Feed aggregator

Bird flu surges and a government shutdown collide, complicating efforts to track cases and protect flocks.

Satellites orbiting Earth face a constant assault from highly reactive single atom of oxygen which are created when solar radiation splits oxygen molecules in the upper atmosphere. These atoms don't just create drag that pulls spacecraft back to Earth, they also bind to satellite surfaces, causing corrosion that limits most satellites to roughly five year lifespans. A team of engineers at the University of Texas at Dallas have been developing a protective coating using techniques borrowed from microelectronics and optical manufacturing to counter the effects. The process the team have developed enables satellites to withstand conditions even harsher than those found in space. If successful, this coating could not only extend satellite lifetimes but enable spacecraft to operate in very low Earth orbit, a region currently too hostile for most missions.

Astronomers have discovered a clever way to make a single telescope capture sharper details than should be physically possible. The technique involves feeding starlight through a special optical fibre called a photonic lantern. Anyone else thinking of a certain glowing green lantern from a movie? Alas not, instead of special powers, it splits light according to its spatial patterns like separating a musical chords into individual notes. The researchers achieved resolution that has never been achieved before without linking multiple telescopes together. When they tested the technique on a star 162 light-years away, they not only proved it works but stumbled upon an unexpected discovery, that the star's surrounding gas disc is mysteriously lopsided.

The famous Tycho supernova of 1572, witnessed by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, didn't explode in empty space as has been assumed. New analysis reveals it detonated inside a planetary nebula, the ghostly shell of gas expelled by an earlier dying star. The evidence lies in two "ear" shaped structures that were sticking out from the remnant's main shell, matching similar features in three other supernovae previously identified as explosions within planetary nebulae. This discovery supports the "core-degenerate" model where a white dwarf star merges with a companion star's core, with the explosion occurring hundreds of thousands of years later while the nebula remains intact. Most strikingly, if Tycho follows this pattern, it suggests that 70-90% of normal Type Ia supernovae may actually be supernovae inside planetary nebulae!

'Wake up and ask yourself, 'Is what I'm doing helping us get back to the moon?' … If it's not, stop doing it.'

It was the 114th Falcon 9 mission of 2025 already.

"This shows how effective the approach of 'Discover with Subaru Telescope, explore with James Webb' can be."

The new finding may solve an "astrophysics mystery that has stood for nearly half a century."

"Sometimes it's the extreme objects that help us understand what's happening in the average ones."

These celestial wonders can tell us a lot about the state of the atmosphere at home on Earth as well as on other planets.

Phases of ice that exist naturally only on frozen moons could be detected using infrared spectroscopy, according to new laboratory experiments.

The beams hint at the true scale of the massive star that spawned them.

"Capturing another satellite like this in an Earth-observation image is extremely rare."

Though NGC 7456 looks like a modest spiral galaxy, new Hubble and XMM-Newton observations reveal a bustling system with star-forming regions and an active core.

"The idea was for our payload to get us just up to the potential biosignature designation and have the rest of the story told by instruments here on Earth."

Liftoff is scheduled for 11:54 a.m. ET today (Sept. 11).

SpaceX promises a step change in performance for cell phone users around the world.

"This forces us to rethink the starting conditions for our planet’s water system."

Depending on where you smack a planet-threatening asteroid, it might ricochet back to Earth.

"GW250114 is the loudest gravitational wave event we have detected to date; it was like a whisper becoming a shout."