Space Exploration News – Latest Headlines

Lost lithium destroyed by ancient stars

A group of scientists think they have the answer to this so-called 'lithium problem': it was destroyed and re-accumulated by these stars shortly after they were born.

August 5, 2015 Read more

Scientists solve planetary ring riddle

Study suggests planetary rings have a universal particle distribution.

August 5, 2015 Read more

5 billion light years across: the largest feature in the universe

Astronomers have found what appears to be the largest feature in the observable universe: a ring of nine gamma ray bursts - and hence galaxies - 5 billion light years across.

August 4, 2015 Read more

Super star takes on black holes in jet contest

A super-dense star formed in the aftermath of a supernova explosion is shooting out powerful jets of material into space, research suggests.

August 4, 2015 Read more

Cassiopeia's hidden gem: The closest rocky, transiting planet

A star in the constellation Cassiopeia has a planet in a three-day orbit that transits, or crosses in front of its star. At a distance of just 21 light-years, it is by far the closest transiting planet to Earth, which makes it ideal for follow-up studies. Moreover, it is the nearest rocky planet confirmed outside our solar system.

August 3, 2015 Read more

A cleanroom to sterilize space probes

Components used on a space mission must be cleaned meticulously. Fraunhofer researchers designed a cleanroom for the ESA (European Space Agency) in which the most infinitesimal contaminants can be removed.

August 3, 2015 Read more

Scientists study 'peanut-shaped' asteroid near Earth (w/video)

A mile-long asteroid that raced past Earth July 25 at about 45,000 miles per hour was imaged by radar telescopes so that astronomers could discern its precise orbit and physical shape.

July 31, 2015 Read more

New Milky Way map reveals stars in our galaxy move far from home

Astronomers have created a new map of the Milky Way that provides the first clear evidence of migration of stars throughout our galaxy. The study, which determined that 30 percent of stars have traveled across the galaxy, is bringing a new understanding of how stars are formed and travel throughout the Milky Way.

July 31, 2015 Read more

'Failed stars' host powerful auroral displays (w/video)

Astronomers say brown dwarfs behave more like planets than stars.

July 30, 2015 Read more

Dense star clusters shown to be binary black hole factories

The merger of two black holes is one of the most sought-after observations of modern astronomy. The first observatories capable of directly detecting gravitational waves will begin observing the universe later this year. When these waves rolling in from space are detected on Earth for the first time, astrophysicists predict astronomers will 'hear', through these waves, five times more colliding black holes than previously expected.

July 29, 2015 Read more

Dust pillars of destruction reveal impact of cosmic wind on galaxy evolution

Astronomers have long known that powerful cosmic winds can sometimes blow through galaxies, sweeping out interstellar material and stopping future star formation. Now they have a clearer snapshot of how it happens.

July 27, 2015 Read more

NASA finds first near-Earth-size planet in the habitable zone

NASA's Kepler mission has confirmed the first near-Earth-size planet in the 'habitable zone' around a sun-like star. This discovery and the introduction of 11 other new small habitable zone candidate planets mark another milestone in the journey to finding another Earth.

July 23, 2015 Read more

Brown dwarfs, stars share formation process, new study indicates

Astronomers have discovered jets of material ejected by still-forming young brown dwarfs. The discovery is the first direct evidence that brown dwarfs, intermediate in mass between stars and planets, are produced by a scaled-down version of the same process that produces stars.

July 23, 2015 Read more

Astronomers witness assembly of galaxies in the early Universe for the first time

An international team of astronomers led by the University of Cambridge have detected the most distant clouds of star-forming gas yet found in normal galaxies in the early Universe - less than one billion years after the Big Bang. The new observations will allow astronomers to start to see how the first galaxies were built up and how they cleared the cosmic fog during the era of reionisation.

July 22, 2015 Read more

Seeing triple: New 3-D model could solve supernova mystery

How massive stars explode remains a mystery; However, recent work may bring some answers to this astronomical question.

July 21, 2015 Read more

Dead galaxies in Coma Cluster may be packed with dark matter

Galaxies in a cluster roughly 300 million light years from Earth could contain as much as 100 times more dark matter than visible matter, according to an Australian study.

July 20, 2015 Read more

Astronomers bring a new hope to find 'Tatooine' planets (w/video)

Astronomers could discover a plethora of planets around binary star systems (stars that rotate around each other) by measuring with high precision how stars move around each other, looking for disturbances exerted by possible exoplanets.

July 15, 2015 Read more

Jupiter twin discovered around solar twin

A research team has been targeting Sun-like stars in a bid to find planetary systems similar to our Solar System. The team has now uncovered a planet with a very similar mass to Jupiter, orbiting a Sun-like star, HIP 11915, at almost exactly the same distance as Jupiter.

July 15, 2015 Read more