Astronomy

Names are a strange thing in astronomy. Sometimes scientists come up with grandiose, simple name, like the Extremely Large Telescope. Other times, they come up with unique sounding names, like quasars. And sometimes they come up with names that, while descriptive in some sense, are completely misleading in others. That is the case for Little Red Dots (LRD) - active galactic nuclei in the early universe that show up as a little red dot in the images captured by whatever telescope found them. However, they actually represent supermassive black holes hundreds of millions of times the size of our Sun. A new paper from Federica Loiacono and her colleagues at Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica in Italy describes one of these behemoths they found with the James Webb Space Telescope at a period of the early universe, about 11 billion years ago, known as the “cosmic noon”.

Is there life on Venus? The controversial detection of phosphine and ammonia hints that bacterial life could be surviving in the planet's milder upper atmosphere. But to confirm its existence, we'll need to measure the atmosphere directly. A new mission concept was recently unveiled called the Venus Explorer for Reduced Vapours in the Environment (VERVE). It's a CubeSat that could fly with ESA's EnVision mission in 2031, studying the atmosphere for more evidence of active biology.

If we can learn to grow our own food in space, it'll make surviving off Earth less challenging. While plants do grow in space, some genetic improvements are in order. Researchers have unveiled "Moon rice," a genetically manipulated strain of rice that grows much shorter than even dwarf varieties of rice and could be grown reliably in space. They're also simulating microgravity, constantly rotating the rice in all directions to see how it responds.

Sometimes a mission can be too successful. When NASA's DART spacecraft slammed into Dimorphos in 2022 as part of an asteroid redirection test, it altered the asteroids orbit, proving that kinetic impactors can be used to defend Earth from hazardous objects. Unfortunately, the impact also created a shower of boulders that also gave Dimorphos an unpredicted kinetic kick.

China's Tianwen-3 is poised to be the first sample-return mission to Mars. The science team now includes a group of astrobiologists from Hong Kong University (HKU), led by Professor Yiliang Li. In a recent paper, the team advised the China National Space Agency (CNSA) on landing site selection and how the first samples from Mars should be analyzed and curated once they are brought back to Earth.

Alarmingly, a team of scientists propose that every flight you take could be alerting alien civilizations to our existence. I must apologise now as I pack for a flight out to Mexico in a few days! The new research reveals that airport radar systems from Heathrow to JFK are unintentionally broadcasting powerful signals up to 200 light years into space, that’s far enough to reach over 120,000 star systems that might harbor intelligent life! These "accidental technosignatures" would appear obviously artificial to any aliens with technology similar to ours, potentially making every takeoff and landing an announcement that we're here!

A team of researchers has cracked the code for building space telescopes with mirrors the size of a soccer field, not from perfectly figured glass, but from liquid floating in zero gravity! The new research reveals how a 50-metre liquid mirror telescope could maintain its optical quality for decades despite the constant slewing motions needed to observe different stars, with deformations taking years to propagate from the edges toward the centre. The idea could enable the next generation of space telescopes capable of directly imaging Earth-like planets around other stars, potentially answering the ultimate question: are we alone in the universe?

A team of scientists are preparing to use NASA's upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory to answer one of the most profound questions of all time: How does life begin? Rather than searching for individual signs of life, the team plan to study patterns across dozens of exoplanets to test competing theories about the origins of life; from scenarios where life is so rare we might be alone within 33 light-years, to theories predicting that life emerges wherever basic conditions exist. This approach could transform perhaps our oldest question into testable science, potentially revealing whether our biosphere is an accident or part of a universe teeming with life.

Prime Day finished on July 11 and there are still some late savings on telescopes and binoculars, but they won't last forever.

Astrophotographer Philippe Tosi captured explosive Ellerman bombs on the sun's surface as an active sunspot turned toward Earth.

The Sony A7R V mirrorless camera plunges to just $3200 at Walmart, a staggering $1000 saving that eclipses Amazon's Prime Day price!

As the newest Superman film hits theaters, we cast our X-ray vision back on every live-action incarnation of the Fortress of Solitude, from its 1978 debut to its 2025 return.

"July Manhattanhenge is what I call the goodbye to the grid."

Researchers from NASA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) recently tested a scale model of the X-59 experimental aircraft in a supersonic wind tunnel located in Chofu, Japan, to assess the noise audible underneath the aircraft. The test was an important milestone for NASA’s one-of-a-kind X-59, which is designed to fly faster than the speed of sound without causing a loud sonic boom.

It's the last day of Amazon Prime Day and some of these deals are ending tonight. Grab some new optics in time to see Saturn's rings!

We tested the YGiTK Northern Galaxy Lights Projector and loved its multifunctionality and near-silent operation — today's your last chance to save 26%.

Jared Isaacman, the billionaire private astronaut who until recently was on track to lead NASA, is donating $15 million to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center for its Space Camp programs.

Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has said she will hold a hearing on geoengineering as conspiracy theories have swirled around cloud seeding after the recent floods in Texas