Space Exploration News – Latest Headlines

Mysterious 'Magic Island' appears on Saturn moon

Astronomers have discovered a bright, mysterious geologic object - where one never existed - on Cassini mission radar images of Ligeia Mare, the second-largest sea on Saturn's moon Titan. Scientifically speaking, this spot is considered a 'transient feature', but the astronomers have playfully dubbed it 'Magic Island'.

June 22, 2014 Read more

A stellar odd couple that takes it slow

An x-ray investigation of a slowly rotating neutron star paired with a red-giant star reveals properties that conflict with existing theory.

June 20, 2014 Read more

Swiftly moving gas streamer eclipses supermassive black hole

An international team of astronomers, using data from several NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) space observatories, has discovered unexpected behavior from the supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy NGC 5548, located 244.6 million light-years from Earth. This behavior may provide new insights into how supermassive black holes interact with their host galaxies.

June 19, 2014 Read more

BICEP2 researchers publish nuanced account of stunning patterns in the microwave sky

Following a thorough peer-review process, the researchers who previously announced the detection of B-mode polarization in a patch of the microwave sky have published their findings today. Possibly primordial gravitational waves, but galactic dust not ruled out.

June 19, 2014 Read more

Starbursts in dwarf galaxies played a bigger role than expected in early universe

They may only be little, but they pack a star-forming punch: new observations from the Hubble Space Telescope show that starbursts in dwarf galaxies played a bigger role than expected in the early history of the Universe.

June 19, 2014 Read more

Two low-cost, car battery-sized Canadian space telescopes launched today

Costing a fraction of conventional space telescopes and similar in size and weight to a car battery, the satellites are two of six that will work together to shed light on the structures and life stories of some of the brightest stars in the sky, uncovering unique clues as to the origins of our own Sun and Earth.

June 19, 2014 Read more

A laser message from space (w/video)

On June 5th, 2014, the ISS passed over the Table Mountain Observatory in Wrightwood, California, and beamed an HD video to researchers waiting below. Unlike normal data transmissions, which are encoded in radio waves, this one came to Earth on a beam of light.

June 18, 2014 Read more

Delving into dark matter

Theory says there may be disk of it at center of galaxy.

June 18, 2014 Read more

Solar photons drive water off the moon

New research indicates that ultraviolet photons emitted by the sun likely cause H2O molecules on the lunar surface to either quickly desorb or break apart. The fragments of water may remain on the lunar surface, but the presence of useful amounts of water on the sunward side is not likely.

June 17, 2014 Read more

New molecules around old stars

Using ESA's Herschel space observatory, astronomers have discovered that a molecule vital for creating water exists in the burning embers of dying Sun-like stars.

June 17, 2014 Read more

Hubble to begin search beyond Pluto for a New Horizons mission target

The Hubble Space Telescope Time Allocation Committee has recommended using Hubble to search for an object the Pluto-bound NASA New Horizons mission could visit after its flyby of Pluto in July 2015.

June 16, 2014 Read more

Cracks in Pluto's moon could indicate it once had an underground ocean

If the icy surface of Pluto's giant moon Charon is cracked, analysis of the fractures could reveal if its interior was warm, perhaps warm enough to have maintained a subterranean ocean of liquid water, according to a new study.

June 13, 2014 Read more

NASA experiments recreate aromatic flavors of Titan

NASA scientists have created a new recipe that captures key flavors of the brownish-orange atmosphere around Saturn's largest moon, Titan.

June 13, 2014 Read more

Space weather report for an alien world (w/video)

For the first time, ESA is providing regular space-weather reports for a spacecraft orbiting another planet.

June 13, 2014 Read more

'Guinea pig' in space

Alexander Gerst has been living and working in microgravity since 29 May 2014, and the focus of his initial research on the International Space Station (ISS) is currently himself.

June 12, 2014 Read more

Mining data archives yields haul of 'red nuggets'

The world of astronomy has changed. An astronomer used to have to travel to a remote location and endure long, cold nights, patiently guiding a telescope to collect precious photons of light. Now, a proliferation of online archives allows astronomers to make discoveries from the comfort of their own offices. By mining such archives, a team of astronomers has found a treasure trove of 'red nugget' galaxies.

June 11, 2014 Read more

Gigantic explosion buried in dust: Alma probes environment around gamma ray bursts (w/video)

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a team of researchers reports the first-ever detection of molecular gas in two galaxies that were previously rocked by gamma ray bursts (GRBs), the brightest explosions in the Universe. These new observations revealed that the molecular gas was concentrated toward the centers of the galaxies, while the GRBs occurred in unusual environments that were surprisingly bereft of gas yet rich in dust.

June 11, 2014 Read more

The solar wind breaks through the Earth's magnetic field

Space is not empty. A wind of charged particles blows outwards from the Sun, carrying a magnetic field with it. Sometimes this solar wind can break through the Earth's magnetic field. Researchers now have an answer to one of the questions about how this actually occurs.

June 11, 2014 Read more