Astronomy

Astronomers have discovered a companion star in an incredibly tight orbit around Betelgeuse using the NASA and U.S. National Science Foundation-funded ‘Alopeke' instrument on Gemini North, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, partly funded by the NSF and operated by NSF NOIRLab. This discovery answers the longstanding mystery of the star’s varying brightness and provides insight into the physical mechanisms behind other variable red supergiants.

The New Horizons spacecraft is humanity's fastest-moving spacecraft and headed to interstellar space. Since its exploration of Pluto 10 years ago and subsequent flyby of Arrokoth in 2019, it's been traversing and studying the Kuiper Belt while looking for other flyby objects. That's not all it's been doing, however. New Horizons also has an extended program of making heliophysics observations. The mission science team has also planned astrophysical studies with the spacecraft's instruments. Those include measuring the intensity of the cosmic optical background and taking images of stars such as Proxima Centauri. As the spacecraft moves, the apparent positions of its stellar navigation targets have changed, but that hasn't bothered New Horizons one bit. It knows exactly where it is thanks to 3D observations of those nearby stars.

What are the JWST's Little Red Dots? While they appear to be galaxies, there's no observational certainty. New research examines the idea that they're actually stars, suggesting that they're actually the progenitors for supermassive black holes.

Magnetic fields play an important, if sometimes underappreciated, part in planetary systems. Without a strong magnetic field, planets can end up as a barren wasteland like Mars, or they could indirectly affect massive storms as can be seen on Jupiter. However, our understanding of planetary magnetic fields are limited to the eight planets in our solar system, as we haven’t yet accrued much data on the magnetic fields of exoplanets. That could be about to change, according to a new preprint paper by a group of research scientists from Europe, the US, India and the UAE.

Just imagine it, the news stories are all over your phone when you wake! The day will surely come that we will discover that we are not alone in the Universe! What happens the day after though? A new research paper from the SETI Post Detection Hub at the University of St Andrews tackles this question, outlining how NASA and the global scientific community should prepare for the moment humanity detects signs of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Many people like to check that they have walked 10,000 steps over the course of a day, but falling short of that target still seems to bring serious health benefits

Many people like to check that they have walked 10,000 steps over the course of a day, but falling short of that target still seems to bring serious health benefits

Japan's Himawari-8 and Himawari-9 satellites, designed to study weather here on Earth, have also been quietly collecting valuable data on Venus for nearly a decade, scientists recently discovered.

Purdue University's new Neil Armstrong Space Prize, named for the school's most famous astronaut-alum, will honor achievements in "space discovery, innovation and human achievement."

Late Cretaceous dinosaur tracks found in Canada might have been made by different species walking together, but the evidence is far from conclusive

Late Cretaceous dinosaur tracks found in Canada might have been made by different species walking together, but the evidence is far from conclusive

Hidden layers of colour in the plumage of tanagers and some other songbirds explain what makes them so eye-catching

Hidden layers of colour in the plumage of tanagers and some other songbirds explain what makes them so eye-catching

The Tianzhou 9 freighter arrived at China's Tiangong space station last week, packed with supplies. Watch its arrival in this video.

NASA’s TRACERS spacecraft will look at the snap of magnetic field lines at the boundary between the solar wind and Earth's magnetic field.

The post NASA Launches TRACERS Mission to Study Space Weather appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Scientists have achieved a breakthrough that could revolutionise space exploration with a "smart" metal alloy that remembers its shape even in the bone chilling cold of outer space. This remarkable copper based material can be twisted and deformed when cold, then automatically snap back to its original form when heated, maintaining this mechanical "memory" at temperatures as extreme as -200°C. The discovery solves a critical challenge that has limited spacecraft design for decades, opening the door to more reliable satellites, space telescopes, and future missions to the frozen reaches of our Solar System and beyond.

Astronomers have seen exoplanetary systems at almost every stage, from extremely young to older than the Solar System. But now, they've spotted the exact moment when planet formation is initiated around a young star. Meteorites store a history of when the first minerals formed in the Solar System, and the ALMA telescope has seen the signal of these minerals forming in a protostellar system, about 1,300 light-years from Earth.

NASA has discovered that 7 out of 10 astronauts returning from the International Space Station have been unable to see clearly, with vision problems that can last for years! As we prepare for multi year Mars missions, scientists are racing to solve this mysterious "space blindness" before it derails humanity's greatest journey. It seems the cause could be as simple as the effects of weightlessness and the distribution of fluids around the body. Thankfully, it seems there are some possible solutions to what could become one of our greatest health challenges as we reach out further among the planets.

From R2D2 to the Terminator via Bender and Johnny-5, we choose our favourite robots from books, films and television series