Space Exploration News – Latest Headlines

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

Stellar winds, the source material for the universe, are clumpy

Data recorded by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory of a neutron star as it passed through a dense patch of stellar wind emanating from its massive companion star provide valuable insight about the structure and composition of stellar winds.

January 24, 2019 Read more

Making the Hubble's deepest images even deeper

It has taken researchers almost three years to produce the deepest image of the Universe ever taken from space, by recovering a large quantity of 'lost' light around the largest galaxies in the HUDF.

January 24, 2019 Read more

Astronomers find star material could be building block of life

An organic molecule detected in the material from which a star forms could shed light on how life emerged on Earth.

January 23, 2019 Read more

Lifting the veil on the black hole at the heart of our Galaxy

Including the powerful ALMA into an array of telescopes for the first time, astronomers have found that the emission from the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* at the center of our Galaxy comes from a smaller region than previously thought.

January 21, 2019 Read more

Mystery orbits in outermost reaches of solar system not caused by 'Planet Nine'

The strange orbits of some objects in the farthest reaches of our solar system, hypothesised by some astronomers to be shaped by an unknown ninth planet, can instead be explained by the combined gravitational force of small objects orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune, say researchers.

January 21, 2019 Read more

From emergence to eruption: Comprehensive model captures life of a solar flare

A team of scientists has, for the first time, used a single, cohesive computer model to simulate the entire life cycle of a solar flare: from the buildup of energy thousands of kilometers below the solar surface, to the emergence of tangled magnetic field lines, to the explosive release of energy in a brilliant flash.

January 16, 2019 Read more

High-speed supernova reveals earliest moments of a dying star

Researchers have found evidence for the existence of a 'hot cocoon' of material enveloping a relativistic jet escaping a dying star.

January 16, 2019 Read more

New quantum structures in super-chilled helium may mirror early days of universe

Experimental proof of a decades-old prediction opens a pathway to recreate possible conditions of the early universe here on earth.

January 16, 2019 Read more

POLAR experiment reveals orderly chaos of black holes

An international consortium of scientists studying gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) as part of the POLAR (GRB polarimeter) experiment has revealed that high-energy photon emissions from black holes are neither completely chaotic nor completely organized, but a mixture.

January 15, 2019 Read more

Measurement of five flashes from the depths of the universe

Analysis revealed that the light of five gamma-ray bursts has a low degree of polarisation. Thus theories about gamma-ray bursts that assume a high degree of polarisation can now be regarded less likely correct.

January 14, 2019 Read more

Big Bang query: Mapping how a mysterious liquid became all matter

New findings test the limits of quark-gluon plasma.

January 14, 2019 Read more

Birth of a black hole or neutron star captured for first time

Mysteriously bright glow of this summer's 'Cow' event gained international interest.

January 11, 2019 Read more

A giant interstellar bubble being blown in the Andromeda Galaxy

An international team of astrophysicists have discovered that a remarkable star has been continuously erupting, on an annual basis, for millions of years.

January 10, 2019 Read more