Space

Updated: After a decade of preparation, NASA’s Perseverance lander has successfully touched down on Mars. It will now begin looking for signs of life on the Red Planet. While we collectively held our breaths during the “seven minutes of terror” of the entry, descent, and landing, the star rover of NASA’s Mars 2020 mission completed its

Astronomers have revisited the very first stellar-mass black hole ever identified, and found that it’s at least 50 percent more massive than we thought. The black hole in the X-ray binary system Cygnus X-1 has been recalculated to clock in at 21 times the mass of the Sun. That makes it the most massive stellar-mass

A crater that covers nearly a quarter of the Moon‘s surface has revealed new information on how Earth’s natural satellite buddy formed – and the findings have tremendous implications, researchers say. A new analysis of the material ejected from the South Pole-Aitken basin impact has allowed scientists to refine the timeline of the development of

Following “seven minutes of terror” after it reaches Mars‘ upper atmosphere, NASA’s Perseverance rover is expected to land on the surface of the red planet at 20:55 GMT on February 18. This is incredibly hard to do, with only about 40 percent of missions succeeding. As a member of the team that built the European

Mars may not have a lot going on at the moment, life-wise, but the dusty red planet may not be as inhospitable as it seems. New experiments have shown that cyanobacteria (aka blue-green algae) can successfully grow in Martian atmospheric conditions. A few more ingredients are required, of course, but it’s a significant step towards

A hypothetical mystery planet thought to be responsible for strange orbits in the outer Solar System just got dealt one of its biggest blows yet. According to a comprehensive analysis of extremely distant objects, led by physicist Kevin Napier of the University of Michigan, Planet Nine may not exist – because the evidence for its

The United Arab Emirates Space Agency on Sunday released its first photo of Mars, taken by its Hope Probe. “The transmission of the Hope Probe’s first image of Mars is a defining moment in our history and marks the UAE joining advanced nations involved in space exploration,” Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan said on Twitter.

The Universe is a big place, so scientists are keen to narrow down their search for alien life – maybe by looking for radio signals, or hospitable climates, or huge megastructures. Now another sign of alien life is under consideration: atmospheric pollution. If there are alien civilisations out there, the hypothesis goes, then their activities

Astronomers using a new technique may have not only found a super-Earth at a neighbouring star, but they may also have directly imaged it. And it could be nice and cozy in the habitable zone around Alpha Centauri. It’s much easier to see giant planets than Earth-size planets. No matter which detection method is being

A dense clump of stars a few thousand light-years away has been harbouring a surprise in its core. Rather than one relatively chunky black hole, astronomers have found that the globular cluster NGC 6397 is wrapped around a cluster of smaller, stellar-mass ones. This could not only help us better understand the formation of larger

The most distant known object in the Solar System is now confirmed. FarFarOut, a large chunk of rock found in 2018 at a whopping distance of around 132 astronomical units from the Sun, has been studied and characterised, and we now know a lot more about it, and its orbit. It’s about 400 kilometres (250

The giant Martian sandstorm of 2018 wasn’t just a wild ride – it also gave us a previously undetected gas in the planet’s atmosphere. For the first time, the ExoMars orbiter sampled traces of hydrogen chloride, composed of a hydrogen and a chlorine atom. This gas presents Mars scientists with a new mystery to solve:

China’s Tianwen-1 probe entered the orbit of the planet Mars on Wednesday, state media said, after it launched from southern China last July. It is the latest step in Beijing’s ambitious space programme, which aims to establish a crewed space station by 2022 and eventually put a man on the Moon, and has opened up

The United Arab Emirates’ “Hope” probe on Monday successfully entered Mars‘ orbit, making history as the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission. The probe is designed to reveal the secrets of Martian weather, but the UAE also wants it to serve as an inspiration for the region’s youth. “To the people of the UAE, to the

China’s Tianwen-1 probe has sent back its first image of Mars, the national space agency said, as the mission prepares to touch down on the Red Planet later this year. The spacecraft, launched in July around the same time as a rival US mission, is expected to enter Mars orbit around February 10. The black-and-white

A planetary system 200 light-years away has been found locked in a rare orbital dance. Of the six exoplanets orbiting a star named TOI-178, the five outermost follow rhythmic orbital periods, with each linked to the planets on either side. Such a dance is called a chain of resonance, and it’s only rarely seen. But

