Space Exploration News – Latest Headlines

When Is a nova not a nova? When a white dwarf and a brown dwarf collide

International research team confirms collision of white dwarf and brown dwarf stars.

October 8, 2018 Read more

Journey to the beginning of time

With the Pristine survey, an international team is looking for and researching the oldest stars in our Universe. The goal is to learn more about the young Universe right after the Big Bang.

October 8, 2018 Read more

X-ray telescope reveals the Milky Way's halo of hot gas is fed by supernovae

Satellite x-ray observations reveal that supernovae feed the gas cloud that surrounds our galaxy.

October 5, 2018 Read more

A new era in the quest for dark matter

In a review that was published this week, physicists argue that the time has come to broaden and diversify the experimental effort, and to incorporate astronomical surveys and gravitational wave observations in the quest for the nature of dark matter.

October 4, 2018 Read more

Scientists discover new nursery for superpowered photons

One of the weirdest objects in the Milky Way just got weirder. Scientists have discovered a new source of the highest-energy photons in the cosmos: a strange system known as a microquasar, located in our neck of the galaxy a neighborly 15,000 light years from Earth.

October 3, 2018 Read more

Black holes ruled out as universe's missing dark matter

Statistical analysis shows black holes can make up no more than 40 percent of dark matter.

October 2, 2018 Read more

Gaia spots stars flying between galaxies

A team of astronomers using the latest set of data from ESA's Gaia mission to look for high-velocity stars being kicked out of the Milky Way were surprised to find stars instead sprinting inwards - perhaps from another galaxy.

October 2, 2018 Read more

The notorious luminous blue variable star

New, three-dimensional simulations reveal the inner workings of one of the universe's most mysterious stars.

September 26, 2018 Read more

Astrophysicists measure precise rotation pattern of sun-like stars for the first time

Equators of Sun-like stars rotate up to two and a half times as fast as higher latitudes, researchers have discovered.

September 20, 2018 Read more

Matter falling into a black hole at 30 percent of the speed of light

Astronomers report the first detection of matter falling into a black hole at 30% of the speed of light, located in the centre of the billion-light year distant galaxy PG211+143.

September 20, 2018 Read more

Gaia detects a shake in the Milky Way

Position and movement data of more than six million stars show substructures that were never seen, originated by an impact that occurred more than 300 million years ago.

September 19, 2018 Read more

ExoMars highlights radiation risk for Mars astronauts, and watches as dust storm subsides

Astronauts on a mission to Mars would be exposed to at least 60% of the total radiation dose limit recommended for their career during the journey itself to and from the Red Planet, according to data from the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.

September 19, 2018 Read more

Nuclear pasta, the hardest known substance in the universe

Computer simulations of neutron stars could help better understand the possible sources of gravitational waves.

September 18, 2018 Read more

What recipes produce a habitable planet?

Cross-disciplinary team will track life-essential elements during planets' early evolution.

September 17, 2018 Read more

Uncovering the birthplaces of stars in the Milky Way

An international team of scientists has found a way to recover the birth places of stars in our Galaxy. This is one of the major goals in the field of Galactic Archaeology, whose aim is to reconstruct the formation history of the Milky Way.

September 13, 2018 Read more

Astronomers witness birth of new star from stellar explosion

As large stars explode, their interiors collapse down to a point at which all of their particles become neutrons. If the newly born star has a magnetic field and rotates fast enough, it can accelerate nearby charged particles and become what astronomers call a pulsar wind nebula.

September 12, 2018 Read more

Artificial intelligence helps track down mysterious cosmic radio bursts

Machine learning algorithm also helps search for new kinds of signals from extraterrestrial intelligence.

September 10, 2018 Read more

Small, short-lived drops of early universe matter

Particle flow patterns suggest even small-scale collisions create drops of early universe quark-gluon plasma.

September 6, 2018 Read more