Pure Science

Universe Today

ESA’s Gaia space telescope has achieved something astronomers thought nearly impossible, detecting planets while they’re still forming inside the dusty discs surrounding newborn stars. By measuring the subtle gravitational wobbles that...

Universe Today

The iconic 2019 and 2022 photographs of black holes M87* and Sagittarius A* captivated astronomers worldwide with their fuzzy orange doughnut shapes. Now, scientists are preparing to take the next giant leap by creating the first ever 3D...

Universe Today

Two spiral galaxies locked in a slow motion collision have been captured in stunning detail by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory. The pair grazed past each other millions of years ago, triggering spectacular...

Universe Today

A supernova observed by Chinese and Japanese astronomers in 1181 CE didn’t fully explode, instead it sputtered and left behind a rare “zombie star” surrounded by long filaments resembling fireworks. New research by Syracuse University...

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A female mouse that spent two weeks aboard China’s space station has successfully given birth to healthy pups after returning to Earth. This marks the first time offspring have been born from mammals that have traveled in space. The birth...

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How did hot Jupiters end up orbiting so close to their stars, thus earning their moniker? This is what a recent study published in The Astronomical Journal hopes to address as a team of researchers from The University of Tokyo investigated...

Universe Today

Scientists have discovered that moons could theoretically orbit all seven planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system despite the complex gravitational environment. Using computer simulations, a team of researchers have mapped stable zones where...

Universe Today

Researchers have been trying to look at interstellar object 3I/ATLAS from every conceivable angle. That includes very unconventional ones. Recently, while 3I/ATLAS passed out of view of the Earth, it moved into a great vantage point for...

Universe Today

A team led by the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC) analyzed samples of C-type asteroids in a recent study. Their findings support the idea that these asteroids can serve as a crucial source of materials if and when asteroid mining is...

Universe Today

Supermassive black holes have a reputation for devouring everything in sight, but new observations from the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array reveal they can be surprisingly picky eaters. Even when galaxy mergers deliver...

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A joint research team from South Korea has developed a fascinating wheel inspired by origami and Da Vinci bridge principles that could unlock access to the Moon’s most dangerous and scientifically useful terrain. The wheel expands from 230...

Universe Today

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have discovered the largest planet forming disk ever observed around a young star, stretching nearly 40 times the diameter of our Solar System. Nicknamed “Dracula’s Chivito” for its hamburger...

Universe Today

At the end of their lives, most satellites fall to their death. Many of the smaller ones, including most of those going up as part of the “mega-constellations” currently under construction, are intended to burn up in the atmosphere. This...

Universe Today

Launched in March, NASA’s SPHEREx space telescope has completed its first infrared map of the entire sky in 102 colors. This map will enable 3D distance measurements to other galaxies and allow astronomers to measure the influence of...

Universe Today

Solar sails have some major advantages over traditional propulsion methods - most notably they don’t use any propellant. But, how exactly do they turn? In traditional sailing, a ship’s captain can simply adjust the angle of the sail itself...

Universe Today

Ready for another amazing year of skywatching? 2025 was a wild year, with a steady parade of comets knocking on naked eye visibility, and one extra special interstellar comet, 3I/ATLAS. The sky just keeps on turning into 2026. Watch for...

Universe Today

Even most rocket scientists would rather avoid hard math when they don’t have to do it. So when it comes to figuring out orbits in complex three-body systems, like those in Cis-lunar space, which is between the Earth and the Moon, they’d...

Universe Today

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was involved in yet another first discovery recently available in pre-print form on arXiv from Cicero Lu at the Gemini Observatory and his co-authors. This time, humanity’s most advanced space...

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Oleg Orlov, Director of the Institute of Biomedical Problems at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), announced that the Russian Orbital Station (ROS) will include the modules that make up the Russian Orbital Segment of ISS.

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Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, may not have a subsurface ocean after all. That’s according to a re-examination of data captured by NASA’s Cassini mission, which flew by Titan dozens of times starting in 2004. By 2008, all the evidence...

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One of the primary goals of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is to detect atmospheres around exoplanets, to try to suss out whether or not they could potentially support life. But, in order to do that, scientists have to know where to...

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During November 2025, ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) used five of its science instruments to observe 3I/ATLAS. The instruments collected information about how the comet is behaving and what it is made of.

Universe Today

Engineers need good data to build lasting things. Even the designers of the Great Pyramids knew the limestone they used to build these massive structures would be steady when stacked on top of one another, even if they didn’t have tables...

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Using the James Webb Space Telescope, a team of international researchers has discovered chemical fingerprints of gigantic primordial stars that were among the first to form after the Big Bang.

Universe Today

During the deployment of new space telescopes that are several critical steps each has to go through. Launch is probably the one most commonly thought of, another is “first light” of all of the instruments on the telescope. Ultimately,...

