To resolve nearby Earth-like exoplanets, a new telescope design that is rectangular rather than circular may be necessary, according to a new study that explores what the next great space telescope might look like.
“We show that it is possible to find nearby, Earth-like planets orbiting sun-like stars with a telescope that is about the same size as the James Webb Space Telescope[(JWST]…
Galactic cannonballs: The mystery of hypervelocity white dwarfs may just have been solved
September 1, 2025
White dwarfs — the superdense, slowly cooling embers left behind when stars like our sun die — are usually quiet cosmic relics. A rare few, however, are anything but.
In recent years, astronomers analyzing data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft…
Spaceflight has a broad impact on the way our body functions — and that includes our reproductive systems. Indeed, to get a better idea of how future pregnancies and new generations born to humans beyond Earth will be affected, scientists need to examine how well our…
Watch a burnt and battered Starship splash down in Indian Ocean to wrap up historic Flight 10 (video, photos)
September 1, 2025
Spectacular new footage gives us great looks at the final moments of the latest test flight of Starship, the huge rocket SpaceX is developing to help humanity settle Mars.
That mission, the 10th-ever for the 397-foot-tall (121-meter-tall) megarocket, lifted off from SpaceX’s Starbase site in South Texas on Tuesday evening (Aug. 26).
Everything went well on Flight 10. Starship’s Super…
NASA debuts new Orion mission control room for Artemis 2 astronaut flight around the moon (photos)
August 29, 2025
With shiny new next-generation spacecraft come the complex systems required to track their technologically advanced systems. When it comes to NASA’s Orion spacecraft, that need is a whole extra room of monitors.
NASA has opened a new complex in the Mission Control…
Cosmic dust particles that give birth to planets around young stars have for the first time been found forming — the James Webb Space Telescope has witnessed the creation of these tiny planetary building blocks around a dead star.
“This discovery is a big step…
Warped spacetime with surprise 'double-zoom' reveals radiation around distant supermassive black hole
August 28, 2025
Thanks to a theory put forward by Albert Einstein over 100 years ago and a happy coincidence, astronomers have discovered radiation being pumped out from the core of a quasar — within which a supermassive black hole lurks.
The team, led by Matus Rybak of Leiden University, made the discovery while hunting for cold gas in the galaxy RXJ1131-1231, an active galaxy with a quasar at its core located…
That mysterious 'Wow! signal' from space? Scientists may finally know where it came from — and it's probably not aliens
August 28, 2025
For researchers seeking answers to the question of whether we are alone in the universe, one event nearly half a century ago lingers even today — the so-called “Wow! Signal” detected back in 1977.
That strong, baffling radio episode was captured by Ohio State…
Starship Mars rocket met 'every major objective' on epic Flight 10 test launch, SpaceX says
August 28, 2025
The Starship megarocket passed its latest launch trial with flying colors, according to SpaceX.
Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, launched from SpaceX’s Starbase site in South Texas at 7:30 p.m. EDT (2330 GMT) on Tuesday (Aug. 26), kicking off…
SpaceX shared stunning photos of its Falcon 9 rocket carrying the U.S. Space Force’s secretive X-37B space plane into orbit last week.
The pictures capture the nighttime launch on Aug. 21, when the robotic X-37B, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida at 11:50 p.m. EDT (0350 GMT on Aug.
