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.
Asteroid 99942 Apophis will sweep within about 32 000 km (19 900 miles) of Earth’s surface on April 13, 2029, passing inside the orbit of many geostationary satellites. ESA’s proposed Ramses spacecraft aims to fly alongside it and observe this near miss up close.
Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory confirmed that Betelgeuse, the red supergiant blazing in Orion’s shoulder, hosts a faint, low-mass companion star, ending decades of speculation about the famous star’s solitary status.
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and ALMA have identified a 20 000 light-year (6 kiloparsec) scar of gas and dust slicing through the spiral galaxy NGC 3627. The feature was likely created by a massive black hole or the nucleus of a dwarf galaxy that passed through the galactic disk about 20 million years ago.
An international team led by Leiden Observatory and the Netherlands Institute for Space Research (SRON) has developed the first unified physical model explaining the eastward and westward jet streams of all four giant planets, published in Science Advances on October 10, 2025.
New data from the European Space Agency’s Swarm mission show that the South Atlantic Anomaly, a weak region in Earth’s magnetic field over the South Atlantic Ocean, has expanded steadily since 2014, now covering nearly 1 % of the planet’s surface. The 11-year record marks the most detailed satellite observation of the field’s uneven weakening to date.
A radioactive signal hidden in Pacific Ocean crust may be the lingering trace of a massive star that exploded near Earth about 10 million years ago, according to new research published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
For decades, spacecraft have photographed small spiraling columns of dust drifting across Mars. These dust devils form when sunlight heats the surface, causing warm air to rise through cooler layers and spin into tall, narrow vortices that can stretch hundreds of meters into the sky. The new study, led by Valentin Bickel from the University…
New ALMA observations show that gravity can bend the very magnetic fields that shape the universe’s star factories, confirming that magnetic resistance fades as collapsing clouds give way to gravity’s relentless pull.
NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope recently detected an extraordinarily long gamma-ray burst, GRB 250702B, that blazed for about seven hours. Its strange pulses and off-center host location suggest a phenomenon never seen before.
NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale mission detected a magnetic “switchback” near Earth for the first time, confirming that these zigzag reversals in magnetic field direction can also form in planetary space environments.
