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.
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.
A new study published recently in Geophysical Research Letters finds that Apollo 17’s sample 76535, a 4.25 billion-year-old troctolite, may have been lifted to the surface during the formation of the Serenitatis Basin on the Moon’s nearside.
A team of Auburn University physicists using NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has detected water’s ultraviolet fingerprint in interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. The discovery, published on September 30, 2025, in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, marks the first confirmed ultraviolet detection of water from a comet that originated beyond our solar system.
Researchers from Brown University reported that Apollo 17 samples sealed since 1972 contain exotic sulfur isotopes, revealing a lunar mantle signature unlike any found on Earth.
Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile confirmed an extraordinary accretion event in a free-floating planet known as Cha J11070768-7626326, or Cha 1107-7626. Located about 620 light-years (190 parsecs) away in the constellation Chamaeleon, this world is growing faster than any planet ever observed.
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) and Mars Express spacecraft recorded images of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on October 3, 2025, from about 30 million km (18.6 million miles) away, marking the closest observation of the object from any spacecraft so far.
A reanalysis of NASA’s 1978 Pioneer Venus mission data, published on September 26, 2025, reveals that the planet’s clouds contain about 60% water bound in hydrated minerals, challenging decades of assumptions that they are made mostly of sulfuric acid.
