Space Exploration News – Latest Headlines

Astronomers discover first Thorne-Zytkow object, a bizarre type of hybrid star

In a discovery decades in the making, scientists have detected the first of a 'theoretical' class of stars first proposed in 1975 by physicist Kip Thorne and astronomer Anna Zytkow. Thorne-Zytkow objects are hybrids of red supergiant and neutron stars that superficially resemble normal red supergiants, such as Betelguese in the constellation Orion. They differ, however, in their distinct chemical signatures that result from unique activity in their stellar interiors.

June 4, 2014 Read more

Light from huge explosion 12 billion years ago reaches Earth

Known as a gamma-ray burst, the intense light captured in the night sky resulted from one of the biggest and hottest explosions in the universe, occurring shortly after the Big Bang.

June 4, 2014 Read more

Discovering a hidden source of solar surges

Cutting-edge observations with the 1.6-meter telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory in California have taken research into the structure and activity of the Sun to new levels of understanding. The telescope at Big Bear is the most powerful ground-based instrument dedicated to studying the sun.

June 4, 2014 Read more

First light for SPHERE exoplanet imager

SPHERE - the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch instrument - has been installed on ESO's Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile.

June 4, 2014 Read more

Hubble unveils a colorful view of the universe

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have captured the most comprehensive picture ever assembled of the evolving universe - and one of the most colorful. The study is called the Ultraviolet Coverage of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field project.

June 3, 2014 Read more

Milky Way may bear 100 million life-giving planets

There are some 100 million other places in the Milky Way galaxy that could support complex life, report a group of university astronomers. They have developed a new computation method to examine data from planets orbiting other stars in the universe.

June 3, 2014 Read more

Big laser for small debris

Thanks to the CLEANSPACE project, space debris as small as 1 cm could soon be tracked down by Earth-based lasers.

June 3, 2014 Read more

Harsh space weather may doom potential life on red-dwarf planets

Life in the universe might be even rarer than we thought. Recently, astronomers looking for potentially habitable worlds have targeted red dwarf stars because they are the most common type of star, comprising 80 percent of the stars in the universe. But a new study shows that harsh space weather might strip the atmosphere of any rocky planet orbiting in a red dwarf's habitable zone.

June 2, 2014 Read more

'Neapolitan' exoplanets come in three flavors

The planets of our solar system come in two basic flavors, like vanilla and chocolate ice cream. We have small, rocky terrestrials like Earth and Mars, and large gas giants like Neptune and Jupiter.

June 2, 2014 Read more

Because you can't eat just one: Star will swallow two planets

Two worlds orbiting a distant star are about to become a snack of cosmic proportions. Astronomers announced today that the planets Kepler-56b and Kepler-56c will be swallowed by their star in a short time by astronomical standards. Their ends will come in 130 million and 155 million years, respectively.

June 2, 2014 Read more

Astronomers find a new type of planet: The 'mega-Earth'

Astronomers announced today that they have discovered a new type of planet - a rocky world weighing 17 times as much as Earth. Theorists believed such a world couldn't form because anything so hefty would grab hydrogen gas as it grew and become a Jupiter-like gas giant. This planet, though, is all solids and much bigger than previously discovered 'super-Earths,' making it a 'mega-Earth.'

June 2, 2014 Read more

SWF report: 'Near Earth Objects - Responding to the International Challenge'

The Secure World Foundation has released 'Near Earth Objects - Responding to the International Challenge'. This booklet is designed to bring into focus the key issues faced by the international community in dealing with the threat of near-Earth objects (NEOs) and the prospect of a celestial body hitting Earth.

June 2, 2014 Read more

International collaboration replicates amplification of cosmic magnetic fields

Astrophysicists have established that cosmic turbulence could have amplified magnetic fields to the strengths observed in interstellar space.

June 1, 2014 Read more

Lasers create table-top supernova

Laser beams 60,000 billion times more powerful than a laser pointer have been used to recreate scaled supernova explosions in the laboratory as a way of investigating one of the most energetic events in the universe.

June 1, 2014 Read more

NASA missions let scientists see moon's dancing tide from orbit

Scientists combined observations from two NASA missions to check out the moon's lopsided shape and how it changes under Earth's sway - a response not seen from orbit before.

May 29, 2014 Read more

Water in moon rocks provides clues and questions about lunar history

A recent review of hundreds of chemical analyses of Moon rocks indicates that the amount of water in the Moon's interior varies regionally - revealing clues about how water originated and was redistributed in the Moon. These discoveries provide a new tool to unravel the processes involved in the formation of the Moon, how the lunar crust cooled, and its impact history.

May 28, 2014 Read more

A habitable environment on Martian volcano?

A study by geologists suggests that the Martian volcano Arsia Mons may have been home to one of the most recent habitable environments yet found on the Red Planet. The research shows that volcanic eruptions beneath a glacial ice sheet would have created substantial amounts of liquid water on Mars's surface around 210 million years ago. Where there was water, there is the possibility of past life.

May 27, 2014 Read more

Bare electrodynamic tethers: thin as a rail, strong as a rock

Satellite de-orbiting and re-entry is essential to halt the continuous increase in orbital space debris. The BETS project, which ends this month, is making waves with a new tether solution that is faster and more resistant to damage than any other existing technology.

May 27, 2014 Read more