The world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope is officially open for business according to Xinhua, China’s official state-run media. The FAST Radio Telescope saw fist light in 2016 but has been undergoing testing and commissioning since then.   FAST stands for Five-hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope. FAST’s nickname is Tianyan, which means “Eye of the

Gravitational waves are caused by calamitous events in the Universe. Neutron stars that finally merge after circling each other for a long time can create them, and so can two black holes that collide with each other. But sometimes there’s a burst of gravitational waves that doesn’t have a clear cause.   One such burst

Although the Moon has no atmosphere, it has loads of oxygen, all mixed up with the dust on the lunar surface in the form of oxides. Last year, scientists published a paper on how to extract it from a Moon dust (regolith) simulant; now, the first prototype oxygen plant is going to be attempting that extraction

SpaceX successfully tested its emergency abort system on an uncrewed spacecraft moments after launch Sunday, according to a live broadcast of the event, the last major test before it plans to send NASA astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).   The test launch began at 10:30 am (15:30 GMT) at the Kennedy Space Center

A cache of five newly discovered exoplanets orbiting nearby stars has been revealed in a new study. The bounty includes two potentially habitable super-Earths that are perfect candidates to study further in our search for life outside the Solar System, according to the research team.   The two planets are called GJ 180 d and

A new image from the ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft shows how beautiful, and desolate, Mars can appear. It also highlights some of the natural process that shape the planet’s surface.   The image is of the northern polar region, and it features bright patches of ice, deep dark troughs, and evidence of storms and strong

NASA astronaut Christina Koch shared a short but powerful message from space on Tuesday: “Australia. Our hearts and thoughts are with you.” Koch, who is living on the International Space Station, posted several photos of the smoke from Australia’s fires, as seen from her vantage point 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth. (Christina Koch/NASA) About

There’s something really weird in the centre of the Milky Way. The vicinity of a supermassive black hole is a pretty weird place to start with, but astronomers have found six objects orbiting Sagittarius A* that are unlike anything in the galaxy. They are so peculiar that they have been assigned a brand-new class –

Phosphorus, an element that’s key in forming DNA and fuelling life on Earth, may have first arrived on the planet via comets from newborn stars. Since the element is extremely rare in the Universe, its presence on Earth has been a long-standing mystery. But scientists at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) now suggest that phosphorus

Proxima Centauri is our nearest neighbouring star; it’s just 4.2 light-years away. It has one planet that astronomers know of, a potentially habitable world called Proxima b.   But in a new study, researchers from Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics report that they have observed changes in the star’s activity that indicate it could have another planet.

Shortly after the Solar System formed, astronomers think it went through what’s known as the Great Divide – a splitting up of the planets into two distinct groups. We weren’t around to experience this cosmic schism, but a new study has put forward an intriguing hypothesis on how it would have occurred.   Put simply, the

The oldest solid material on Earth has just been identified, and it predates the Solar System itself by at least a few hundred million years. The teensy tiny microscopic grains of dust were forged in a distant star somewhere between 5 and 7 billion years ago, according to new research. By comparison, our Sun is just

About 800,000 years ago, a monster space rock struck the Earth hard and fast. The impact of the 1.2 mile-wide (1.9 kilometre-wide) meteorite flung debris across 10 percent of the planet’s surface.   Scientists have found this ancient debris, mostly in the form of glass blobs known as tektites, in Asia, Australia, and Antarctica. But

Astronomers recently discovered that a long time ago, a collision with a satellite galaxy did something interesting to the Milky Way, puffing up its disc and seeding its halo with stars. Now, we’ve established a more precise time frame for that event, all thanks to a single star.   That star is visible in the night sky.

