The exploration of celestial bodies and cosmic phenomena beyond Earth. This field seeks to uncover the mysteries of the universe, including the nature of stars, planets, galaxies, and the laws governing space and time.
Astronomers have discovered the first confirmed planet forming inside a multi-ringed disk, WISPIT 2b. It is a young 5 million-year old gas giant, orbiting the star TYC 5709-354-1 (WISPIT 2) at a distance of roughly 8 billion km (5 billion miles).
An international team of researchers has captured the most detailed image ever of a cosmic filament—an enormous strand of gas connecting two actively forming galaxies—dating back to when the universe was just 2 billion years old.
The most energetic neutrino ever observed was detected by the KM3NeT neutrino observatory in the Mediterranean Sea, estimated at 220 PeV (220 x 1015 electron volts or 220 million billion electron volts). The event, designated KM3-230213A, challenges existing cosmic ray models and may indicate a new type of high-energy astrophysical source.
ESA/JAXA BepiColombo mission’s 6th and final Mercury flyby took place at 05:59 UTC on January 8, 2025, passing just 295 km (183 miles) above the planet’s surface.
While space is silent, instruments aboard the spacecraft recorded data that mission teams converted into audible frequencies, allowing listeners to “hear” the flyby in a newly released recording.
A new study has confirmed that the universe is expanding faster than previously thought, deepening the Hubble constant discrepancy.
Scientists reported the first-ever evidence of a helical magnetic field within HH 80-81 protostellar jet on January 7, 2025, using data from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA). It is the first time a Rotation Measure (RM) analysis has been performed on a protostellar jet.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe confirmed its systems and instruments are fully operational after completing its closest-ever approach to the Sun on December 24, 2024.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe made its closest approach to the Sun at 11:53 UTC on December 24, 2024, coming within 6.1 million km (3.8 million miles) of its surface. Traveling at a remarkable speed of 700 000 km/h (435 000 mph), it set a record as the fastest human-made object in history. The probe’s next transmission is expected on December 27 to report its health after the perihelion.
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) might originate from collisions between asteroids and neutron stars, researchers from the University of Toronto, the University of Oxford, and the University of Canterbury announced on November 15, 2024.
MIT astronomers, using NASA’s JWST, discovered 138 small asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter on December 9, 2024. Some of these asteroids are as small as 10 m (33 feet) wide which makes them the smallest ever found in this region.
