Space Exploration News – Latest Headlines

Physicists analyze the rotational dynamics of galaxies and the influence of the mass of the photon

Could the effect of photon mass on the gaseous components in galaxies be as strong as that of dark matter?

March 5, 2019 Read more

The case of the over-tilting exoplanets

For almost a decade, astronomers have tried to explain why so many pairs of planets outside our solar system have an odd configuration -- their orbits seem to have been pushed apart by a powerful unknown mechanism. Researchers say they've found a possible answer, and it implies that the planets' poles are majorly tilted.

March 4, 2019 Read more

Asteroids are stronger, harder to destroy than previously thought

A popular theme in the movies is that of an incoming asteroid that could extinguish life on the planet, and our heroes are launched into space to blow it up. But incoming asteroids may be harder to break than scientists previously thought, finds a study that used a new understanding of rock fracture and a new computer modeling method to simulate asteroid collisions.

March 4, 2019 Read more

Using stardust grains, scientists build new model for nova eruptions

Scientists make breakthrough in modeling how stars erupt thanks to studies of microscopic stardust grains.

February 28, 2019 Read more

Hiding black hole found

Astronomers have detected a stealthy black hole from its effects on an interstellar gas cloud. This intermediate mass black hole is one of over 100 million quiet black holes expected to be lurking in our Galaxy.

February 28, 2019 Read more

Dark matter may be hitting the right note in small galaxies

Dark matter may scatter against each other only when they hit the right energy. This idea helps explain why galaxies from the smallest to the biggest have the shapes they do.

February 27, 2019 Read more

Ingredients for water could be made on surface of moon, a chemical factory

When a stream of charged particles known as the solar wind careens onto the Moon's surface at 450 kilometers per second, they enrich the Moon's surface in ingredients that could make water.

February 20, 2019 Read more

Hundreds of thousands of new galaxies

A new survey reveals hundreds of thousands of previously undetected galaxies, shedding new light on many research areas including the physics of black holes and how clusters of galaxies evolve.

February 19, 2019 Read more

Spacecraft measurements reveal mechanism of solar wind heating

A new study describes the first direct measurement of how energy is transferred from the chaotic electromagnetic fields in space to the particles that make up the solar wind, leading to the heating of interplanetary space.

February 14, 2019 Read more

Merging neutron stars - How cosmic events give insight into fundamental properties of matter

Two international research groups report on their calculations of what the signature of a phase transition in a gravitational wave, where neutrons dissolve into their constituents, would look like.

February 13, 2019 Read more

Liberal sprinkling of salt discovered around a young star

A team of astronomers and chemists has detected the chemical fingerprints of sodium chloride (NaCl) and other similar salty compounds emanating from the dusty disk surrounding Orion Source I, a massive, young star in a dusty cloud behind the Orion Nebula.

February 7, 2019 Read more

Researchers find evidence for a new fundamental constant of the Sun

New research shows that the Sun's magnetic waves behave differently than currently believed.

February 7, 2019 Read more

Discovering new particles using black holes

The presence of energy level transitions in the hypothetical boson cloud would induce a characteristic 'fingerprint' in the gravitational wave signals produced by merging black holes.

February 7, 2019 Read more

Supermassive black holes still dark and mysterious

Researchers have measured the strength of magnetic fields near two supermassive black holes at the centers of an important type of active galaxies. Surprisingly, the strengths of the magnetic fields do not appear sufficient to power the coronae.

February 1, 2019 Read more

Hubble fortuitously discovers a new galaxy in the cosmic neighborhood

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope to study some of the oldest and faintest stars in the globular cluster NGC 6752 have discovered a dwarf galaxy in our cosmic backyard, only 30 million light-years away.

January 31, 2019 Read more

How black holes power plasma jets

New simulations reveal how interactions between magnetic fields and particles sap a black hole's energy.

January 30, 2019 Read more

Concrete in space

Investigating cement solidification in a microgravity environment.

January 28, 2019 Read more

Scientists observe a new form of strange matter

In a discovery that could provide new insights into the origin of mass in the universe following the Big Bang, scientists have used experiments with kaons and helium-3 to experimentally demonstrate, for the first time, the existence of an exotic nucleus containing two protons and a bound kaon.

January 28, 2019 Read more