All's not as it appears, this tale has many twists -
but if I wasn't here documenting the story
would that mean that the plot did not exist?

— Peter Hammill

Feed aggregator

More Research Shows That Enceladus Has A Stable Ocean That Could Host Life

Universe Today - 1 hour 14 min ago

Is Saturn's moon Enceladus habitable? There's ample evidence that the moon holds a warm ocean underneath its frozen surface, and that the building blocks of life are present in that ocean. But for life to arise and persist, the ocean needs to sustain itself for a long time, and new research shows that's exactly what's happening.

Categories: Astronomy

If The Supernova Standard Candle Is Wrong, It Could Solve The Hubble Tension

Universe Today - 3 hours 18 min ago

New evidence suggests the standard model of cosmology is wrong, but the results could resolve the long-standing Hubble Tension problem in modern cosmology.

Categories: Astronomy

The Rust That Could Reveal Alien Life

Universe Today - 6 hours 31 min ago

Iron rusts. On Earth, this common chemical reaction often signals the presence of something far more interesting than just corroding metal for example, living microorganisms that make their living by manipulating iron atoms. Now researchers argue these microbial rust makers could provide some of the most promising biosignatures for detecting life on Mars and the icy moons of the outer Solar System.

Categories: Astronomy

The Search for Worlds in the Making

Universe Today - 6 hours 44 min ago

Astronomers have deployed a survey with the most memorable and tasty acronym in astrophysics - SPAM, The Search for Protoplanets with Aperture Masking - to catch planets in the act of being born. Using Keck Observatory's most powerful instruments, researchers have just captured the closest ever view of a protoplanetary disk 400 light years away, revealing a telltale gap and clumpy structures that hint at a world coalescing from interstellar dust.

Categories: Astronomy

The Universe is Decelerating and Standard Candles Aren't So Standard According to a New Study

Universe Today - 7 hours 20 min ago

A new study argues that the Universe is decelerating, based on a correlation between the brightness of Type-Ia supernovae and the age of their host galaxies.

Categories: Astronomy

It's Time to Give the Moon Its Own Time

Universe Today - 7 hours 57 min ago

Tracking time is one of those things that seems easy, until you really start to get into the details of what time actually is. We define a second as 9,192,631,770 oscillations of a cesium atom. However, according to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, mass slows down these oscillations, making time appear to move more slowly for objects in large gravity wells. This distinction becomes critical as we start considering how to keep track of time between two separate gravity wells of varying strengths, such as on the Earth and the Moon. A new paper by Pascale Defraigne at the Royal Observatory of Belgium and her co-authors discusses some potential frameworks for solving that problem and settles on using the new Lunar Coordinate Time (TCL) suggested by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

Categories: Astronomy

Ancient silver goblet preserves oldest known image of cosmic creation

The images hammered into the sides of a goblet found in Palestine give us an idea of what people living more than 4000 years ago imagined the creation of the cosmos looked like
Categories: Astronomy

Analysing Hitler's DNA for a TV gimmick tells us nothing useful

To understand Adolf Hitler, we need to look at his personal life and the wider societal and historical context - analysing his DNA for a TV gimmick tells us nothing, says Michael Le Page
Categories: Astronomy

Sequencing Hitler's genome teaches us nothing useful about his crimes

To understand Adolf Hitler, we need to look at his personal life and the wider societal and historical context - analysing his DNA for a TV gimmick tells us nothing, says Michael Le Page
Categories: Astronomy

Why aren't young people having sex any more?

Sexual activity in young people is on the decline, but why? And what's more, should we be worried about what this means for society and the future of the human race?
Categories: Astronomy

Fossil fuel emissions rise again – but China's are levelling off

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 11/12/2025 - 7:01pm
Global emissions from fossil fuels are expected to hit another record high in 2025, but China’s carbon emissions appear to be reaching a peak
Categories: Astronomy

Fossil fuel emissions rise again – but China's are levelling off

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 11/12/2025 - 7:01pm
Global emissions from fossil fuels are expected to hit another record high in 2025, but China’s carbon emissions appear to be reaching a peak
Categories: Astronomy

CIA Kryptos Puzzle Creator Releases Final Clues

Scientific American.com - Wed, 11/12/2025 - 4:30pm

Kryptos has not been solved,” said artist Jim Sanborn after releasing his parting clues to the “K4” section of his sculpture puzzle

Categories: Astronomy

Euclid's First Data Release Sheds Light on Galaxy Evolution

Universe Today - Wed, 11/12/2025 - 3:28pm

ESA’s Euclid space telescope is revealing the patterns of galaxy evolution of millions of galaxies across cosmic time. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) are using this data to trace how galaxies grow, merge, and transform.

Categories: Astronomy

Double Solar Eruptions Spark Widespread Aurora — With More to Come Tonight!

Sky & Telescope Magazine - Wed, 11/12/2025 - 2:49pm

Last night's aurora painted the sky in reds, greens and even oranges. It's expected to return tonight!

The post Double Solar Eruptions Spark Widespread Aurora — With More to Come Tonight! appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Categories: Astronomy

Meet Jacklyn, The Barge That Changed Blue Origin's Plans

Universe Today - Wed, 11/12/2025 - 2:38pm

After spending four years converting a massive cargo ferry into a rocket catching ship, Blue Origin scrapped the entire vessel and started from scratch. The story of Jacklyn, named after Jeff Bezos's mother, reveals how even a company founded by one of the world's richest people had to learn hard lessons about what actually works when trying to catch 57 metre rocket boosters descending from space at hypersonic speeds. The barge that ultimately took its name represents a dramatic shift in strategy, from elegant complexity to purpose built simplicity.

Categories: Astronomy

The Intruder That Knocked Our Planets Askew

Universe Today - Wed, 11/12/2025 - 2:38pm

Billions of years ago, a rogue planet eight times more massive than Jupiter tore through our Solar System, passing closer to the Sun than Mars orbits today. That single violent encounter may explain why our giant planets don't orbit in perfect circles like formation theories predict and new simulations suggest there was roughly a one in 9,000 chance it happened at all. The discovery reveals that near misses with interstellar wanderers might be more important in shaping planetary systems than anyone realised.

Categories: Astronomy

Heat Waves Will Be Less Extreme because of Paris Climate Agreement

Scientific American.com - Wed, 11/12/2025 - 2:28pm

Ten years after the Paris climate agreement, the limited progress we’ve made in reducing global warming means that there will be less extreme heat in the future than there would be without the accord

Categories: Astronomy

When Space Junk Comes Home

Universe Today - Wed, 11/12/2025 - 2:12pm

When a chunk of SpaceX rocket debris crashed into a Polish warehouse this year, it exposed a troubling reality, that the international laws governing space accidents were written for a world where only governments launched rockets. Now, as private companies deploy thousands of satellites and debris rains down with increasing frequency, victims have no direct legal recourse and must rely on their governments to pursue claims on their behalf, that’s if those governments choose to act at all. A new analysis reveals how a Cold War era treaty struggles to protect ordinary people in the age of commercial spaceflight, and why some nations are now taking matters into their own hands.

Categories: Astronomy

The Epstein-Barr Virus May Cause Lupus

Scientific American.com - Wed, 11/12/2025 - 2:05pm

Early findings indicate that Epstein-Barr Virus may also cause the autoimmune disease lupus

Categories: Astronomy