Berlin, Germany (SPX) Jan 29, 2026
A new analysis of Mercury has uncovered hundreds of bright linear streaks on crater slopes that point to ongoing loss of volatile material from the planet's interior, challenging the view of Mercury as a geologically dead and dry world. The work, led by researchers at the Center for Space and Habitability (CSH) at the University of Bern together with colleagues at the Astronomical Observatory of

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 29, 2026
Two Northrop Grumman five segment solid rocket boosters are taking their place on the launch pad as NASA prepares for the first crewed flight of the Space Launch System rocket under the Artemis II mission from Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, targeted for early February 2026. The twin solid rocket boosters stand 177 feet tall and each produces 3.6 million pounds of thrust at lif

Paris, France (SPX) Jan 29, 2026
Alpha Impulsion, a space startup based in Toulouse and Naples, has received a 950000 euro award from the European Union for a major innovation in space propulsion aimed at more economical, efficient, and debris free access to orbit. The company has been recognized as the first enterprise to gain international acknowledgment for a propulsion solution that from the outset addresses sustainab

Madrid, Spain (SPX) Jan 29, 2026
Astronomers have carried out the most extensive observational study so far of massive runaway stars in the Milky Way, combining detailed measurements of how fast these stars move, how rapidly they spin, and whether they live alone or in binary systems. Researchers from the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC),

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 29, 2026
A team of astronomers has used a new artificial intelligence assisted technique to uncover rare astronomical phenomena in archived data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. They sifted through nearly 100 million small image cutouts from the Hubble Legacy Archive, each only a few dozen pixels across, and identified more than 1,300 unusually shaped objects in just two and a half days, including ove

Menlo Park CA (SPX) Jan 23, 2026
Cosmologists Josh Frieman and Risa Wechsler look back on the Dark Energy Survey, sharing how it is paving the way for the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory to dig deeper into some of the universe's darkest mysteries. As the Dark Energy Survey (DES) releases its final results, we caught up with two physicists who have been involved in the project from its early days. In this Q&A, Josh Friem

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 29, 2026
A research team has developed a method to reduce uncertainties in measurements of cosmic birefringence, a subtle rotation in the polarization of the cosmic microwave background that may hold clues to new physics beyond the standard model. The work, published January 27 in Physical Review Letters, provides the first quantitative treatment of uncertainty in the birefringence angle, a key observabl