Berlin, Germany (SPX) Oct 10, 2025
For the first time, astronomers have produced a radio image revealing two black holes orbiting each other, confirming long-suspected black hole pairs. The system sits at the core of quasar OJ287, where a supermassive black hole powers an intensely bright galactic nucleus by feeding on surrounding gas and dust. An international team aligned space and ground radio telescopes to resolve two c

Paris, France (SPX) Oct 10, 2025
By fitting its sunshield and solar panels, engineers have completed the construction of Plato, the European Space Agency's mission to discover Earth-like exoplanets. Plato is on track for the final key tests to confirm that it is fit for launch. The activities to complete Plato started soon after the spacecraft arrived at ESA's Test Centre in the Netherlands. On 9 September, in a dedicated

Boston MA (SPX) Oct 10, 2025
Every time you check the time on your phone, make an online transaction, or use a navigation app, you are depending on the precision of atomic clocks. An atomic clock keeps time by relying on the "ticks" of atoms as they naturally oscillate at rock-steady frequencies. Today's atomic clocks operate by tracking cesium atoms, which tick over 10 billion times per second. Each of those ticks is

Tokyo, Japan (SPX) Oct 10, 2025
Scientists have long debated how much water Mars once held and how it faded to today's arid world. A new study in Geology mines "ice archives" preserved inside impact craters to reconstruct a climate history marked by multiple ice ages, each leaving progressively less ice behind. Led by Associate Professor Trishit Ruj of Okayama University, with colleagues Hanaya Okuda, Hitoshi Hasegawa, a

London UK (SPX) Oct 06, 2025
Astronomers have discovered the most distant and powerful odd radio circle (ORC) ever observed, revealing a rare cosmic structure nearly halfway across the universe. The newly identified source, RAD J131346.9+500320, lies at a redshift of about 0.94 - when the universe was roughly half its present age. These enormous, faint rings of magnetised plasma emit only in the radio band and typical

Berlin, Germany (SPX) Oct 10, 2025
Astronomers have identified a mysterious low-mass dark object nearly 10 billion light years away by tracing its faint gravitational distortion of light from a more distant galaxy. The object, weighing roughly one million solar masses, was detected through its subtle warping of a background galaxy's light rather than through any emitted radiation-a breakthrough that offers rare evidence supportin

Washington DC (UPI) Oct 12, 2025
Elon Musk's SpaceX will conduct the 11th test flight of its Starship rocket Monday amid concerns that the United States is losing the race to return humans to the moon. SpaceX said in a statement that the launch window will open at 6:15 p.m. CDT on Monday as the rocket prepares to launch from the company's Starbase compound in Texas. The launch will be livestreamed on Musk's social medi

Washington DC (SPX) Oct 01, 2025
Researchers have discovered a young protoplanet called WISPIT 2b embedded in a ring-shaped gap in a disk encircling a young star. While theorists have thought that planets likely exist in these gaps (and possibly even create them), this is the first time that it has actually been observed. Researchers have directly detected - essentially photographed - a new planet called WISPIT 2b, labele

Week in images: 06-10 October 2025

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