Universe Today

Scientists have launched COLIS, a special laboratory aboard the International Space Station designed to study how everyday materials like sunscreens, mayonnaise, and medications behave in near zero gravity. Researchers discovered that gravity influences the long term stability of soft matter far more dramatically than previously understood, affecting how these materials age and restructure at the molecular level. This research could fundamentally improve how we design everything from controlled release drugs to self assembling materials, demonstrating that understanding materials in space offers unexpected benefits for life on Earth.

On a summer day in 709 BCE, scribes at the Lu Duchy Court in ancient China looked up to witness something extraordinary. The Sun vanished completely from the sky, and in its place hung a ghostly halo. They recorded the event carefully, noting that during totality the eclipsed Sun appeared "completely yellow above and below." Nearly three millennia later, that ancient observation has helped modern scientists measure how fast Earth was spinning and understand what our Sun was doing at a time when Homer was composing poetry.

An international team has made a significant breakthrough in understanding the tectonic evolution of terrestrial planets. Using advanced numerical models, the team systematically classified for the first time six distinct planetary tectonic regimes. Their work provides a unified theory on the geological evolution of both Earth and Venus.

Intermediate mass stars experience periods of rapid growth in their late stages of formation. The growing young star emits more radiation that encourages greater accretion. Rather than depleting their protoplanetary disks and preventing gas giants from forming, the opposite is true.

In a recent paper, a team of SETI and astrobiology specialists examines four controversial claims about the existence of extraterrestrial life. From these, they present recommendations for scientists and science communicators when addressing future claims of discovery.

Searching for technosignatures - signs of technology on a planet that we can see from afr - remains a difficult task. There are so many different factors to consider, and we only have the technological capabilities to detect a relatively small collection of them. A new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv but also accepted for publication into The Astrophysical Journal Letters, from Jacob Haqq-Misra of the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science and his co-authors explores some of those capabilities by using a framework they developed known as Project Janus that estimates what technology will look like on Earth 1,000 years from now in the hopes that we can test whether or not we can detect it on another planet.

What can an exoplanet leaking helium teach astronomers about the formation and evolution of exoplanet atmospheres? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as an international team of scientists investigated atmospheric escape on a puffy exoplanet. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of gas giant planets, specifically with many gas giant planets observed orbiting extremely close to their stars.

arXiv:2512.00492v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We describe how the ESA Comet Interceptor mission, which is due to launch in 2028/29 to a yet-to-be-discovered target, can provide a conceptual basis for a future mission to visit an Interstellar Object. Comet Interceptor will wait in space until a suitable long period comet is discovered, allowing rapid response to perform a fast flyby of an object that will be in the inner Solar System for only a few years; an enhanced version of this concept ...

The JWST has made a name for itself by discovering mature galaxies in the Universe's early times. This time, a pair of Indian astronomers working with the JWST found a fully-formed spiral galaxy much like the Milky Way only 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. The discovery, and others like it, are forcing scientists to reconsider their understanding of the cosmic timeline.

We've long known that we move through the Universe relative to the cosmic microwave background, but a new study of radio galaxies finds an even faster result, which could contradict the standard model of cosmology.

The European Space Agency has release its ESA/Webb Picture of the Month and it features a pair of dwarf galaxies engaged in a tentative dance, like nervous partners at a social. The pair are a staggering 24 million light-years away. But even at that great distance, the pair of galaxies is the closest-known interacting pair of dwarfs, other than the Milky Way's Magellanic Clouds, where both the stellar populations and the gas bridge linking the galaxies have been observed.

There’s been a lot of speculation recently about interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS - much of which is probably caused by low quality data given that we have to observe it from either Earth, or in some case Mars. In either case it’s much further away that what would be the ideal. But that might not be the case for a future interstellar object. The European Space Agency (ESA) is planning a mission that could potentially visit a new interstellar visitor, or a comet that is making its first pass into the inner solar system. But, given the constraints of the mission, any such potential target object would have to meet a string of conditions. A new paper by lead Professor Colin Snodgrass of the University of Edinburgh of his colleagues, discusses what those conditions are, and assesses the likelihood that we’ll find a good candidate within a reasonable time of the mission's launch.

To celebrate 25 years since the completion of the International Gemini Observatory, students in Chile voted for the Gemini South telescope to image NGC 6302 — a billowing planetary nebula that resembles a cosmic butterfly. The International Gemini Observatory is partly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by NSF NOIRLab.

Why is the Universe filled with matter? Why isn't it an equal amount of matter and antimatter? We still don't know the answer, but a new approach looks at the symmetries of extended models of particle physics and finds a possible path forward. It's a knotty problem that may just have a knotty solution.

Remember back in 2018 when there was a discovery of a briny “lake” underground near the Martian south pole? Pepperidge Farm probably does, and anyone that works there that’s interested in space exploration will be disappointed to hear that, whatever might be causing the radar signal that finding was based on, it’s most likely not a lake. At least according to new data collected by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and published recently in Geophysical Research Letters by lead author Gareth Morgan of the Planetary Science Institute and his colleagues.

The complex molecules required for life on Earth might never have formed if it wasn’t for cosmic dust.

There is a period in the Universe known as the cosmic dark ages. It lies between the recombination of the first atoms and the ignition of the first stars, when the Universe was thought to be cold and dark. Now astronomers have looked at the faint glow of atomic hydrogen to find that while the Universe was dark, it wasn't quite as cold as we thought.

Searching for exomoons - moons the orbit around another planet - was one of the most exciting capabilities expected of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) when it launched in late 2021. So, after four years of operation, why hasn’t it found one yet? Turns out it’s really, really hard to find a moon around a planet light-years away. A new paper available in pre-print on arXiv from David Kipping of Columbia University (and Cool Worlds YouTube Channel fame) shows why. They used 60 hours of time on JWST’s NIRSpec instrument and weren't able to definitively confirm the existence of a possible exomoon.

What can water in Jupiter’s atmosphere teach scientists about the planet’s composition? This is what a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the distribution of water with Jupiter’s atmosphere. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand Jupiter’s atmospheric dynamics, composition, and evolutionary history.

What steps can be taken to improve and enhance the lifetime of space solar cells? This is what a recent study published in Joule hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated new methods for improving both the lifetime and performance of space solar cells from the harshness of space weather and radiation. This study has the potential to help scientists and engineers develop new space technologies, especially as several private companies and government organizations are extending their reach into space.