Space

NASA’s SPHEREx observatory has completed its first map of the entire sky over Earth, and it is incredible. Beyond its aesthetic value, the map and the rest of the data collected by SPHEREx, which launched in March this year, will help astronomers answer some of the biggest cosmic questions. Among these are: what happened during the first billionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a second…

Since it began operations in 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has allowed scientists to make incredible strides in our understanding of the cosmos  — especially its early epoch. However, one lingering cosmological mystery that the JWST hasn’t had a major impact on is the nature of dark matter. Now, new research suggests that this is something that may soon change. While dark…

Darryl Z. Seligman is an Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Michigan State University. Comet 3I/ATLAS is the third large interstellar visitor that we have ever discovered —- an asteroid or comet that originated outside of our solar system and was discovered passing through. Astronomers can glean information about celestial bodies by observing the light reflected off them with…

Rapidly growing swarms of satellites around Earth are no longer just a nuisance for ground-based observatories — the reflections they cause are now intruding on space-based telescopes as well, according to new research. Roughly 15,000 satellites currently circle the planet in vast internet-providing fleets, more than half of them belonging to SpaceX’s Starlink network, which has more than…