It may be millions of kilometres away, but Earth hasn’t forgotten Mars is having a big celebration. On 7 February 2021, the red planet celebrates the turn of a new year – at least according to our calendar-keeping on Earth. Since one Mars year is 687 Earth days (and 668.6 Mars days, or sols), the

The first Arab space mission, the UAE’s “Hope” probe, is expected to reach Mars‘ orbit on 9 February, making it the first of three spacecraft to arrive at the Red Planet this month. The United Arab Emirates, China, and the United States all launched projects to Mars last July, taking advantage of a period when the

A tiny, ancient dwarf galaxy named Tucana II orbiting the Milky Way has been harbouring a big secret. According to a new study of stars around the object, gravitationally bound to it at great distances, its dark matter halo is a lot more massive than we thought. In fact, it’s absolutely huge. Although the stellar

Changes in Mars‘ geography always attract significant scientific and even public attention.  A hope for signs of liquid water (and therefore life) is likely one of the primary driving forces behind this interest.  One particularly striking changing feature is the Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL) originally found by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Now, scientists at the SETI Institute have a

When you look up at the sky, the region of space around Earth may look as clear as a song, but there’s a heck of a lot going on out there that we can’t see. In recent years, probes studying radiation trapped by Earth’s magnetic field have found something peculiar – electrons zipping along at

A recently discovered object sharing Earth’s orbital path around the Sun could actually be a trojan asteroid, astronomers have found. If confirmed, it will be only the second object of its type identified to date, suggesting that there could be more of these hidden asteroids lurking in Earth’s gravitational pockets. Trojan asteroids are space rocks

Radio images of the sky have revealed hundreds of ‘baby’ and supermassive black holes in distant galaxies, with the galaxies’ light bouncing around in unexpected ways. Galaxies are vast cosmic bodies, tens of thousands of light years in size, made up of gas, dust, and stars (like our Sun). Given their size, you’d expect the

To solve the mysteries of black holes, a human should just venture into one. However, there is a rather complicated catch: A human can do this only if the respective black hole is supermassive and isolated, and if the person entering the black hole does not expect to report the findings to anyone in the

New observations of a very unusual and mysterious star located approximately 15,000 light-years away from Earth have revealed a bizarre pattern of stellar activity that astronomers say they’ve never witnessed before. The star in question is called Swift J1818.0–1607, and it was only discovered last year. Swift J1818.0–1607 is what’s known as a magnetar –

Dubai announced Monday the creation of a “space court” to settle commercial disputes, as the UAE – which is also sending a probe to Mars – builds its presence in the space sector. The tribunal will be based at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Courts, an independent British-inspired arbitration centre based on common law.

A mineral that repeatedly turns up on Mars has been found in perhaps the last place on Earth you might think to look. Deep – really deep – in the Antarctic ice, scientists have found jarosite, a tawny-hued mineral that’s rarely found on Earth, but seems to be curiously abundant on the red planet. This,

A test of a powerful new space imaging instrument has given us a gloriously detailed new perspective of the Apollo 15 Moon landing site. By bouncing a powerful radar signal off the lunar surface, the new instrument has been able to achieve spectacular resolution, showing objects as small as 5 metres (16.4 feet). Designed for

Every now and again, we get a little glimpse of just how far human ingenuity has gone. Quite literally: The above image was taken by a spacecraft travelling through the Solar System while it was at a distance of 251 million kilometres (156 million miles) from Earth – more than the distance between Earth and

Earth’s second moon will make a close approach to the planet next week before drifting off into space, never to be seen again. “What second moon,” you ask? Astronomers call it 2020 SO – a small object that dropped into Earth’s orbit about halfway between our planet and the moon in September 2020. Temporary satellites

Ever since the discovery of a chemical called phosphine on Venus was announced in September last year, the scientific community has been in a tizzy. Scientists have published papers back and forth, trying to debunk or bolster the claim. With two new papers landing this week, some are claiming the nails are being hammered into

Evidence of water in the shadows of craters or locked up in glassy beads like microscopic snow-globes has recently revealed the Moon‘s surface is far less desiccated than we ever imagined. Just where this veneer of ice water came from is a mystery astronomers are currently trying to solve. One surprising possibility emerging is an

The Sun has a lot of rhythm and goes through different cycles of activity. The most well-known cycle might be the Schwabe cycle, which has an 11-year cadence. But what about cycles with much longer time scales? How can scientists understand them? As it turns out, the Sun has left some hidden clues in tree

Ever wonder what Jupiter would look like naked, without its thick coat of turbulent clouds? An exoplanet 575 light-years away might be the answer to the question you didn’t ask. The exoplanet is a gas giant called WASP-62b, and, according to an analysis of starlight that passed through its atmosphere, the exoplanet is completely starkers.