A new technique using the Hubble Space Telescope and a feature of general relativity has revealed the smallest clumps of dark matter ever identified – up to 100,000 times less massive than the Milky Way galaxy’s dark matter halo.   And these (relatively) teeny tiny clumps of dark matter nicely agree with one of the

We are, by now, pretty familiar with the concept of the Goldilocks zone. Also known as the habitable zone, it’s the distance from a star at which liquid water can be present on the surface on a planet – not so hot as to be vaporised, nor so cold as to be frozen.   These

The famous black hole at the heart of the M87 galaxy is emitting jets of material that travel at near the speed of light. The black hole at the heart of the Messier 87 galaxy bears the name M87*, and astronomers have been observing it for a long time. Last year, the Event Horizon Telescope

If, by chance, you happened to miss seeing the glorious first quarter Moon of 2020, astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy’s got you covered. In one of his most detailed images to date, the Moon enthusiast has managed to capture Earth’s only natural satellite in absolutely brilliant detail.   All it took was a blend of 100,000 photos

After keeping a dead star under close observation for over two decades, astronomers have finally caught it acting out. A pulsar called PSR J0908-4913 (J0908 for short) has, for the first time, been seen glitching – a peculiar and poorly-understood “hiccup” in rotation speed that some pulsars undergo.   This not only adds to the

In 1879, astronomer Benjamin Gould identified what looked to be a ring in the sky, measuring about 3,000 light-years across, made of dust and gas and young stars – interconnected stellar nurseries. Now, a new discovery has shattered our understanding of this structure, which has been known for 150 years as Gould’s Belt.   According

SpaceX on Monday launched its third batch of 60 mini-satellites into orbit, part of its plans to build a giant constellation of thousands of spacecraft that will form a global broadband internet system.   The cluster of 60 satellites separated successfully from a Falcon 9 rocket above the ocean between Australia and Antarctica an hour

NASA’s planet hunter satellite TESS has discovered an Earth-sized world within the habitable range of its star, which could allow the presence of liquid water. Another first for the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite is its discovery of a world orbiting two stars, evoking the planet Tatooine from Star Wars but unlikely to be hospitable to

An ordinary-looking star system, barely visible in the night sky, appears to have a very bright future in store – and if astronomers’ predictions are right, some of us might even be around to see it.   Today, V Sagittae is so faint it’s hard to find up there, even with a mid-sized telescope. But

Our magnificent gravitational wave astronomers have done it again, adding to the detection collection a new collision between two neutron stars. On 25 April 2019, two neutron stars around 520 million light-years away came together and merged into a single object.   It’s called GW190425, and although it’s only the second such collision astronomers have

A mysterious repeating radio signal from space revealed last year is now the fifth fast radio burst to be tracked back to its source galaxy. It’s a location unlike any of the others, and astronomers are having to rethink their previous assumptions about how these signals are generated.   The origin of this repeating signal

There’s nothing quite like staring into a celestial abyss to put your life in perspective. Perhaps that’s what we all need in 2020. On the brink of a new year, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope snapped a swirling mass of star dust and gas, known as spiral galaxy ESO 021-G004, and the resulting image is so gob-smacking,

Despite the similarities our world has with Venus, there is still much don’t know about Earth’s “sister planet” and how it came to be. Thanks to its super-dense and hazy atmosphere, there are still unresolved questions about the planet’s geological history. For example, despite the fact that Venus’ surface is dominated by volcanic features, scientists

You’ve heard of hot Jupiters. You’ve heard of mini-Neptunes. You’ve heard of super-Earths. But have you heard of Eyeball Planets? Yep – planetary scientists think there might be a type of exoplanet out there that looks disturbingly like a giant eyeball. Just sitting there. Staring.   But it’s actually not as weird as it sounds

You’ve heard of hot Jupiters. You’ve heard of mini-Neptunes. You’ve heard of super-Earths. But have you heard of Eyeball Planets? Yep – planetary scientists think there might be a type of exoplanet out there that looks disturbingly like a giant eyeball. Just sitting there. Staring.   But it’s actually not as weird as it sounds

Homo sapiens have been treading this planet for around 350,000 years now. With our primate hands and our primate brains, we have expanded our curiosity beyond Earth’s blue skies, into the unimaginably vast reaches of space.   Our discoveries over the millennia have been incredible – we’ve peeled back the aeons and stared at the

If we discovered evidence of alien life, would we even realise it? Life on other planets could be so different from what we’re used to that we might not recognise any biological signatures that it produces.   Recent years have seen changes to our theories about what counts as a biosignature and which planets might

