Astronomy

Forensic scientist Michael Haag explains how laser scanners could be used to lock down the crime scenes where Charlie Kirk was fatally shot, letting investigators revisit angles, trajectories and vantage points long after the fact.

Group photo taken at the General Assembly on Defence, Space and Cybersecurity, held on Friday 12 September 2025, at ESRIN, ESA’s Centre for Earth Observation Programmes in Italy. 

The event was organised by the European Parliament and the European Commission, in collaboration with the European Space Agency, to promote dialogue between European and national decision-makers and industry leaders. Representatives from major European entities debated the future of the European Union, which is facing unprecedented challenges, in an increasingly complex geopolitical context. Participants examined Europe’s needs in key sectors such as space, cybersecurity, and defence, within the broader context of the Atlantic Alliance. Acting at the European level, as demonstrated by projects like Galileo, EGNOS, and Copernicus, not only brings extraordinary added value in terms of innovation, industrial competitiveness, economies of scale, and spending efficiency, but also strengthens Europe’s strategic autonomy, the security of its citizens, and the protection of its critical infrastructure.

The group included experts from major European entities, including: Andrius Kubilius, European Commissioner for Defence and Space; Adolfo Urso, Italian Minister of Enterprises and Made in Italy; Matteo Piantedosi, Italian Minister of the Interior; Gen. B. Luigi Vinciguerra, Brigade General of the Guardia di Finanza – Head of the III Operations Department, General Command; Josef Aschbacher, Director General of the European Space Agency; Simonetta Cheli, Director of Earth Observation Programmes and Head of ESRIN; Carlo Corazza, Head of the European Parliament Office in Italy; Ammiraglio Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee; Teodoro Valente, President of the Italian Space Agency (ASI); Hans de Vries, Chief Cybersecurity and Operations Officer (COO) - ENISA; Fabio di Stefano, Communications at the European Parliament in Italy.

Watch here a replay of ESA Director General's intervention and find the transcript of his speech.

Whether intermittent fasting helps anyone is unclear, but it does have known health risks. Who can try the dieting trend, and who should avoid it?

Astronomers have detected an explosion of gamma rays that repeated several times over the course of a day, an event unlike anything ever witnessed before. It took place in a distant galaxy and was first detected on July 2nd. Scientists are trying to understand what could've caused it.

Extremophiles are a favorite tool of astrobiologists. But not only are they good for understanding the kind of extreme environments that life can survive in, sometimes they are useful as actual tools, creating materials necessary for other life, like oxygen, in those extreme environments. A recent paper from Daniella Billi of the University of Rome Tor Vergata , published in pre-print form in Acta Astronautica, reviews how one particular extremophile fills the role of both useful test subject and useful tool all at once.

A swarm of galaxies called the Bullet Cluster is the biggest, best natural laboratory for studying dark matter that astronomers have ever seen

 In his new book, Daniel Yon explains how our brain is constantly constructing reality

Venus has double close conjunctions with the crescent Moon and Regulus in the dawn next Friday the 19th. Meanwhile, Saturn and Neptune are coming to opposition.

The post This Week's Sky at a Glance, September 12 – 21 appeared first on Sky & Telescope.

Stellar mass black holes have only a few solar masses, and are much different from their gigantic counterparts, supermassive black holes. When these modestly-massive black holes are actively accreting matter, new research shows that the process is anything but orderly. Instead, it's characterized by different velocities, different ionization zones, and other complexities.

The JWST has begun examining the atmosphere of the habitable zone planet TRAPPIST-1 e. It's not finished yet, but the first observations indicate that the the planet hasn't retained its primary, or original, atmosphere. The TRAPPIST-1 star exhibits powerful flaring that likely stripped it away.

Fomalhaut is one of the brightest stars in the night sky and has been observed in great detail for decades. Some research suggests it hosts exoplanets, while other research counters that. The latest observations of the star's disk with ALMA favour the existence of a planet.

Circumstellar discs are believed to be key components in planetary formation. However, we have very little actual evidence of planets growing in the “rings” that surround young stars. So planet formation theorists were ecstatic to learn that two new papers in Astrophysical Journal Letters describe a planet that is actively forming in the gap it most likely created in the ring system of a young, Sun-like star.