Space and astronomy News Source

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Scientists have developed a groundbreaking method to map sandy beach intertidal zones with unprecedented accuracy using satellite data. This innovative approach allows for precise measurements of coastlines that are constantly shaped by tides and waves, providing crucial information for managing and protecting these dynamic ecosystems. By relying solely on space-based observations, this method promises to revolutionize coastal monitoring and offers new insights into how beaches respond to climate change, sea-level rise, and severe weather events.

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Inside a neutron star, protons and electrons combine into uncharged neutron matter. Researchers have now calculated spin and density correlations in neutron matter using realistic nuclear interactions at higher densities of neutrons than previously explored.

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Trillions of miles away from our planet, nuclear reactions inside exploding stars produce most of the naturally occurring elements in the universe. Here on Earth, Florida State University physicists at the John D. Fox Superconducting Accelerator Laboratory will replicate those reactions to better understand how they work and produce elements.

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The universe just got a whole lot bigger — or at least in the world of computer simulations, that is.In early November, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory used the fastest supercomputer on the planet to run the largest astrophysical simulation of the universe ever conducted.

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There’s somewhat of an inside joke in the astronomical community that researchers aren’t the best at naming things. For example, the first star observed by Webb is named HD 84406. Not so catchy. Neither is galaxy cluster MACS0416, a deep field imaged by Webb recently. There are exceptions to this, though. Think the Hourglass Nebula, the Cigar Galaxy, or the Cat’s Paw Nebula. All named for the objects on Earth that they resemble. The Sombrero Galaxy is aptly named for its likeness to the wide-brimmed hat. However, it appears the name is not always accurate, as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s look shows. In the mid-infrared, the 'crown' of the 'hat' is no longer visible, causing the galaxy to take on a much different appearance.

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An international team of researchers has made new observations of an unusual supernova, finding the most metal-poor stellar explosion ever observed.

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Normally found only in heavy metal bands or certain post-apocalyptic films, a “flame-throwing guitar” has now been spotted moving through space. Astronomers have captured movies of this extreme cosmic object using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope.

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Researchers at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) have employed a NASA open-source program to reveal that disadvantaged populations may be subject to greater heat stress and poor air quality. For this study, the researchers focused on Houston, Tex. Combining changes in heat and land cover with Houston's socioeconomic data demonstrated that economically disadvantaged populations are subject to greater heat stress.

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Young star FU Orionis is pretty shocking! Astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to observe the sizzling star in ultraviolet light. At 16,000 kelvins, nearly three times our sun’s surface temperature, its disk is nearly twice as hot as prior models have calculated.

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Researchers tested new nanoink and printing technologies on the "roller coaster" of NASA microgravity flights. They demonstrated that electronic circuits can be printed in zero gravity -- potentially leading to electronic repairs or manufacturing in space.

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Researchers have used the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) to map nearly six million galaxies across 11 billion years of cosmic history, allowing them to study how galaxies clustered throughout time and investigate the growth of the cosmic structure. This complex analysis of DESI’s first-year data provides one of the most stringent tests yet of Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

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Researchers used the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument to map how nearly 6 million galaxies cluster across 11 billion years of cosmic history. Their observations line up with what Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts.

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New observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) suggest that planet formation can occur even in harsh stellar environments previously thought to be inhospitable.An international team of astronomers used ALMA to capture high-resolution images of eight protoplanetary disks in the Sigma Orionis cluster, which is irradiated by intense ultraviolet light from a massive nearby star.

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Dr. Michelle LaRue, an associate professor at the University of Canterbury, is revolutionizing wildlife ecology by using high-resolution satellite imagery to study emperor penguins from space.

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Syed Ayaz, a researcher at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), has published a paper in Scientific Reports that builds on an earlier first-of-its-kind study that examined kinetic Alfvén waves (KAW) as a possible explanation for why the solar corona, the outermost layer of the sun’s atmosphere, is approximately 200 times hotter than the surface of the sun itself.

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Cedars-Sinai investigators are one step closer to manufacturing stem cells in space, which could speed up the development of new medical therapies on Earth. The first published data from the experiments conducted on a private space mission appeared in the peer-reviewed Nature portfolio journal NPJ Microgravity.

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Hubble witnessed a dwarf galaxy crashing through the Milky Way galaxy's gaseous halo and living to tell the tale...though a bit worse for wear!

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After major refurbishments, the old Johannesburg Planetarium has been transformed into the state-of-the-art Wits Anglo American Digital Dome.

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American University’s School of Communication (SOC) announced today that seasoned student journalist Gabe Castro-Root was selected to join an expedition to Antarctica where he will be reporting on the expedition.

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The standard model for how galaxies formed in the early universe predicted that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) would see dim signals from small, primitive galaxies. But data are not confirming the popular hypothesis that invisible dark matter helped the earliest stars and galaxies clump together.