Space Exploration News – Latest Headlines

ALMA finds unexpected trove of gas around larger stars

Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) surveyed dozens of young stars and discovered that the larger variety have surprisingly rich reservoirs of carbon monoxide gas in their debris disks. In contrast, the lower-mass, Sun-like stars have debris disks that are virtually gas-free.

August 25, 2016 Read more

Earth-like planet near Proxima Centauri

Astronomers discover a celestial body in the habitable zone around our nearest fixed star.

August 24, 2016 Read more

What do aliens look like? The clue is in evolution

Speculating about what aliens look like has kept children, film producers and scientists amused for decades. If they exist, will extra terrestrials turn out to look similar to us, or might they take a form beyond our wildest imaginings? The answer to this question really depends on how we think evolution works at the deepest level.

August 19, 2016 Read more

Factories in space: how extra-terrestrial industry could keep humans alive

We have yet to identify many materials that can only be created in a microgravity environment but have serious uses elsewhere. There certainly are possibilities.

August 19, 2016 Read more

Venus-like exoplanet might have oxygen atmosphere, but not life

The distant planet GJ 1132b intrigued astronomers when it was discovered last year. Located just 39 light-years from Earth, it might have an atmosphere despite being baked to a temperature of around 450 degrees Fahrenheit.

August 18, 2016 Read more

New technique may help detect Martian life

A novel interpretation of Raman spectra will help the 2020 Mars rover select rocks to study for signs of life.

August 16, 2016 Read more

Much ado about nothing: Astronomers use empty space to study the universe

A lot of information contained in cosmic voids, study suggests.

August 11, 2016 Read more

Can the origin of the first gravitational waves detected be traced back to primordial black holes?

New theory proposes scenario for the origin of the universe.

August 10, 2016 Read more

Stellar lab in Sagittarius

There are over 1000 known open star clusters within the Milky Way, with a wide range of properties, such as size and age, that provide astronomers with clues to how stars form, evolve and die. The main appeal of these clusters is that all of their stars are born together out of the same material.

August 10, 2016 Read more

3-D galaxy-mapping project enters construction phase

DESI, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, will measure light from 35M galaxies to provide new clues about dark energy.

August 9, 2016 Read more

Do black holes have a back door?

A recent study suggests that matter might in fact survive its foray into black holes and come out the other side.

August 5, 2016 Read more

Pulsar study brings autonomous interplanetary travel closer to reality

New research shows pulsars can be used to obtain position along a particular direction in space to an accuracy of 2km.

August 4, 2016 Read more

Mapping the exotic matter inside neutron stars

Do neutron stars contain exotic matter in the form of dense deconfined quark matter?

August 2, 2016 Read more

Is Earthly life premature from a cosmic perspective?

The universe is 13.8 billion years old, while our planet formed just 4.5 billion years ago. Some scientists think this time gap means that life on other planets could be billions of years older than ours. However, new theoretical work suggests that present-day life is actually premature from a cosmic perspective.

August 1, 2016 Read more

Ancient eye in the sky

An international team of researchers have discovered an extremely rare, double source plane gravitational lensing system, in which two distant galaxies are simultaneously lensed by a foreground galaxy. The team dubbed the system 'Eye of Horus'. Such a rare system is a unique probe of fundamental physics of galaxies and cosmology.

July 26, 2016 Read more

Astronomers discover dizzying spin of the Milky Way galaxy's 'halo'

Astronomers have discovered for the first time that the hot gas in the halo of the Milky Way galaxy is spinning in the same direction and at comparable speed as the galaxy's disk, which contains our stars, planets, gas, and dust. This new knowledge sheds light on how individual atoms have assembled into stars, planets, and galaxies like our own, and what the future holds for these galaxies.

July 25, 2016 Read more

Growing large-volume protein crystals bigger, better in space

Flown on a SpaceX rocket to the International Space Station, an experiment shows that large-volume protein crystals, needed for some experiments in drug design, can be grown bigger and better in space than on Earth.

July 25, 2016 Read more

A new key to understanding molecular evolution in space

Scientists have revealed temperature-dependent energy-state conversion of molecular hydrogen on ice surfaces, suggesting the need for a reconsideration of molecular evolution theory.

July 22, 2016 Read more