Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.

— Inscription on Columbus' caravels

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Astronauts get stuffy noses in space because of microgravity, scientists find

Space.com - Wed, 08/20/2025 - 9:00am
Scientists are calling attention to an extremely common health problem that's been making astronauts uncomfortable: sinus issues.
Categories: Astronomy

Semiconductor wafer on ISS goes under the microscope | Space photo of the day for Aug. 20, 2025

Space.com - Wed, 08/20/2025 - 8:00am
This is part of a NASA-supported project hoping to fabricate "device-ready" wafers from space-grown crystals.
Categories: Astronomy

Iberian wildfires seen from space

ESO Top News - Wed, 08/20/2025 - 7:45am

Southern Europe is once again in the grip of extreme summer heat. Soaring temperatures and bone-dry land have fuelled widespread wildfires, with the Iberian Peninsula among the regions hardest hit. Flames continue to sweep across parched landscapes, as these images show.

Categories: Astronomy

Four Remarkable Stories from the History of Math Behind Bars

Scientific American.com - Wed, 08/20/2025 - 7:00am

People in prisons and jails have contributed to some of the greatest ideas in mathematics

Categories: Astronomy

'Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 4' revealed, with a new developer promising a return to 'mass-battle, base-building roots' (video)

Space.com - Wed, 08/20/2025 - 7:00am
Warhammer 40K's most iconic real-time strategy series is back next year and under new leadership.
Categories: Astronomy

Nocs Provisions Zero Tube 10x25 waterproof monocular review

Space.com - Wed, 08/20/2025 - 6:25am
Your new favorite lightweight spotting companion — the Noca Provisions Zero Tube.
Categories: Astronomy

Nathan Lents’s New Book Explores How Animal Behavior and Evolution Challenge Binary Sex and Gender Norms

Scientific American.com - Wed, 08/20/2025 - 6:00am

Traditional biology has long ignored nature’s sexual diversity—but evolution tells a far more complex story.

Categories: Astronomy

SpaceX partners with astronomers to protect radio astronomy from satellite interference

Space.com - Wed, 08/20/2025 - 6:00am
An automated system co-developed by SpaceX prevents disruption to radio astronomical observations caused by megaconstellations in low Earth orbit.
Categories: Astronomy

Lesser-known food allergens are actually behind many serious reactions

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 08/20/2025 - 4:01am
Foods like goat or sheep milk and buckwheat are behind many cases of severe allergic reactions, but may not be listed as such on a product's label
Categories: Astronomy

Lesser-known food allergens are actually behind many serious reactions

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 08/20/2025 - 4:01am
Foods like goat or sheep milk and buckwheat are behind many cases of severe allergic reactions, but may not be listed as such on a product's label
Categories: Astronomy

Flower-like origami patterns could inspire folding spacecraft

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Tue, 08/19/2025 - 8:01pm
Engineers have developed a class of origami structures that unfold in one smooth motion to create flower-like shapes, which could have applications in space
Categories: Astronomy

Flower-like origami patterns could inspire folding spacecraft

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Tue, 08/19/2025 - 8:01pm
Engineers have developed a class of origami structures that unfold in one smooth motion to create flower-like shapes, which could have applications in space
Categories: Astronomy

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APOD - Tue, 08/19/2025 - 8:00pm

What lies in the heart of Orion?


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

The Milky Way's faintest satellite may not be what astronomers thought. 'These results solve a major mystery in astrophysics'

Space.com - Tue, 08/19/2025 - 5:00pm
A distant galaxy nicknamed "Cosmic Grapes" is bursting with massive star-forming clumps — far more than expected — offering fresh clues about how galaxies grew in the early universe.
Categories: Astronomy

Moonquakes Will Pose Risks To Long-term Lunar Base Structures

Universe Today - Tue, 08/19/2025 - 4:29pm

Our Moon is a seismically active world and its long history of quakes could affect the safety of permanent base structures there. That's one conclusion from a study of quakes along the Lee-Lincoln fault in the Taurus-Littrow valley where the Apollo 17 astronauts landed in 1972. “The global distribution of young thrust faults like the Lee-Lincoln fault, their potential to be still active and the potential to form new thrust faults from ongoing contraction should be considered when planning the location and assessing stability of permanent outposts on the Moon,” said Smithsonian senior scientist emeritus Thomas R. Watters, lead author of the paper.

Categories: Astronomy

Researchers Simulate What a Black Hole "Shadow" Looks Like

Universe Today - Tue, 08/19/2025 - 4:29pm

Supercomputer simulations are helping scientists sharpen their understanding of the environment beyond a black hole’s "shadow," material just outside its event horizon.

Categories: Astronomy

The JWST Shows Us That TRAPPIST-1d Is Not As Earth-Like As We Hoped

Universe Today - Tue, 08/19/2025 - 4:29pm

The exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 d intrigues astronomers looking for possibly habitable worlds beyond our Solar System because it is similar in size to Earth, rocky, and resides in an area around its star where liquid water on its surface is theoretically possible. But according to a new study using data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, it does not have an Earth-like atmosphere.

Categories: Astronomy

Mystery of the "Little Red Dots" May Finally Be Solved

Universe Today - Tue, 08/19/2025 - 4:29pm

Deep in the darkness, tiny red specks of light have been driving astronomers to distraction. These mysterious "little red dots" discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope shouldn't exist, they’re impossibly compact yet blazingly bright, defying our understanding of how galaxies form. Now, Harvard researchers believe they've solved this billion year old puzzle with a theory involving the universe's rarest structures; dark matter halos.

Categories: Astronomy

A Simple Instrument Could Find Martian DNA - If It Exists

Universe Today - Tue, 08/19/2025 - 4:29pm

Mars still holds the promise of being one of the first places in the solar system humanity will colonize. However, if there was evolutionarily distinct, extant life on the planet, it might sway the heart of even the most ardent Mars colonization fans. So astrobiologists are in a race against time to try to determine whether or not such life exists, before the entire planet becomes an analogue of the Earth’s biosphere, if only unintentionally, and only a shadow of the ones that exists here. A new paper from the Christopher Temby and Jan Spacek of the Agnostic Life Finder (ALF) team discusses one of the most promising ways to prove definitively that life exists on the Red Planet - finding polyelectrolyte polymers - in other words, DNA.

Categories: Astronomy

The Vibrational Lives of Black Holes

Universe Today - Tue, 08/19/2025 - 4:29pm

When black holes are disrupted by things like infalling matter or gravitational waves, they vibrate like a bell struck with a clapper. The vibrations decay over time as the black hole returns to an equilibrium state. Astrophysicists can measure these vibrations to learn more about the black hole.

Categories: Astronomy