Sending a mission to moons of Mars has been on the wish list for mission planners and space enthusiasts for quite some time. For the past few years, however, a team of Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) engineers and scientists have been working on putting such a mission together.   Now, JAXA announced this week that

Most stars are pretty set in their ways. They are what they are, and they act like it – even if what they are is something really odd. But an object called Terzan 5 CX1 acts like one thing, and then something else entirely.   In 2003, it looked exactly like a binary system consisting

We have a new record. Perhaps 1,060 light-years away, a gas giant called NGTS-10b is whipping around its star so closely, it completes an entire orbit in just 18.4 hours. That’s nearly as close as the planet can get to the host star without being ripped apart by gravitational forces. But it will get closer.

In the very early days of the Solar System, baby Earth took a much shorter time to form than we previously thought. According to a new analysis of the iron isotopes found in meteorites, most of Earth took just 5 million years to come together – several times shorter than current models suggest.   This

One can only hope that never (again) will a substantially-sized asteroid come barrelling towards Earth. But if it should happen, we’re now better prepared for it: MIT scientists have come up with a decision map for figuring out the best response in the event of an incoming asteroid crisis.   The decision map weighs up

A stunning photo recently released by the ESO shows Jupiter as you’ve likely never seen it before – ringed by a halo of light as it shines down on the Atacama desert in Chile. That halo is an optical phenomenon, known as a corona. You’ve likely seen it around the Moon, or maybe even the

In a wild galaxy over half a billion light-years away, astronomers have detected molecular oxygen. It’s only the third such detection ever outside the Solar System – and the first outside the Milky Way.   Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the Universe, behind hydrogen (naturally) and helium. So its chemistry and abundance

SpaceX announced a new partnership Tuesday to send four tourists deeper into orbit than any private citizen before them, in a mission that could take place by 2022 and easily cost more than US$100 million.   The company signed the deal with Space Adventures, which is based in Washington and served as an intermediary to

Happen to have clear skies tomorrow morning and live in the western part of North America? Then you may have a chance to spy a unique event, as the waning crescent Moon occults (passes in front of) the planet Mars.   This is the ultimate cosmic photobomb, as our Moon slides in front of Mars

Astronomers have detected unusual movements of gas clouds near the centre of our galaxy, and they could be pointing the way to the most elusive species of black hole, according to a new study. For the longest time, we weren’t even sure if these types of black holes existed.   Researchers tracking the gasses in

Near the end of 2019, astronomers watching the red giant Betelgeuse noted how much the star had dimmed, continuing to steadily fade for months. It’s a variable star, and it’s known to get dimmer and brighter, but the big surprise is that it’s still continuing to dim, recently passing magnitude 1.56 and still getting dimmer.

NASA astronaut Christina Koch recently returned to Earth after 328 days in space, breaking the record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman. She completed six spacewalks while on the International Space Station, including the first all-female spacewalk with astronaut Jessica Meir.   When she finally made it home, her beloved pup, LBD (Little

There are many things in the Universe we are yet to understand. It’s a big old machine just churning out mysteries, and we tiny specks crawling on the surface of a small blue dot are doing our darnedest to unravel them.   Recently, news emerged about one of the most tantalising mysteries. For the first time,

In the far reaches of the Solar System, a small rock is showing us how giant planets get their start. Arrokoth – the most distant and most primordial world ever visited by a human spacecraft – now spills its secrets in three new papers.   Those findings could resolve some debate about how planetesimals –

In 1802, German astronomer Heinrich Olbers observed what he thought was a planet within the Main Asteroid Belt. In time, astronomers would come to name this body Pallas, an alternate name for the Greek warrior goddess Athena.   The subsequent discovery of many more asteroids in the Main Belt would lead to Pallas being reclassified as

The light of a dying star is so intense it can reduce asteroids to dust. A new study indicates this will happen to most of the stars currently burning in the Universe, including the Sun, which will shatter its asteroid belt down to boulders in about 5 to 6 billion years.   The sole agent

Picture the space around Earth filled with tens of thousands of communications satellites. That scenario is slowly coming into being, and it has astronomers concerned. Now a group of astronomers have written a paper outlining their detailed concerns, and how all of these satellites could have a severe, negative impact on ground-based astronomy.   SpaceX and

