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 identified the 40 000th near-Earth asteroid (NEA), marking a major milestone in planetary defense monitoring. The catalog expanded from 30 000 objects in 2022 to 40 000 in 2025, driven by advanced survey telescopes, automated orbit analysis, and coordinated international data sharing.
NASA spacecraft positioned from Mars orbit to near-Sun vantage points have collected coordinated observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, forming a solar system–wide dataset as the object travels inward ahead of its December 19, 2025 closest approach to Earth.
ESA scientists analysing a decade of Swarm satellite data have found that equatorial GPS signal disruptions follow a universal mathematical law describing many natural systems, suggesting the ionosphere behaves as a self-organising complex system.
Astronomers confirmed the first coronal mass ejection ever observed from another star at about 130 light-years away, using LOFAR and XMM-Newton, according to research published this week in Nature.
A meteoroid impact near Apollinaris Mons triggered more than one hundred new slope streaks that were imaged by ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter on December 24, 2023. Additional analysis shows the impact and streak formation occurred between 2013 and 2017, offering a rare example of modern surface change on Mars that scientists can link directly to a specific event.
A study published on October 30, 2025, reveals how the May 2024 super geomagnetic storm dramatically reshaped the ionosphere across the Asia-Pacific, producing intense hemispheric asymmetries that challenge existing space weather models.
A new analysis of more than 300 Type Ia supernovae by astronomers at Yonsei University, published on November 6, 2025 in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, finds evidence that the Universe’s expansion has already begun to slow — challenging the long-standing idea of an accelerating cosmos driven by dark energy.
Data from ESA’s Solar Orbiter, published on November 5, 2025 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, show magnetic fields at the Sun’s south pole flowing toward the pole at 10–20 m/s (33–66 ft/s). The discovery overturns decades of theory about how the Sun’s magnetic field circulates.
A solar flare of extraordinary intensity erupted from Active Region 10486 at 19:29 UTC on November 4, 2003, overwhelming every X-ray detector in orbit and leaving scientists temporarily blind to its true scale. Only later would they learn it reached about X45 — the most powerful ever measured in the Space Age. Its radiative power rivaled that of the 1859 Carrington Event, yet most of its debris was ejected harmlessly sideways into space. Had Active Region 10486 faced Earth, researchers estimate the geomagnetic index Dst could have dropped below –850 nanoteslas — enough to trigger a planetary-scale power-grid collapse.
Astronomers have confirmed two Earth-sized planets and a third candidate orbiting both stars of the binary system TOI-2267 in the constellation Canis Minor, according to observations analyzed from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and ground telescopes between 2019 and 2025. The finding, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, reveals that rocky worlds can form and persist in gravitational environments once thought too unstable for complex planetary systems.
