Astronomy

More than one star contributes to the irregular shape of NGC 6072 – Webb’s newest look at this planetary nebula in the near- and mid-infrared shows what may appear as a very messy scene resembling splattered paint. However, the unusual, asymmetrical scene hints at more complicated mechanisms underway, as the star central to the scene approaches the very final stages of its life and expels shells of material, losing up to 80 percent of its mass.

The satellite will scan the Earth twice every 12 days.

The White House has now fully embraced bomb-prone nuclear fuel technology. This should stop before an arms race, atomic terrorism or even nuclear war results

Water usually flows downward, but something strange happened under Greenland’s ice sheet when a deluge punched through the surface to scour an area nearly twice the size of New York’s Central Park

NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems’ Program Manager Shawn Quinn captured this image of the Hadley–Apennine region of the moon including the Apollo 15 landing site (very near the edge of the shadow of one of the lunar mountains in the area).

A mysterious residue inside a set of ancient Greek pots from Paestum, Italy, has now been identified as honey thanks to modern chemical analysis

A mysterious residue inside a set of ancient Greek pots from Paestum, Italy, has now been identified as honey thanks to modern chemical analysis

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The International Astronomical Union has recommended brightness limits for satellites, but companies aren't abiding by them.

The post Satellite Constellations Are Too Bright for Astronomy appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

The Smithsonian Institution says NASA relinquished full ownership of Space Shuttle Discovery, but Congress wants to force the vehicle's relocation.

The U.S. and India just launched NISAR, a powerful radar satellite that will be able to monitor changes in Earth's surface that are as small as a centimeter.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have made the shock discovery that giant rogue exoplanets can grow their own planetary systems without needing a parent star.

A new five year study of 13 NASA astronauts shows that their arteries remain healthy and disease free long after returning from the International Space Station, offering reassuring news for future long duration space missions and suggesting the human cardiovascular system is more resilient to spaceflight than previously thought.

Next time you're drinking a frosty iced beverage, think about the structure of the frozen chunks chilling it down. Here on Earth, we generally see it in many forms: cubes form, sleet, snow, icicles, slabs covering lakes and rivers, and glaciers. Water ice takes all these fascinating forms, thanks to its hexagonal crystal lattice. That makes it less dense than nonfrozen water, which allows it to float in a drink, in a lake, and on the ocean.

NASA'S Hubble Space Telescope and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have detected evidence of what could be an Intermediate Mass Black Hole eating a star. It's in a galaxy 450 million light-years away, and unusual x-ray emissions highlight its location.

Every time a spacecraft touches down on the moon, it creates a spectacular but dangerous light show of dust and debris that could threaten future lunar bases. Now, after decades of mystery, scientists have finally figured out why these dust clouds form such distinctive patterns and the answer could be crucial for humanity's return to the Moon.

Scientists have created the largest catalogue of exploding stars ever assembled, and it's telling us something surprising about the mysterious force driving our universe apart. After analyzing over 2,000 stellar explosions spanning billions of years, researchers have found hints that dark energy, the force making up 70% of our universe, may not be the constant we once thought. Instead, it appears to be changing over time, potentially even weakening!

Recreating the environment that most spacecraft experience on their missions is difficult on Earth. Many times it involves large vacuum chambers or wind tunnels that are specially designed for certain kinds of tests. But sometimes, engineers get to just do larger scale versions of the things they got to do in high school. That is the case for a recent test of ExoMars’s parachute system. A team of ESA engineers and their contractors performed a scaled up egg-drop test common in physics classes across the world. Except this one involved a stratospheric balloon the size of a football field and a helicopter.