Wanted: The next generation of astronauts to walk on the Moon and journey to Mars. You’ll need a relevant Master’s degree, be prepared to live and work 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth on the International Space Station, and be a US citizen.   NASA announced Tuesday it was seeking to boost its astronaut corps,

While dust devils aren’t exactly uncommon on Mars – the Red Planet is, after all, a very dusty and windy place – the whirlwinds often fade almost as quickly as they appear. That makes capturing an image of one in action a rare treat.   But in October 2019, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter managed to

A large asteroid whooshed past Earth last week, and mooned all of humanity in the process. As it approached Earth space, asteroid 2020 BX12 was under close observation. Clocking in at 200 to 450 metres across (656 to 1,476 feet), and moving at around 90,000 kilometres per hour (56,000 miles per hour), the space rock

Last year, the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors pinged with an entirely new kind of collision: not two neutron stars, not two black holes, but a neutron star and a black hole together. Scientists were thrilled: this could be the first time we’ve ever witnessed such a binary system.   Now, after poring over

Russian spacecraft are trailing a US satellite used to spy on other countries, according to the commander of the US Space Force. “This is unusual and disturbing behaviour and has the potential to create a dangerous situation in space,” General John Raymond, the Space Force chief of space operations, said in a statement to Business

This year’s first supermoon potentially graced the sky on February 9. A supermoon is usually defined as the largest full moon possible. This is a very lose definition and roughly means this happens when the full moon occurs within 10 percent of its closest to Earth.   But in reality, supermoons are never huge at all.

One of the defining characteristics of the mysterious deep-space signals we call fast radio bursts is that they are unpredictable. They belch out across the cosmos without rhyme or reason, with no discernible pattern, making them incredibly hard to study.   Now, for the first time, astronomers have found a fast radio burst (FRB) that

Today is an exciting day in space news: We’re about to launch a spacecraft that will give us unprecedented access to our Sun’s shy sides. When United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket takes off later today, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Solar Orbiter will be snuggled inside to help us study our star up close

A full snow moon will be visible in the sky this weekend, but experts disagree about whether or not it’s a supermoon. It will be one of the biggest full moons this year, since the Moon is nearing the closest point to Earth in its orbit. But there’s no official definition for a supermoon. Astrologer

A nanoscopic speck of Moon dust, roughly as wide as a human hair, can now be analysed in high resolution atom by atom. Using an innovative approach called atom probe tomography (APT), researchers at the University of Chicago say they have found a way to conserve our limited sample of precious Moon rocks, gathered during

Astronomers have found a monster galaxy causing trouble in the early Universe. When the Universe was just 1.8 billion years old, galaxy XMM-2599 was already a colossal chonker. It was also already dead as a doornail.   Sometime between the Big Bang (13.8 billion years ago) and 12 billion years ago, it had ballooned out

NASA’s Christina Koch returned to Earth safely on Thursday after shattering the spaceflight record for female astronauts with a stay of almost 11 months aboard the International Space Station.   Koch touched down at 09:12 GMT on the Kazakh steppe after 328 days in space, along with Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency and

Wrapped up within the nearby Cocoon Galaxy, astronomers have detected a rare double heart. Recognised in the Northern Hemisphere for its distinct shape, this distorted spiral galaxy, otherwise known as NGC 4490, appears to be hiding a true rarity.   Despite its relatively small size – its system is roughly a fifth of the Milky Way –

In 2017, astronomers captured a mysterious signal from deep space. For mere milliseconds, it flared brightly in the radio spectrum and fell away, and that seemed to be that. But it wasn’t.   Follow-up observations have now revealed the signal repeating, nearly 600 times fainter than that first burst. The repetition suggests these weird radio flares we

The epic collision between two neutron stars in 2017 really is the science gift that keeps on giving. As they merged, gravitational waves rippled out across the Universe; now reverberations from that event could confirm a decades-old hypothesis about black holes.   Astronomers poring over the gravitational wave data believe they have found evidence of

A dramatic encounter between two stars has strewn their remains out across their little corner of space in the most spectacular fashion – and we get to actually see it with our own eyes.   Here’s how it went down: As a dying star expanded into a red giant, it engulfed another, lower mass star.

