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Using the James Webb Space Telescope, a team of international researchers has discovered chemical fingerprints of gigantic primordial stars that were among the first to form after the Big Bang.

The four astronauts set to fly around the Moon during NASA’s Artemis II test flight depart the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, during a dress rehearsal for launch day on Dec. 20, 2025. From left are CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Christina Koch.

The launch day rehearsal, called a countdown demonstration test, simulated the launch day timeline, including the crew suiting up in their spacesuits and climbing in and out of their Orion spacecraft. Because the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket upon which they will launch is not yet at the launch pad, the crew boarded Orion inside Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building, where engineers are conducting final preparations on the spacecraft, rocket, and ground systems.  

Through Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.

Photo Credit: NASA/Jim Ross

The four astronauts set to fly around the Moon during NASA’s Artemis II test flight depart the Neil A. Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, during a dress rehearsal for launch day on Dec. 20, 2025. From left are CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, and Christina Koch.

The launch day rehearsal, called a countdown demonstration test, simulated the launch day timeline, including the crew suiting up in their spacesuits and climbing in and out of their Orion spacecraft. Because the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket upon which they will launch is not yet at the launch pad, the crew boarded Orion inside Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building, where engineers are conducting final preparations on the spacecraft, rocket, and ground systems.  

Through Artemis, NASA will send astronauts to explore the Moon for scientific discovery, economic benefits, and build the foundation for the first crewed missions to Mars.

Photo Credit: NASA/Jim Ross

The U.S. reportedly plans to overhaul the country’s childhood vaccine schedule. The move could set public health back decades, experts say

During the deployment of new space telescopes that are several critical steps each has to go through. Launch is probably the one most commonly thought of, another is “first light” of all of the instruments on the telescope. Ultimately, they’re responsible for the data the telescope is intended to collect - if they don’t work properly then the mission itself it a failure. Luckily, the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) recently collected first light on its 10 primary instruments, and everything seems to be in working order, according to a press release from the Southwest Research Institute who was responsible for ensuring the delivery of all 10 instruments went off without a hitch.

Disney and OpenAI’s agreement hints at a future in which viewers don’t just choose what to watch but generate it on demand

Sky watchers may be tempted out this weekend, when an underappreciated meteor shower will coincide with a new moon and the longest night of year for the Northern Hemisphere

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The inactive aeolian megaripple, “Hazyview,” that Perseverance studied while passing through the “Honeyguide” area. NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image on Dec. 5, 2025 (Sol 1704) at the local mean solar time of 12:33:53, using its onboard Left Navigation Camera (Navcam). The camera is located high on the rover’s mast and aids in driving. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Written by Noah Martin, Ph.D. student and Candice Bedford, Research Scientist at Purdue University

While much of Perseverance’s work focuses on ancient rocks that record Mars’ long-lost rivers and lakes, megaripples offer a rare opportunity to examine processes that are still shaping the surface today. Megaripples are sand ripples up to 2 meters (about 6.5 feet) tall that are mainly built and modified by wind. However, when water in the atmosphere interacts with dust on the ripple surface, a salty, dusty crust can form. When this happens, it is much harder for the wind to move or shape the megaripple. As such, megaripples on Mars are largely considered inactive, standing as records of past wind regimes and atmospheric water interactions over time. However, some have shown signs of movement, and it is possible that periods of high wind speeds may erode or reactivate these deposits again.

Despite Mars’ thin atmosphere today (2% of the Earth’s atmospheric density), wind is one of the main drivers of change at the surface, eroding local bedrock into sand-sized grains and transporting these grains across the ripple field. As a result, megaripple studies help us understand how wind has shaped the surface in Mars’ most recent history and support planning for future human missions, as the chemistry and cohesion of Martian soils will influence everything from mobility to resource extraction.

Following the successful investigation of the dusty, inactive megaripples at “Kerrlaguna,” Perseverance recently explored a more expansive field of megaripples called “Honeyguide.” This region hosts some of the largest megaripples Perseverance has seen along its traverse so far, making it an ideal location for a comprehensive study of these features. The megaripples at “Honeyguide” rise higher, extend farther, and have sharply defined crests with more uniform orientation compared to those at “Kerrlaguna.” The consistent orientation of the megaripples at “Honeyguide” suggests that winds in this area have blown predominantly from the same direction (north-south) for a long period of time.

At “Honeyguide,” Perseverance studied the “Hazyview” megaripple, where over 50 observations were taken across the SuperCam, Mastcam-Z, MEDA, PIXL and WATSON instruments, looking for grain movement, signs of early morning frost, and changes in mineralogy from crest to trough. The investigation of the “Hazyview” bedform builds directly on the results from “Kerrlaguna” and represents the most detailed look yet at these intriguing wind-formed deposits. As Perseverance continues its journey on the crater rim, these observations will provide a valuable reference for interpreting other wind-blown features and for understanding how Mars continues to change, one grain of sand at a time.

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On December 5, 2022,

'Wake up and ask yourself, 'Is what I'm doing helping us get back to the moon?' … If it's not, stop doing it.'

It was the 114th Falcon 9 mission of 2025 already.

"This shows how effective the approach of 'Discover with Subaru Telescope, explore with James Webb' can be."

The new finding may solve an "astrophysics mystery that has stood for nearly half a century."

"Sometimes it's the extreme objects that help us understand what's happening in the average ones."

These celestial wonders can tell us a lot about the state of the atmosphere at home on Earth as well as on other planets.

Phases of ice that exist naturally only on frozen moons could be detected using infrared spectroscopy, according to new laboratory experiments.

The beams hint at the true scale of the massive star that spawned them.

"Capturing another satellite like this in an Earth-observation image is extremely rare."

Though NGC 7456 looks like a modest spiral galaxy, new Hubble and XMM-Newton observations reveal a bustling system with star-forming regions and an active core.