When black holes swallow down massive amounts of matter from the space around them, they’re not exactly subtle about it. They belch out tremendous flares of X-rays, generated by the material heating to intense temperatures as it’s sucked towards the black hole, so bright we can detect them from Earth. This is normal black hole

Back at the dawn of the Universe, astronomers have found a stacks on of cosmic proportions. At least 21 galaxies, forming stars at a tremendous rate, are merging together in the early stages of the formation of a galaxy cluster. And it’s all happening 13 billion light-years away – just 770 million years after the

There are supermassive black holes. There are ultramassive black holes. How large can these strange objects grow? Well, there could be something even bigger than ultramassive: stupendously large black holes, according to the latest research. Such hypothetical black holes – larger than 100 billion times the mass of the Sun – have been explored in a

SpaceX on Sunday launched its Falcon 9 rocket carrying a record number of satellites on board, the private space company said. The rocket successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 10:00 am (1500 GMT), 24 hours after its initial take-off had been scrubbed due to bad weather. Andy Tran, a SpaceX production supervisor, said in

While most of us are now more fastidious about keeping our homes and workplaces clean, on board the International Space Station, cleanliness is imperative. Of high importance is anti-bacterial measures, since bacteria tend to build up in the constantly-recycled air inside the ISS. Every Saturday in space is “cleaning day” where surfaces are wiped down,

Who has an even bigger grin than ten years ago? This goofy-looking crater on Mars. These two images were taken by the HiRISE camera (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and show how Mars’ surface is changing over time – in this case, due to thermal erosion. The first of

A white dwarf isn’t your typical kind of star. While main sequence stars such as our Sun fuse nuclear material in their cores to keep themselves from collapsing under their own weight, white dwarfs use an effect known as quantum degeneracy. The quantum nature of electrons means that no two electrons can have the same quantum state.

Our Sun isn’t exactly a serene ball of scorching hot plasma. In fact, it belches out colossal eruptions on a somewhat frequent basis; such coronal mass ejections, when directed at Earth, are the cause of geomagnetic storms. From near-Earth space, we can measure them pretty well with satellites and other spacecraft. But in 1998 something

Given all the logistics involved, it’s unlikely that humanity will ever see our way outside the Solar System to colonise exoplanets. But the possibility of settling elsewhere inside the Solar System isn’t so far-fetched. NASA is planning an outpost on the Moon. Crewed missions to Mars aren’t far off. Heck, we even already have humans

Of all the weather phenomena our magnificent planet throws at us, lightning is one of the most spectacular – and the most mysterious. Even though storms are a regular occurrence, we’re still at pains to understand and describe their crackling electrical discharges generated in the sky. One kind of lightning is so strange and rare,

It took evolution 3 or 4 billion years to produce Homo sapiens. If the climate had completely failed just once in that time then evolution would have come to a crashing halt and we would not be here now. So to understand how we came to exist on planet Earth, we’ll need to know how

A new clue has just been found that could help solve the mystery of a weirdly dimming star. KIC 8462852, also known as Boyajian’s Star, seems to have a binary companion that could be contributing to its irregular dips in brightness. If confirmed with more detailed observations, the newly discovered companion star could help astronomers

Likely the most well-known result of the Earth’s magnetic field are the Aurora Borealis and Australis (Northern and Southern Lights). When charged particles from the solar wind run into the Earth’s magnetic field, they can occasionally elicit spectacular light displays. For years now, scientists have thought that the charged particles that cause those displays were sent in equal numbers toward

One of the fluffiest exoplanets we’ve ever found in the Milky Way galaxy is challenging our understanding of how giant planets form. It’s called WASP-107b, orbiting an orange dwarf star 211 light-years away, and it was already known as one of the lowest density exoplanets when its discovery was announced in 2017. A new analysis