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An artist’s concept of the Pandora mission, seen here without the thermal blanketing that will protect the spacecraft, observing a star and its transiting exoplanet.

NASA picks SpaceX to launch Pandora exoplanet mission

By Mike Wall published

NASA's Pandora exoplanet-studying probe will launch atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than this fall.

Exoplanets

Mysterious cosmic lights turn out to be 2 undiscovered supernova remnants

By Victoria Corless published

The European Space Agency's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory has identified what's causing mysterious lights in the outskirts of the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Stars
Evan Boyce captured this stunning aurora above the coast of Northern Ireland.

Huge solar storm in May 2024 spawned 2 new radiation belts around Earth

By Keith Cooper published

The creation of the belts, and others like it in the future, are a potential new danger to astronauts and satellites headed to geostationary orbit and beyond.

Earth

Scientists alarmed as Rubin Observatory changes biography of astronomer Vera Rubin amid Trump's push to end DEI efforts

By Sharmila Kuthunur published

Astronomers are expressing disappointment and alarm as the federally-funded Rubin Observatory altered the biography of renowned astronomer Vera Rubin, for whom the facility is named, on its website.

Earth
a ball of grey boulders and rocks seen against the blackness of space

What would happen if the OSIRIS-REx asteroid Bennu smashed into Earth in 2182?

By Victoria Corless published

Scientists simulated what would happen if a medium-size asteroid were to strike Earth. One of those space rocks, asteroid Bennu, has a 1-in-2,700 chance of hitting Earth in the year 2182.

Asteroids

How many people have walked on the moon?

By Mark Smith last updated

Reference Only 12 astronauts have walked on the moon. Discover who they are, which Apollo missions took them there, and when humans will return to the lunar surface.

Reference

What is the moon phase today? Lunar phases 2025

By Tariq Malik, Daisy Dobrijevic last updated

Reference See what moon phase it is tonight and find out when you can see the rest of the moon phases for 2025.

Reference
A wonderous swirl of pink and orange gases in space.

What was the mysterious space signal scientists discovered in 2024? Here are some possibilities

By Nola Taylor Tillman published

Scientists found a new kind of cosmic signal in 2024, and still aren't quite sure what's causing it.

The Universe
This view shows the thin crescent Moon setting over ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. As well as the bright crescent the rest of the disc of the Moon can be faintly seen. This phenomenon is called earthshine. It is due to sunlight reflecting off the Earth and illuminating the lunar surface. By observing earthshine astronomers can study the properties of light reflected from Earth as if it were an exoplanet and search for signs of life. This picture was taken on 27 October 2011 and also records the planets Mercury and Venus.

Did Covid lockdowns really cause temperatures on the moon to drop?

By Nola Taylor Tillman published

Scientists have been arguing about a curious topic recently: Did temperatures on the moon dip due to the world's Covid-19 lockdown?

The moon
ALMA observations of the protoplanetary disk around HD 142527. The white bars show the directions of the magnetic field revealed by the orientation of the dust grains.

Scientists 'dust for fingerprints' around a young star as it births exoplanets

By Robert Lea published

How do you dust a star for prints? Scientists have the answer to this strange question: by reconstructing the magnetic field of an infant star from the planet-forming disk of gas and dust around it.

Stars
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