In July and August of 2016, astronomers noticed something really strange in the data from the Gaia space observatory. A distant star oddly brightened, then dimmed. A few weeks later, it brightened again, and dimmed again.   This odd behaviour wasn’t because of anything the star was doing; rather, the gravity of an invisible object

Solar storms powerful enough to wreak havoc on electronic equipment strike Earth every 25 years, according to a new study. And less powerful – yet still dangerous – storms occur every three years or so.   This conclusion comes from a team of scientists from the the University of Warwick and the British Antarctic Survey.

On 19 October 2016, the NASA/ESA ExoMars mission arrived at the Red Planet to begin its study of the surface and atmosphere. While the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) successfully established orbit around Mars, the Schiaparelli Lander crashed on its way to the surface.   At the time, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) acquired images of

After 6,002 days in space, NASA has finally retired its groundbreaking Spitzer Space Telescope. On January 30, mission control downloaded the last of Spitzer’s data, and sent through the final command to enter safe mode.   At 2:34 pm PST, Spitzer Project Manager Joseph Hunt officially declared the Spitzer Space Telescope decommissioned. Spitzer was one

One of the predictions of Einstein’s general theory of relativity is that any spinning body drags the very fabric of space-time in its vicinity around with it. This is known as “frame-dragging”.   In everyday life, frame-dragging is both undetectable and inconsequential, as the effect is so ridiculously tiny. Detecting the frame-dragging caused by the

It appears we have missed another close call between two satellites – but how close did we really come to a catastrophic event in space? It all began with a series of tweets from LeoLabs, a company that uses radar to track satellites and debris in space. It predicted that two obsolete satellites orbiting Earth

Scientists have donned their Sherlock Holmes caps to solve a mystery that’s been running for decades – the origins of a huge, layered expanse of CO2 ice and water ice at the south pole of Mars, and its link to the CO2 in the Martian atmosphere.   One leading hypothesis is that these layers were

A couple of years ago, astronomers marvelled over the discovery of the hottest planet in the known Universe. And just when you thought KELT-9b couldn’t get even more insane, it goes and outdoes itself.   New research shows that not only is this planet hotter than most stars, with vaporised iron and rare Earth metals in

A new telescope built to study the Sun has released its first images, and they are just breathtaking. They show the surface of the Sun in the most exquisite detail we’ve ever seen – revealing convection granules the size of Texas, and tiny magnetic features – the roots of fields that extend far into space.

A collaboration between physicists and amateur stargazers has yielded the discovery of what researchers say is a previously unknown kind of aurora phenomenon. Called ‘the dunes’, this stunning apparition of luminous, rippling wave patterns does not appear to fit within any established categories of aurora – and it’s only been documented now because of a

It crashed into Earth in 1969, ending an epic journey that had lasted for billions of years, and maybe even much longer than that. Inside this mysterious space rock – the Allende meteorite, which rained down over Mexican desert in a hail of fiery fragments a half-century ago – scientists have now identified interstellar material

There’s a lot of stuff up there, whizzing around in low-Earth orbit. Given the thousands of old, defunct satellites that can no longer communicate with Earth, it’s surprising how seldom they collide; but just such a collision might happen this week.   According to space debris tracking service LeoLabs, IRAS (a decommissioned space telescope launched

Super-luminous supernovae are the brightest explosions in the Universe. In just a few months, a super-luminous supernova can release as much energy as our Sun will in its entire lifespan. And at its peak, it can be as bright as an entire galaxy.   One of the most-studied super-luminous supernovae (SLSN) is called SN 2006gy.

Here on Earth, we pay quite a lot of attention to the sun. It’s visible to us, after all, and central to our lives. But it is only one of the billions of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. It’s also quite small compared to other stars – most are at least eight times

SpaceX is poised to launch its first astronauts into space this spring: Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley. Their flight on the company’s Crew Dragon spaceship will mark the first time an American spacecraft has carried NASA astronauts since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.   Behnken and Hurley’s liftoff is expected to launch a