https://phys.org/space-news/ en-us The latest science news on astronomy, astrobiology, and space exploration from Phys.org. A new image of the galaxy cluster known as "El Gordo" is revealing distant and dusty objects never seen before, and providing a bounty of fresh science. The infrared image, taken by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, displays a variety of unusual, distorted background galaxies that were only hinted at in previous Hubble Space Telescope images. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-webb-spotlights-gravitational-arcs-el.html Astronomy Wed, 02 Aug 2023 11:06:57 EDT news610193082 Using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), European astronomers have discovered an eclipsing binary in the open cluster NGC 2232. The binary, designated TIC 43152097, is the first such system detected in this cluster. The finding is reported in a paper published July 26 on the preprint server arXiv. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-eclipsing-binary-cluster-ngc.html Astronomy Wed, 02 Aug 2023 09:10:02 EDT news610181507 This year the Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak on the night of 12–13 August, giving skywatchers a potentially impressive summer treat. The meteors are best viewed from the northern hemisphere, and in ideal conditions with no clouds observers could see up to 50 an hour. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-perseid-meteor-shower-august-night.html Astronomy Wed, 02 Aug 2023 08:14:59 EDT news610182895 Yale researchers may have solved a longstanding puzzle as to why certain metallic meteorites show traces of a magnetic field—a finding that may shed light on the formation of magnetic dynamos at the core of planets. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-collisions-asteroids-formation-metal-generate.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Tue, 01 Aug 2023 17:29:08 EDT news610129740 After days of silence, NASA has heard from Voyager 2 in interstellar space billions of miles away. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-nasa-voyager-spacecraft-mistakenly-contact.html Space Exploration Tue, 01 Aug 2023 13:16:58 EDT news610114613 By analyzing the long-term, high-cadence continuous photometry from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), astronomers have investigated UU Columbae and Swift J0939.7-3224—two intermediate polars. Results of the study, presented July 24 on the preprint server arXiv, yield important insights into the properties of these two systems. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-intermediate-polars-astronomers.html Astronomy Tue, 01 Aug 2023 09:26:31 EDT news610100788 Earth is rapidly warming and scientists are developing a variety of approaches to reduce the effects of climate change. István Szapudi, an astronomer at the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy, has proposed a novel approach—a solar shield to reduce the amount of sunlight hitting Earth, combined with a tethered, captured asteroid as a counterweight. Engineering studies using this approach could start now to create a workable design that could mitigate climate change within decades. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-sun-umbrella-tethered-asteroid-mitigate.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 31 Jul 2023 16:01:03 EDT news610038062 Euclid's two instruments have captured their first test images. The mesmerizing results indicate that the space telescope will achieve the scientific goals that it has been designed for—and possibly much more. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-euclid-images-riches.html Astronomy Space Exploration Mon, 31 Jul 2023 13:25:14 EDT news610028708 An asteroid discovery algorithm—designed to uncover near-Earth asteroids for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory's upcoming 10-year survey of the night sky—has identified its first "potentially hazardous" asteroid, a term for space rocks in Earth's vicinity that scientists like to keep an eye on. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-algorithm-ensnares-potentially-hazardous-asteroid.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Mon, 31 Jul 2023 13:19:08 EDT news610028339 They are mysterious, exciting and inescapable—black holes are some of the most exotic objects in the universe. With gravitational-wave detectors, it is possible to detect the chirp sound that two black holes produce when they merge, approximately 70 such chirps have been found so far. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-black-hole-chirps-universal-frequency.html Astronomy Mon, 31 Jul 2023 10:55:03 EDT news610019701 Astronomers from Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators have found five Green Pea (GP) galaxies with double-peaked narrow lines among nearly 1,550 GP galaxies. These objects may originate from dual active galactic nuclei (AGN) mergers, potentially revealing the co-evolutionary characteristics of a special class of high-mass galaxies and supermassive black holes. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-astronomers-green-pea-galaxies-double-peaked.html Astronomy Mon, 31 Jul 2023 09:51:16 EDT news610015867 Using the Caucasian Mountain Observatory (CMO), Russian astronomers have observed a peculiar infrared source designated IRAS 07253-2001. Results of the observational campaign, published July 20 on the preprint server arXiv, reveal insights into the properties of this source, shedding more light on its nature. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-explore-nature-infrared-source-iras.html Astronomy Mon, 31 Jul 2023 09:40:01 EDT news610014867 The cosmos is offering up a double feature in August: a pair of supermoons culminating in a rare blue moon. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-supermoons-august-stargazing-fun.html Space Exploration Sat, 29 Jul 2023 12:13:57 EDT news609851632 More than 15 years after the discovery of fast radio bursts (FRBs)—millisecond-long, deep-space cosmic explosions of electromagnetic radiation—astronomers worldwide have been combing the universe to uncover clues about how and why they form. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-astronomers-formation-mysterious-fast-radio.html Astronomy Fri, 28 Jul 2023 15:39:23 EDT news609777548 For nearly a century, dark matter has continued to evade direct detection, pushing scientists to come up with even more creative methods of searching. Increasingly sensitive detection experiments are a major undertaking, however, which means scientists want to be sure they analyze data from these experiments in the most thorough and robust way possible. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-analysis-supercdms-tighter-limits-dark.html Astronomy Fri, 28 Jul 2023 14:06:55 EDT news609772012 A joint scientific team led by the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB) and the KU Leuven has found that high-frequency magnetic waves could play an essential role in keeping the sun's atmosphere at millions of degrees. This finding sheds a new light on the most intriguing solar mystery: what makes the sun's atmosphere hotter than its surface? https://phys.org/news/2023-07-astronomers-high-frequency-magnetic-play-essential.html Astronomy Fri, 28 Jul 2023 10:12:58 EDT news609757975 As the next generation of giant, high-powered observatories begin to come online, a new study suggests that their instruments may offer scientists an unparalleled opportunity to discern what weather may be like on far-away exoplanets. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-cosmic-weather-worlds-life.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Thu, 27 Jul 2023 14:55:17 EDT news609688513 Life around an ill-tempered red dwarf star is no fun for accompanying newborn planets. Call it a baptism of fire. Entangled magnetic fields cause a red dwarf to spit out "super-flares" that are 100 to 1,000 times more powerful than similar flares seen on our sun. That is coupled with blistering ultraviolet radiation requiring any of the star system's inhabitants to use "sunscreen 5,000." https://phys.org/news/2023-07-hubble-evaporating-planet-hiccups.html Astronomy Planetary Sciences Thu, 27 Jul 2023 13:28:48 EDT news609683323 By conducting radial velocity (RV) follow-up observations of the GJ 367 planetary system with the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS), an international team of astronomers has detected two additional alien worlds, at least four times as massive as the Earth. The finding was reported July 18 on the pre-print server arXiv. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-additional-exoplanets-nearby-planetary.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 27 Jul 2023 11:10:01 EDT news609672853 Secrets hide in the twinkling of stars. A research team led by scientists at the Flatiron Institute and Northwestern University has created first-of-their-kind computer simulations showing how churning deep in a star's depths can cause the star's light to flicker. This effect is different from the visible twinkling of stars in the night sky caused by Earth's atmosphere. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-twinkling-giant-stars-reveals-innards.html Astronomy Thu, 27 Jul 2023 11:00:01 EDT news609672246 The spinning, solar-powered spacecraft will take another look of the fiery Jovian moon on July 30. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-nasa-juno-closer-jupiter-moon.html Space Exploration Planetary Sciences Wed, 26 Jul 2023 16:42:06 EDT news609608522 Black holes are the most mysterious objects in the universe, with features that sound like they come straight from a sci-fi movie. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-astronomers-reveal-features-galactic-black.html Astronomy Wed, 26 Jul 2023 16:37:03 EDT news609608221 NASA and the US military said Wednesday they had selected defense contractor Lockheed Martin to develop a nuclear powered rocket, with a view to using the technology for missions to Mars. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-nasa-lockheed-martin-nuclear-rocket.html Space Exploration Wed, 26 Jul 2023 16:04:14 EDT news609606246 Young stars are rambunctious. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured the "antics" of a pair of actively forming young stars, known as Herbig-Haro 46/47, in high-resolution near-infrared light. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-webb-snaps-highly-infrared-image.html Astronomy Wed, 26 Jul 2023 13:14:30 EDT news609596065 Infrared spectra of anhydrous grains from the carbonaceous asteroid Ryugu indicate a connection between one of the reservoirs from which Ryugu's parent body originated and the reservoirs that formed comets and primitive asteroids in the outer protoplanetary disk. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-asteroid-ryugu-anhydrous-ingredients-afar.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 26 Jul 2023 10:34:58 EDT news609586484 Using the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), astronomers have performed optical imaging observations of an isolated ultra-thin galaxy known as UGC 11859. Results of the observational campaign, published July 12 in The Astrophysical Journal, deliver important insights about the structure and properties of this galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-ultra-thin-galaxy-ugc.html Astronomy Wed, 26 Jul 2023 10:00:01 EDT news609584269 A team of space scientists from several institutions in The Netherlands, two in the U.S. and one in Sweden, has found evidence of multiple microsecond-length fast radio bursts (FRBs) by analyzing data from the Green Bank Telescope, in West Virginia. The group has posted their study on the arXiv preprint server. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-astronomers-multiple-microsecond-length-fast-radio.html Astronomy Wed, 26 Jul 2023 09:57:45 EDT news609584258 Eager scientists and a gleaming lab awaits. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-nasa-lab-life-blocks-asteroid.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 26 Jul 2023 05:00:36 EDT news609566423 Kamilla Cziráki, a geophysics student at the Faculty of Science of Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), has taken a new approach to researching the navigation systems that can be used on the surface of the moon to plan future journeys. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-year-old-mathematical-lunar.html Astronomy Space Exploration Tue, 25 Jul 2023 16:34:03 EDT news609521642 An Australian astronomer has solved a century-old mystery regarding how galaxies evolve from one type to another. The same study shows that the Milky Way, the galaxy we live in, was not always a spiral. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-galaxy-mergers-galactic-evolution.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Jul 2023 09:39:03 EDT news609496738