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Researchers Uncover True Source of KOI-1755 Transit Signal Using Kepler Space Telescope kerryhensley45577 Mon, 09/08/2025 - 10:36 Researchers Uncover True Source of KOI-1755 Transit Signal Using Kepler Space Telescope https://english.cas.cn/newsroom/research_news/phys/202509/t20250904_1053933.shtml

Asteroids have held a special place in my heart ever since I saw one silently drift between Earth and the Moon a good few years ago. Never studied them properly so more of a passing interest but any time a story relating to asteroids pops up it peaks my interest. For the most part, the origin of an asteroid is the asteroid belt, a ring of rocky debris orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. A new study has calculated precisely how fast this reservoir of space rocks is being depleted from collisions and gravitational interactions that evict asteroids and just where that material ends up.

Black holes, regions of space where gravity is so intense that even light cannot escape, have captivated astronomers for decades. Some are the result of stellar death while others sit at the hearts of quasars, galaxies that shine so brightly they can be spotted from billions of light years away. Understanding how these supermassive black holes grow so massive, so quickly, has been one of the great puzzles of modern astrophysics, however, a new observation using cutting edge technology has just thrown a spanner in the works.

Scientists are beginning to understand the sudden loss of sea ice in Antarctica – and there is growing evidence that it represents a permanent shift with potentially catastrophic consequences

Scientists are beginning to understand the sudden loss of sea ice in Antarctica – and there is growing evidence that it represents a permanent shift with potentially catastrophic consequences

A free-floating planet has been seen devouring astonishing amounts of matter, hinting that stars and planets are more alike than we thought

A free-floating planet has been seen devouring astonishing amounts of matter, hinting that stars and planets are more alike than we thought

Video: 00:03:16

ESA’s Mars Express takes us on another mesmerising flight over curving channels carved by water, islands that have resisted erosion, and a maze of hilly terrain.

Central to the tour is a 1300 km-long outflow channel called Shalbatana Vallis. It cascades down from the highland region of Xanthe Terra to the smoother lowlands of Chryse Planitia.

Billions of years ago, water surged through this channel, creating many of the features we see today.

The tour culminates in a spectacular view of a 100 km-wide impact crater, smashed out of Mars’s surface when it collided with a space rock.

Enjoy the flight, and be sure to turn up the volume for the full audio guide experience.

Processing notes:

This film was created using the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera Mars Chart (HMC30) data, an image mosaic made from single orbit observations of the mission’s High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC). The mosaic image, centred at 5°N/320°E, is combined with topography information from the digital terrain model to generate a three-dimensional landscape.

For every second of the movie, 50 separate frames are rendered following a predefined camera path in the scene. The vertical exaggeration used for the animation is three-fold. Atmospheric effects, like clouds and haze, have been added to conceal the limits of the terrain model. The haze starts building up at a distance of 250 km.

The HRSC camera on Mars Express is operated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The systematic processing of the camera data took place at the DLR Institute for Planetary Research in Berlin-Adlershof. The working group of Planetary Science and Remote Sensing at Freie Universität Berlin used the data to create the film.

Access the related broadcast quality footage.

Black hole mergers are some of the most violent events in the universe. Just how violent is becoming more clear in part due to a new paper published in Nature Astronomy. For the first time, it tracks the “recoil” that the newly formed black hole gets from asymmetric gravitational waves that are released during the merger. Turns out they are strong enough to “kick” the new, supermassive combined black hole into motion at a speed of thousands of kilometers a second.

Venus has often been called Earth’s sister planet however there are stark differences between them. Among the similarities are a number of geological features and lava tubes are just one example. These natural tunnels form when the surface of a lava flow cools and solidifies while hot lava continues to flow beneath. They are common in Iceland and Hawaii and now, for the first time they have been found on Venus too.

Jane Goodall, who chronicled the social lives of chimps, has died, but she leaves a lasting legacy on how we view the natural world

Jane Goodall, who chronicled the social lives of chimps, has died, but she leaves a lasting legacy on how we view the natural world

Learning to play an instrument has long been linked to improved reading skills among children, and we may finally understand why

Learning to play an instrument has long been linked to improved reading skills among children, and we may finally understand why

Is it really possible that half of all people who have ever been age 65 or older are still alive today? We explore the amazing mathematics of demography to find out

Comet Lemmon is brightening and moving into morning northern skies.

It may look like these comets are racing, but they are not.

What is creating these unusual spots?