Personally, I don't think there's intelligent life on other planets. Why should other planets be any different from this one?

— Bob Monkhouse

Astronomy

'Hybrid' skull may have been a child of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Mon, 07/07/2025 - 5:45am
The skull of a 5-year-old girl who lived 140,000 years ago has similarities with modern Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, suggesting her parents might have belonged to different species
Categories: Astronomy

<p><a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod

APOD - Sun, 07/06/2025 - 4:00pm

It's raining stars.


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Space auction: Sally Ride memorabilia collection sells for $145,000

Space.com - Sun, 07/06/2025 - 11:00am
A collection of more than 50 pieces of memorabilia previously owned by Sally Ride, the first American woman to reach space, sold at auction last week for more than $145,000.
Categories: Astronomy

Why does Mars look purple, yellow and orange in ESA's stunning new satellite image?

Space.com - Sun, 07/06/2025 - 10:01am
Surprising colors and stunning features are captured in a new image of Mars' surface.
Categories: Astronomy

US military cuts climate scientists off from vital satellite sea-ice data

Space.com - Sun, 07/06/2025 - 10:00am
In the latest attack on science by the Trump administration, researchers at the National Snow and Ice Data Center will no longer receive data from a fleet of military satellites.
Categories: Astronomy

A Spacecraft Carrying Human Remains and Cannabis Crashes into the Ocean

Universe Today - Sun, 07/06/2025 - 7:51am

Failed Orbital Mission Loses Human Remains, Space Pot

Categories: Astronomy

Menstrual Cups Tested in Space Flight Conditions for the First Time

Universe Today - Sun, 07/06/2025 - 7:51am

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.

Categories: Astronomy

Tracking Macroplastics Leeching Into Rivers from Space

Universe Today - Sun, 07/06/2025 - 7:51am

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.

Categories: Astronomy

Math’s Block-Stacking Problem Has a Preposterous Solution

Scientific American.com - Sun, 07/06/2025 - 7:00am

In principle, this impossible math allows for a glue-free bridge of stacked blocks that can stretch across the Grand Canyon—and into infinity

Categories: Astronomy

ISS astronaut captures a rare phenomenon from orbit — a giant 'sprite' above a thunderstorm

Space.com - Sun, 07/06/2025 - 7:00am
Sprites have been known to form above intense thunderstorms.
Categories: Astronomy

Fig trees may benefit climate by turning carbon dioxide into stone

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Sat, 07/05/2025 - 8:01pm
Some carbon dioxide absorbed by fig trees gets turned into calcium carbonate within the wood and the surrounding soil, ensuring that the carbon is kept out of the air for longer
Categories: Astronomy

Fig trees may benefit climate by turning carbon dioxide into stone

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Sat, 07/05/2025 - 8:01pm
Some carbon dioxide absorbed by fig trees gets turned into calcium carbonate within the wood and the surrounding soil, ensuring that the carbon is kept out of the air for longer
Categories: Astronomy

<p><a href="https://apod.nasa.gov/apod

APOD - Sat, 07/05/2025 - 4:00pm

Are these trees growing on Mars?


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

'Humanity’s time is over!’ Apple TV+ drops release date and intense first teaser for 'Invasion' Season 3

Space.com - Sat, 07/05/2025 - 12:00pm
A scene from Apple TV+'s "Invasion" Season 3
Categories: Astronomy

For 100 years, we have marveled at planetariums. Here's a brief history of how humans brought the stars indoors

Space.com - Sat, 07/05/2025 - 11:00am
Humans have used the stars to navigate, keep time, and understand our place in the universe.
Categories: Astronomy

Devour a cosmic-sized chunk of Marvel lore ahead of 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps', with the 'The Coming of Galactus' novel

Space.com - Sat, 07/05/2025 - 11:00am
Titan Books' new novelization of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's 'Galactus Trilogy' heralds the coming of July’s 'Fantastic Four' blockbuster.
Categories: Astronomy

Rare snowfall in Atacama Desert forces the world's most powerful radio telescope into 'survival mode'

Space.com - Sat, 07/05/2025 - 10:00am
The ALMA radio telescope array in the Atacama Desert temporarily halted operations after a rare snowfall blanketed the base camp last week.
Categories: Astronomy

A 'Golden Handle' will appear on the moon tonight. Here's how to see it

Space.com - Sat, 07/05/2025 - 6:00am
The "Golden Handle" appears each month when the sun illuminates a mountain range lining a vast impact crater.
Categories: Astronomy

Galaxy Clusters Have Been Surrounded by High-Energy Particles for Almost Their Entire History

Universe Today - Fri, 07/04/2025 - 10:13pm

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.

Categories: Astronomy

Correcting Radius Biases in TESS Exoplanet Discoveries

Universe Today - Fri, 07/04/2025 - 10:13pm

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.

Categories: Astronomy