“...all the past is but a beginning of a beginning, and that all that is and has been is but the twilight of dawn.”

— H.G. Wells
1902

Astronomy

Lego Thanos-snapped this awesome Avengers set away, but Amazon has blipped it back for Prime Day

Space.com - Thu, 07/10/2025 - 6:25am
$37 off for Prime Day, this Lego Avengers set is an action-packed reminder of when the MCU was good. But you'll have to move fast if you want to claim it!
Categories: Astronomy

July full moon 2025 rises tonight: Everything you need to know about the low-riding 'Buck Moon'

Space.com - Thu, 07/10/2025 - 6:00am
The 'Buck Moon' will be the farthest full moon from the sun in 2025.
Categories: Astronomy

Europe's first deep-space optical communication link

ESO Top News - Thu, 07/10/2025 - 5:02am

The European Space Agency (ESA) successfully established a transmission-reception optical link with NASA’s Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment onboard its Psyche mission, located 265 million kilometres away, using two optical grounds stations developed for this purpose in Greece.

Categories: Astronomy

We loved this star projector for kids and now it's 37% off for Prime Day

Space.com - Thu, 07/10/2025 - 4:24am
The Govee Star Light Projector is the best overall star projector for kids, and it excels in environments with background noise — now 37% off for Prime Day.
Categories: Astronomy

Spotted! All the best hidden binocular deals this Amazon Prime Day!

Space.com - Thu, 07/10/2025 - 4:21am
Many top binoculars from Nikon, Canon and Bushnell are on sale for cheap this Amazon Prime Day.
Categories: Astronomy

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APOD - Thu, 07/10/2025 - 4:00am

Face-on spiral galaxy NGC 6946 and open star cluster NGC 6939 share


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

My go-to pair of budget binoculars are now even cheaper this Prime Day

Space.com - Wed, 07/09/2025 - 11:00pm
Explore the night sky with your family — Get the Celestron Cometron 7x50 binoculars for less than $35 this Amazon Prime Day.
Categories: Astronomy

The perfect binoculars for casual stargazing are now under $100 for Amazon Prime Day

Space.com - Wed, 07/09/2025 - 6:00pm
Spot Saturn's return to our night sky with these Nikon Prostaff P3 10x42 binoculars, now under $100 for Amazon Prime Day.
Categories: Astronomy

Private Ax-4 astronauts aboard ISS are filling their time with science, views of Earth and pierogis (video)

Space.com - Wed, 07/09/2025 - 6:00pm
As the Axiom-4 mission approaches its two-week mark before returning to Earth, the private space mission crew discusses science and pierogis.
Categories: Astronomy

‘Science Fair’ of Lost Research Protests Trump Cuts

Scientific American.com - Wed, 07/09/2025 - 5:00pm

A protest at a congressional office building highlighted future research findings that vast cuts to science will erase

Categories: Astronomy

Scientists discover ice in space isn't like water on Earth after all

Space.com - Wed, 07/09/2025 - 5:00pm
Scientists had assumed that the ice in space was purely amorphous, but new experiments show it can have a partly crystalline structure similar to ice on Earth.
Categories: Astronomy

NASA's asteroid-crash Earth defense tactic has a complication — DART ejected large boulders into space

Space.com - Wed, 07/09/2025 - 4:10pm
"You can think of it as a cosmic pool game. We might miss the pocket if we don't consider all the variables."
Categories: Astronomy

Smart telescope, smarter deal — save $600 off the Unistellar eQuinox 2

Space.com - Wed, 07/09/2025 - 4:00pm
Grab the Unistellar eQuinox 2 (the best smart telescope) for $2199 in this anti-Prime Day deal from BH Photo and Video
Categories: Astronomy

Surgical robots take step towards fully autonomous operations

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 07/09/2025 - 3:00pm
An AI system trained on videos of operations successfully guided a robot to carry out gall bladder surgery on a dead pig, with minimal human assistance
Categories: Astronomy

Surgical robots take step towards fully autonomous operations

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 07/09/2025 - 3:00pm
An AI system trained on videos of operations successfully guided a robot to carry out gall bladder surgery on a dead pig, with minimal human assistance
Categories: Astronomy

The JWST Shows Us How Galaxies Evolve

Universe Today - Wed, 07/09/2025 - 2:44pm

The Milky Way and other similar galaxies have two distinct disk sections. One is the thin disk section, and it contains mostly younger stars with higher metallicity. The second is the thick disk, and it contains older stars with lower metallicity. The effort to study these disks in more galaxies and in greater detail has been stymied. But now we have the JWST, and researchers used it to examine more than 100 distant, edge-on galaxies.

Categories: Astronomy

When Theia Struck Earth, it Helped Set the Stage for Life to Appear

Universe Today - Wed, 07/09/2025 - 2:44pm

Earth life is carbon-based, and without carbon, there would be no life. New research shows how Earth got its carbon from impactors, including a boost from Theia, the impactor that created the Moon. Jupiter also pitched in to help.

Categories: Astronomy

Primordial Black Holes Could Have Accelerated Early Star Formation

Universe Today - Wed, 07/09/2025 - 2:44pm

The search for dark matter requires all of the best models, theories, and ideas we can throw at it. A new paper from Julia Monika Koulen, Stefano Profumo, and Nolan Smyth from the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) tackles the implications of the sizes and abundance of one of the more interesting dark matter candidates - primordial black holes (PBHs).

Categories: Astronomy

How To Use Fusion To Get To Proxima Centauri's Potentially Habitable Exoplanet

Universe Today - Wed, 07/09/2025 - 2:44pm

Proxima Centauri b is the closest known exoplanet that could be in the habitable zone of its star. Therefore, it has garnered a lot of attention, including several missions designed to visit it and send back information. Unfortunately, due to technological constraints and the gigantic distances involved, most of those missions only weigh a few grams and require massive solar scales or pushing lasers to get anywhere near their target. But why let modern technological levels limit your imagination when there are so many other options, if still theoretical, options to send a larger mission to our nearest potentially habitable neighbor? That was the thought behind the Master’s Thesis of Amelie Lutz at Virginia Tech - she looked at the possibility of using fusion propulsion systems to send a few hundred kilogram probe to the system, and potentially even orbit it.

Categories: Astronomy

Reviving SETI with High-Energy Astronomy

Universe Today - Wed, 07/09/2025 - 2:44pm

What new methods can be developed in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI)? This is what a recent white paper submitted to the 2025 NASA Decadal Astrobiology Research and Exploration Strategy (DARES) Request for Information (RFI) hopes to address as a pair of researchers from the Breakthrough Listen project and Michigan State University discussed how high-energy astronomy could be used for identifying radio signals from an extraterrestrial technological civilization, also called technosignatures. This study has the potential to help SETI and other organizations develop novel techniques for finding intelligent life beyond Earth.

Categories: Astronomy