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.
Scientists have confirmed that asteroid Bennu contains ribose, glucose, and other foundational sugars of life — the final missing pieces of prebiotic chemistry beyond Earth. The discovery shows that the building blocks of RNA and metabolic energy were present in the early solar system, strengthening the view that life’s chemistry began as a cosmic process rather than a strictly terrestrial one.
Asteroid 2022 RD2, a 5–11 m (16–36 feet) near-Earth object from the Arjuna group, will be temporarily captured by Earth three times between November 2043 and July 2044, creating the first predicted triple mini-moon sequence ever observed.
A team from the Higher School of Economics (HSE) and the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IKI RAS) analyzed seven years of satellite data and confirmed that Earth produces a natural radio emission called the hectometer continuum — a faint signal that vanished in mid-2022 as the Sun’s activity increased.
A new mosaic from the GREGOR solar telescope shows the last 30 minutes before a major solar flare, displaying how twisted magnetic filaments and sunspot rotation stressed the solars magnetic field until it released an X1.2 eruption.
A new study reports possible detection of dark matter through a 20 GeV gamma-ray halo around the Milky Way, based on 15 years of NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope data.
Electric discharges caused by dust devils and dust storms on Mars have been detected for the first time, according to data from NASA’s Perseverance rover, published in Nature on November 26, 2025.
A recent analysis reports the detection of a previously unrecognized concentration of Kuiper belt objects near 43 astronomical units, located just inward of the well known 44 astronomical unit kernel and identified through clustering of barycentric free orbital elements.
A recent study published in Science shows that Theia, the planetary body that collided with early Earth around 4.5 billion years ago and formed the Moon, originated in the inner Solar System, likely closer to the Sun than Earth.
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.
