Astronomy
For Dolphins, Echolocation May Be More Like ‘Touching’ Than ‘Seeing’
Dolphins seem to “feel” their way across the sea with narrow, sweeping beams of sonar
Solar Tracking Sunspots - Seestar s50
Northern lights may be visible in these 13 US states tonight as the sun hurls solar storm toward Earth
Could AI Make Drone Shows Less Technically Challenging?
AI can allow engineers to focus on artistry over technical details for drone shows
Astronomers capture incredible 1st image of a dead star that exploded twice. How did it happen?
Titan is the Perfect Benchmark for Studying Exoplanet Atmospheres
While we know of thousands of exoplanets, the science of studying their atmospheres is still in its early days. When astronomers analyze atmospheres, they have to decide which molecules to include in their models, which can bias the results. A new paper proposes that Cassini data on Titan could provide the perfect benchmark, helping to distinguish between different hydrocarbons detected in the atmosphere of an exoplanet.
Mercury Joins the 4th of July Fireworks Show
For folks in the United States, July evenings mean 4th of July fireworks. While you’re waiting for the show, be sure to watch for the most elusive of the planets as twilight falls, as Mercury shines at its very best for 2025. If you’ve never seen the innermost world before, now is a good time to try. This is because Mercury reaches greatest elongation, or its greatest point from the Sun as seen from our Earthly vantage point later this week.
A Spacecraft Carrying Human Remains and Cannabis Crashes into the Ocean
Failed Orbital Mission Loses Human Remains, Space Pot
Menstrual Cups Tested in Space Flight Conditions for the First Time
For long-duration missions, female astronauts generally use hormonal contraception to suppress their periods. But this method has potential health risks and requires special storage. Pads and tampons create waste in space. Now researchers have tested menstrual cups on a sub-orbital rocket flight, where they experienced the force of launch, and found they performed identically to ground control cups. This could provide a new option to female astronauts on future missions.
Tracking Macroplastics Leeching Into Rivers from Space
Rivers are one of the main ways that plastics get into the world's oceans, and now we can identify where plastic waste accumulates from space. Researchers used data from the Worldview-3 satellite to identify and map plastic material and polymer-coated surfaces in a watershed on the US-Mexico border. They collected different waste from stream channels and then identified their specific infrared absorption features, matching them to satellite imagery.
Galaxy Clusters Have Been Surrounded by High-Energy Particles for Almost Their Entire History
If you could see the Universe through a radio-wave "eye", you'd detect mini-halos of relativistic particles creating radio emissions around some galaxy clusters. Astronomers long figured those halos are relative "recent" happenings in the nearby Universe and didn't occur in the early epochs of cosmic history. That's all changed now that the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio observatory in Europe has revealed newborn galaxies in the early Universe already surrounded by a halo of particles. It's a rare look at what such clusters were like soon after they formed.
Correcting Radius Biases in TESS Exoplanet Discoveries
How accurate are the exoplanet radius measurements obtained by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)? This is what a recent study accepted to The Astrophysical Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers investigated how hundreds of exoplanetary radii measured by TESS during its mission might be incorrect and the data could be underestimating the radii measurements. This study has the potential to help astronomers develop more efficient methods more estimating exoplanetary characteristics, which could influence whether or not they are Earth-sized.