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine secretly proposed using US rockets to send Japanese astronauts to the Moon, Japanese newspaper The Mainichi reports, citing “multiple sources” familiar with the talks.   According to the paper, Bridenstine made the proposal during an unofficial September 2019 visit in which he met with space industry leaders, including the head of

When you’re preparing for any journey it helps to know how long it’ll take, and even more so when we’re talking about the vast distances of space. Now a couple of physicists have tried to calculate more precisely how long it would take us to get to other star systems in our galaxy, using existing

Sometimes you just have to stand back in awe at the beauty of the Universe – and that’s absolutely the case with this image from the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), which captures the side view of a spiral galaxy know as the Whale Galaxy.   But if you look closer, the stunning picture also

Some 7,800 light-years away, in the constellation of Cygnus, lies a most peculiar black hole. It’s called V404 Cygni, and in 2015, telescopes around the world stared in wonder as it woke from dormancy to devour material from a star over the course of a week.   That one event provided such a wealth of

Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the goal of populating outer space. But in the nearly 18 years since – and even as the rocket company continues to disrupt the global launch industry – the most complex life-form SpaceX has flown is a mouse.   That should all change in early 2020, though, as

Astronaut Christina Koch has had quite the year. In 2019, the American engineer broke no less than two records: the first, along with friend and colleague Jessica Meir, for an all-female space walk, and the second, just days before the new year, for the longest single spaceflight by a woman.   She marked her 289th continuous

Astronomers have been watching a nearby pulsar with a strange halo around it. That pulsar might answer a question that’s puzzled astronomers for some time. The pulsar is named Geminga, and it’s one of the nearest pulsars to Earth, about 800 light-years away in the constellation Gemini. Not only is it close to Earth, but

The Mars 2020 rover, which sets off for the Red Planet next year, will not only search for traces of ancient life, but pave the way for future human missions, NASA scientists said Friday as they unveiled the vehicle.   The rover has been constructed in a large, sterile room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Have you noticed that Orion the Hunter – one of the most iconic and familiar of the wintertime constellations – is looking a little… different as of late? The culprit is its upper shoulder star Alpha Orionis, aka Betelgeuse, which is looking markedly faint, the faintest it has been for the 21st century.   When

It was found along the side of a road in a remote Australian gold rush town. In the old days, Wedderburn was a hotspot for prospectors – it occasionally still is – but nobody there had ever seen a nugget quite like this one.   The Wedderburn meteorite, found just north-east of the town in

Before its circuits ran cold in the shadow of a Martian dust storm, Opportunity took one long look at its surroundings and saved it for posterity.  The image represents a poignant conclusion to the rover’s mission; a detailed panorama combining the most recent tracks of its marathon journey with a glimpse of the sands it

As far as hypothetical space megastructures go, the stellar engine is one of our favourites – a gigantic contraption built with the purpose of transporting our Solar System somewhere else, if we ever need to move to a different cosmic neighbourhood.   Now, new research has put forward another idea for what such a radical

Deep within the central zone of the Milky Way, a bizarre cluster of dense gas clouds has taken the unusual form of a gigantic, cosmic candy cane. CNN reports that the observation may help scientists understand the process through which our galaxy forms stars — because the cosmic candy cane, and the clouds surrounding it,

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk welcomed the launching of Space Force, the newest US military service, with a “Star Trek”-themed tweet: “Starfleet begins.“ On Friday, President Donald Trump signed the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) a US$738 billion bipartisan defence spending bill.   Part of the NDAA authorizes the Space Force as a military service under

Boeing’s new Starliner unmanned spacecraft returned to Earth on Sunday, landing in the New Mexico desert in the United States six days early after a clock problem scuppered a rendezvous with the International Space Station.   NASA hailed the aborted flight as a success, despite its failure to reach the ISS on what was meant

Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule launched successfully, but a mishap prevented it from docking with the ISS. The ship is undamaged and will return and land at its designated location, according to officials. This could delay the planned crewed flight of the Starliner next summer.   Starliner launched successfully on Friday morning on an Atlas V

The Milky Way could be teeming with interstellar alien civilizations, according to a new study. We just don’t know about it because they haven’t paid us a visit in 10 million years.   The study, published last month in The Astronomical Journal, posits that intelligent extraterrestrial life could be taking its time to explore the