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For the first time, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have spotted a pair of catastrophic collisions in another solar system. They were observing Fomalhaut, a bright star about 25 light-years away, and detected a pair of...

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Ask someone on Earth for the time and they can give you an exact answer, thanks to our planet's intricate timekeeping system, built with atomic clocks, GPS satellites and high-speed telecommunications networks. Ask for the time on Mars and...

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Getting close to things is one way for scientists to collect better data about them. But that's been hard to do for the Sun, since getting close to it typically entails getting burnt to a crisp. Just ask Icarus. But if Icarus had survived...

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In a new paper, a team of researchers explores how non-human species (in this case, fireflies) could inform new approaches in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

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Astronomers may have just seen the first ever ‘superkilonova,’ a combination of a supernova and a kilonova. These are two very different kinds of stellar explosions, and if this discovery stands, it could change the way scientists...

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In 2024, astronomers discovered the brightest Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient (LFBOT) ever observed. LFBOTs are extremely bright flashes of blue light that shine for brief periods before fading away. New analysis of this...

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In a glimpse of the early universe, astronomers have observed a galaxy as it appeared just 800 million years after the Big Bang – a cosmic Jekyll and Hyde that looks like any other galaxy when viewed in visible and even ultraviolet light...

Universe Today

With new technologies comes new discoveries. Or so Spider Man’s Uncle Ben might have said if he was an astronomer. Or a scientist more generally - but in astronomy that saying is more true than many other disciplines, as many discoveries...

Universe Today

Everyone’s favorite interstellar comet posed for one more portrait recently. The European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton mission nabbed 3I/ATLAS on December 3rd from about 283 million kilometers distant. This comes as the comet is set to make...

Universe Today

Gemini North captured new images of Comet 3I/ATLAS after it reemerged from behind the Sun on its path out of the Solar System. The data were collected during a Shadow the Scientists session — a unique outreach initiative that invites...

Universe Today

In astronomy, there is a concept called “degeneracy”. It has nothing to do with delinquent people, but instead is used to describe data that could be interpreted multiple ways. In some cases, that interpretation is translated into exciting...

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When we gaze up at the night sky, we assume that what we're seeing is a representative population of similar stars at similar distances. But it's not. The stars we see are a mixture of massive and small, distant and near. In fact, we can't...

Universe Today

The Large-Scale Structure of the Universe features massive filaments where galaxy clusters and superclusters reside. In between these filaments are cosmic voids, vast regions that are nearly empty. The Nancy Grace Roman will map and study...

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If you read enough articles about planets in binary star systems, you’ll realize almost all of them make some sort of reference to Tatooine, the fictional home of Luke Skywalker (and Darth Vader) in the Star War saga. Since that obligatory...

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The Shenzhou-21 crew on board China's orbiting space station completed its first extravehicular activities on Tuesday, Dec. 9th, during which they validated the new EVA spacesuits.

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A team of researchers from the University of Zurich and the NCCR PlanetS is challenging our understanding of the interior of the Solar System's planets. The composition of Uranus and Neptune, the two outermost planets, might be more rocky...

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For roughly two billion years of Earth’s early history, the atmosphere contained no oxygen, the essential ingredient required for complex life. Oxygen began building up in the atmosphere during the period known as the Great Oxidation Event...

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Scientists have discovered a crucial clue to understanding one of nature's most spectacular light shows, the aurora. Research from the University of Southampton reveals that just before these magnetospheric substorms erupt, a distinct...

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Scientists at Southwest Research Institute have opened a new laboratory dedicated to answering one of astronomy's most fundamental questions, where do planets come from? The Nebular Origins of the Universe Research (NOUR) Laboratory will...

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A “House of Cards” is a wonderful English phrase that it seems is now primarily associated with a Netflix political drama. However, its original meaning is of a system that is fundamentally unstable. It’s also the term Sarah Thiele,...

Universe Today

After the first protons and neutrons formed, after the first light elements formed, the universe…wasn’t really all that great.

Universe Today

Scientists have achieved an unprecedented view of the Sun by coordinating observations between two of the most powerful solar instruments ever built. For the first time, observations from the Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii and the...

Universe Today

Researchers have discovered that a close encounter with a rogue planet or brown dwarf during the Sun's early years could have triggered the reshuffling of our Solar System's giant planets. Running 3000 simulations of stellar flybys, the...

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Astronomers have performed the deepest radio observations ever of Omega Centauri, searching for signs of an intermediate mass black hole thought to lurk at its center. Despite 170 hours of observations with the Australia Telescope Compact...

Universe Today

Astronomers at the University of Tokyo have used gravitational lensing to measure how fast the universe is expanding, adding weight to one of cosmology's most intriguing mysteries. Their technique exploits the way massive galaxies bend...