We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

— Oscar Wilde

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Experts ask where the center of the universe is

Space.com - Sun, 07/13/2025 - 9:00am
With the universe constantly expanding, scientists have a hard time finding where its center is.
Categories: Astronomy

Feast your eyes on the shortlisted pics for the 2025 ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year Awards (photos)

Space.com - Sun, 07/13/2025 - 8:00am
The winners will be announced during a ceremony in September.
Categories: Astronomy

Earth may have at least 6 'minimoons' at any given time. Where do they come from?

Space.com - Sun, 07/13/2025 - 6:00am
"It is incredible that modern telescopic surveys have the ability to detect such small objects up to millions of kilometers away."
Categories: Astronomy

SpaceX launches mystery satellite to geostationary transfer orbit (video)

Space.com - Sun, 07/13/2025 - 1:21am
SpaceX launched a mystery satellite to geostationary transfer orbit from Florida's Space Coast early Sunday morning (July 13).
Categories: Astronomy

Binary Stars Out of Sync: One Hosts a Giant Planet, While its Companion is Still Forming Planet

Universe Today - Sat, 07/12/2025 - 5:41pm

A team of international researchers led by Tomas Stolker in the Netherlands has imaged a young gas giant exoplanet near a 12-million-year-old star. The planet is orbiting a star whose planet formation has finished, while a same-aged companion star in this double star system still has a planet-forming disk.

Categories: Astronomy

Breakthrough Listen Releases Results for 27 Eclipsing Exoplanets

Universe Today - Sat, 07/12/2025 - 5:41pm

In a recent study, a team of astronomers examined 27 confirmed and candidate exoplanets identified by TESS for signs of radio transmissions during star-planet occultations. The purpose was to see if radio signals from these targets of interest (TOIs) were interrupted as they passed behind their stars, thereby indicating that they were artificial in origin.

Categories: Astronomy

Where Does Cosmic Dust Come From? The JWST Provides an Answer

Universe Today - Sat, 07/12/2025 - 5:41pm

Cosmic dust does far more than float through space. It's the raw material from which stars, planets and possibly even life emerge. Yet astronomers have long puzzled over where this vast amount of dust comes from and what it's made of.

Categories: Astronomy

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APOD - Sat, 07/12/2025 - 12:00pm

Why is there a spiral around the North Pole of Mars?


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

'Mycopunk' is what happens when 'Borderlands' gets a nasty fungal infection (Interview)

Space.com - Sat, 07/12/2025 - 12:00pm
Robots take on a dangerous and world-consuming fungus in Mycopunk, a new co-op shooter set in outer space. We chatted to the developers about how the fungal menace was created.
Categories: Astronomy

This Week In Space podcast: Episode 168 — "Survivor: NASA"

Space.com - Sat, 07/12/2025 - 11:27am
On Episode 168 of This Week In Space, Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik jump into the headlines. including Sean Duffy being named interim NASA Administrator.
Categories: Astronomy

Who is Metamorpho, the shape-shifting miracle in James Gunn's 'Superman'?

Space.com - Sat, 07/12/2025 - 11:00am
This B-List DC Comics character is about to shine in the limelight of James Gunn's new superhero epic.
Categories: Astronomy

Inside New Brunswick's ambituous plan for the world's densest dark-sky corridor

Space.com - Sat, 07/12/2025 - 10:00am
Astrotourism is coming to Canada, thanks to an ambitious plan for a chain of six dark-sky sites along 100 miles of the spectacular Bay of Fundy coastline.
Categories: Astronomy

We've tested loads of space tech and these are the best Amazon Prime Day deals still available — star projectors, model rockets, drones and more

Space.com - Sat, 07/12/2025 - 9:48am
Amazon Prime Day 2025 is now over, but there are still plenty of space tech deals still available with discounts on model rockets, star projectors and drones.
Categories: Astronomy

Don't miss the stars of the Summer Triangle twinkling in the eastern sky this weekend

Space.com - Sat, 07/12/2025 - 9:00am
The Summer Triangle is a formation of stellar bodies called an asterism, made up of the bright stars Vega, Deneb and Altair.
Categories: Astronomy

Could asteroid mining actually work? Maybe if we start with impact sites on the moon

Space.com - Sat, 07/12/2025 - 8:00am
"Can humanity enjoy the benefits of both asteroid and lunar mining without compromise, or do we have to choose one at the expense of the other?"
Categories: Astronomy

Chinese company Landspace aims to debut its reusable methane rocket this year (video)

Space.com - Sat, 07/12/2025 - 6:00am
Landspace aims to debut its stainless steel Zhuque-3 rocket later this year, marking a bold step forward for China's commercial launch sector.
Categories: Astronomy

Little Red Dots Lead To Big Discoveries

Universe Today - Sat, 07/12/2025 - 4:47am

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”.

Categories: Astronomy

UK is Considering a Mission to Venus to Search for Life

Universe Today - Sat, 07/12/2025 - 4:47am

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.

Categories: Astronomy

Lunar Astronauts Could Eat "Moon Rice"

Universe Today - Sat, 07/12/2025 - 4:47am

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.

Categories: Astronomy