Telescope, Galaxy, Astronomy

First-ever images of the Sun's south pole captured by ESA probe

David Szondy — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 09:03:00 GMT

ESA's Solar Orbiter deep-space probe has made history, returning the first-ever images of the Sun's south pole. It's a world first that sheds a great deal of light on the mysteries of our parent star, but it wasn't easy to achieve. Very far from it.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Solar Orbiter, ESA, Sun, World's First

Dawn Aerospace is selling spaceplanes direct to customers, like airliners

David Szondy — Sun, 01 Jun 2025 13:03:00 GMT

Dawn Aerospace seems to want to play with the big kids as it announces that it will be selling its spaceplane directly to customers the same way that airliner manufacturers market their aircraft, suggesting a major shift in space launch business models.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Spaceplane, Dawn Aerospace

Plan to harvest helium-3 from lunar surface reaches prototyping milestone

Paul Ridden — Tue, 27 May 2025 12:12:43 GMT

A US startup is looking to our closest satellite to fill a resources gap here on Earth. Helium-3 is rare on terra firma, but is thought to be abundant in the regolith of the Moon. Interlune has now revealed a full-scale excavator prototype that forms a key component of its lunar Harvester.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Moon, Resources, Helium, Mining

2001: A Space Odyssey's balletic waltz to be beamed to Voyager 1

David Szondy — Mon, 26 May 2025 05:35:24 GMT

On May 31, Voyager 1 will be the guest of honor at what may be the most exclusive concert in history. To mark the 200th birthday of Johann Strauss II, ESA will beam a live performance of "By the Beautiful Blue Danube" to NASA's deep space probe.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: NASA, Voyager, ESA, Music Streaming

NASA beats the clock to save Voyager 1 from deep space doom

David Szondy — Mon, 19 May 2025 05:40:52 GMT

It was race against time as NASA engineers recently raced to fix a thruster problem aboard the vintage Voyager 1 deep space probe. It's hard enough to repair a craft at the edge of the solar system, but this time they faced a potentially deadly deadline.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: NASA, Voyager

Armored Venus lander crashes to Earth after 53 years in orbit

David Szondy — Mon, 12 May 2025 00:27:18 GMT

A potentially destructive Soviet Venus lander that was lost in space for over half a century has reentered the Earth's atmosphere. Tracked by various space agencies and individuals, the capsule crashed on May 10 somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Venus, Roscosmos, ESA

NASA budget axes several missions, SLS and a space station

David Szondy — Mon, 05 May 2025 03:20:33 GMT

The release of NASA's latest budget reveals the Orion spacecraft and Lunar Gateway space station are getting the chop. The US$18.8-billion total figure decreases spending by $6 billion, or 24%, as the space agency increases funding for crewed Moon and Mars missions.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: NASA, Mars, Moon, Orion Spacecraft, Gateway, SLS

Cold War-era Soviet probe set to crash back to Earth next week

David Szondy — Sun, 04 May 2025 15:03:00 GMT

The Space Age past may come knocking on the world's door next week as the defunct Soviet Union's Kosmos 482 Venus lander from 1972 makes an unwelcome return home and is predicted to crash into the Earth's atmosphere around May 10.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: USSR, Roscosmos, Venus

Over 6,600 tons of space junk are floating around in Earth's orbit

Abhimanyu Ghoshal — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 03:03:00 GMT

We've deployed so many satellites into space over the last few decades that we now have a massive orbital junk problem. The European Space Agency (ESA) noted in its Annual Space Environment Report that more than 6,600 tons of space junk are currently floating about in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), between 100 - 1,200 miles (160 - 2,000 km) above our planet's surface.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Space Junk, ESA, NASA

Making miso in space is possible, and yields a nuttier condiment

Abhimanyu Ghoshal — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 03:03:00 GMT

If you've ever looked into the living conditions of astronauts in space, you probably know they make do with spartan arrangements, including mostly rehydratable meals.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Food, Astronauts, International Space Station, MIT, Technical University of Denmark

Hubble peers deep into Uranus, finds extra time

David Szondy — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 03:12:42 GMT

If you've been wondering how long the day on Uranus is, you probably need to get out more. But if you have, you'll be interested to know that observations by the Hubble Space Telescope have shown that it's 28 seconds longer than previously thought.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Hubble, Uranus, Astronomy, ESA, Planet

Life on Titan? Maybe just a small dog's worth

David Szondy — Tue, 08 Apr 2025 07:07:25 GMT

Looking for life on Saturn's largest moon Titan may be trickier than first thought. New computer simulations suggest that if life exists, there may not be a lot of it about. In fact, the mass probably wouldn't amount to much of anything at all.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: University of Arizona, Titan, Exobiology

Amazon gears up to rival Starlink this year with a satellite launch

Abhimanyu Ghoshal — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 06:54:03 GMT

Amazon is launching 27 satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) next week, kicking off its years-in-the-making plan to set up a massive constellation and deliver internet access anywhere on the globe – similar to SpaceX's Starlink service.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Amazon, Internet, Starlink, United Launch Alliance

NASA uses force field on Moon to sweep away deadly dust

David Szondy — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 05:11:25 GMT

NASA has successfully tested an electric force field on the Moon that protects spacecraft from destructive lunar dust. The Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) was carried aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, whose mission ended on March 16.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: NASA, Moon

"Mudball meteorite" spent 2 million years avoiding collision – until Earth

Bronwyn Thompson — Wed, 02 Apr 2025 04:20:04 GMT

One of the most studied space rocks of all time has given scientists another big surprise, with the "mudball meteorite" Aguas Zarcas found to have been in orbit for two million years without crashing into any other objects – or if it did, there was no damage. It challenges conventional thought of the "fragile" carbonaceous chondrite class it belongs to.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Meteorite, Asteroid, Space exploration, Solar System, SETI, University of California Berkeley, NASA

Strong infrared signals could reveal alien life on "waterworld" planets

Michael Irving — Sun, 23 Mar 2025 17:03:00 GMT

Finding alien life won’t be as dramatic as a flying saucer landing on the White House lawn – it’ll be NASA scientists holding a press conference to excitedly show off a chart that’s incomprehensible to most people. Now, we’re a step closer to that boring but groundbreaking day.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Astronomy, Life, Extraterrestrial, UC Riverside, University of California Riverside, Exoplanet, Planet, James Webb Space Telescope, JWST

Strange X-ray signal could be coming from a doomed planet

Michael Irving — Sun, 09 Mar 2025 12:03:00 GMT

Astronomers have detected mysterious X-ray signals coming from a nearby white dwarf star for more than 40 years. We may now know where they’re coming from – the death throes of a planet being torn to shreds and raining down on the star.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Astronomy, X-ray, Planet, Exoplanet, Stars, White dwarf, Supernova, Nebula, NASA

NASA tweaks Voyager probes to help them hit a half century of service

David Szondy — Thu, 06 Mar 2025 06:16:59 GMT

A pair of extraordinary space missions that have been headed out of the solar system for almost half a century are getting a new lease on life as NASA engineers order the Voyager 1 and 2 deep-space probes to shut down two instruments to save power.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: NASA, Voyager, Nuclear

Supernova explosions could have altered evolution on Earth

Michael Irving — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 02:51:39 GMT

Astrophysicists have done a bit of crime scene investigation on what’s almost a reverse murder mystery. They’ve traced radioactive elements on the seafloor back to the cosmic explosions they might have come from – and potentially linked the event to evolutionary changes in viruses in a lake in Africa.

Category: Astronomy, Science

Tags: Supernova, Astronomy, UC Santa Cruz, UCSC, Radiation, Evolution, Iron