Tucson AZ (SPX) Sep 01, 2025
A team of astronomers has detected for the first time a growing planet outside our solar system, embedded in a cleared gap of a multi-ringed disk of dust and gas. The team, led by University of Arizona astronomer Laird Close and Richelle van Capelleveen, an astronomy graduate student at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, discovered the unique exoplanet using the University of Arizona's

Paris, France (SPX) Sep 01, 2025
Gaia, the European Space Agency's star-mapping mission, has redrawn our understanding of stellar communities in the Milky Way. After more than a decade of observations, the spacecraft revealed that clusters of stars are not isolated but instead linked in extended chains that stretch across vast galactic distances. Launched in 2013 and operating until early 2025, Gaia has already transforme

Sarah Walter was most recently vice president of engineering at satellite manufacturer York Space Systems

The headquarters of U.S.

The recent passing of retired Navy Capt. Jim Lovell, an astronaut and one of our great American heroes, propelled many of us back to the iconic scenes from the superb retelling of the Apollo 13 movie in 1995.

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 03, 2025
NASA has launched the 2026 Human Lander Challenge (HuLC), inviting student teams across the United States to propose new solutions for advancing human landing system technologies. The initiative supports NASA's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate in preparing for lunar missions under the Artemis program. The competition seeks innovative ideas in known technology development

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Sep 03, 2025
Pixxel has added three new Firefly satellites to orbit aboard SpaceX's NAOS Mission, doubling its commercial constellation to six. The company says this expansion delivers humanity's first daily, high-resolution hyperspectral view of Earth, enabling detailed environmental monitoring and predictive analytics at planetary scale. The Fireflies operate collectively as the most advanced commerc

Paris, France (SPX) Sep 03, 2025
The first magnetic fields that emerged after the Universe's birth may have been billions of times weaker than the pull of a refrigerator magnet, with intensities comparable to the magnetism created by neurons in the brain. Despite their weakness, researchers have found that these fields left detectable traces in the cosmic web that spans the Universe. The conclusions come from a collaborat

Medford MA (SPX) Sep 03, 2025
What was the universe like in the first few hundreds of millions of years after it came into existence? How did the first stars and galaxies form? Those are questions that astronomers now have a better chance of answering, thanks to a new research program using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which came online in 2022. The MINERVA program, co-led by a Tufts astronomer, will give res