Phys.org Astronomy and Space

• Can philanthropy fast-track a flagship telescope?

  New Space is a term now commonly used around the rocketry and satellite industries to indicate a new, speed focused model of development that takes its cue from the Silicon Valley mindset of "move fast and (hopefully don't) break things." Given that several of the founders of rocketry and satellite companies have a Silicon Valley background, that probably shouldn't be a surprise, but the mindset has resulted in an exponential growth in the number of satellites in orbit, and also an exponential decrease in the cost of getting them to orbit.

• The orbiting factories of the future

  Imagine a fully automated 3D printer suspended in midair, churning out crucial components for use at home and abroad.

• Enthusiasts used their home computers to search for ET—scientists are homing in on 100 signals they found

  For 21 years, between 1999 and 2020, millions of people worldwide loaned UC Berkeley scientists their computers to search for signs of advanced civilizations in our galaxy.

• Hubble nets menagerie of young stellar objects

  A disparate collection of young stellar objects bejewels a cosmic panorama in the star-forming region NGC 1333 in this new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. To the left, an actively forming star called a protostar casts its glow on the surrounding gas and dust, creating a reflection nebula.

• Phages and bacteria accumulate distinctive mutations aboard the International Space Station

  In a new study, terrestrial bacteria-infecting viruses were still able to infect their E. coli hosts in near-weightless "microgravity" conditions aboard the International Space Station, but the dynamics of virus-bacteria interactions differed from those observed on Earth. Phil Huss of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues present the findings in the open-access journal PLOS Biology.

• Massive impact could be the cause of our lopsided moon

  Our nearest neighbor, the moon, is still something of a mystery to us. For decades, scientists have wondered why it appears so lopsided, with dark volcanic plains on the near side (the side we see) and rugged, cratered mountains and a thicker crust on the far side. Now we might be closer to knowing why.

• A quarter-century in orbit: Science shaping life on Earth and beyond

  For more than 25 years, humans have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, conducting research that is transforming life on Earth and shaping the future of exploration. From growing food and sequencing DNA to studying disease and simulating Mars missions, every experiment aboard the orbiting laboratory expands our understanding of how humans can thrive beyond Earth while advancing science and technology that benefit people around the world.

• The path to solar weather forecasts is paved with drops in cosmic rays

  At times, the sun ejects energetic material into space, which can have consequences for space-based and even ground-based electronic technology. Researchers aim to understand this phenomenon and find ways to forecast it, including how ejected material evolves as it travels through the solar system.

• Massive supernova from Wolf-Rayet star could be precursor to black hole binary

  What we know of the birth of a black hole has traditionally aligned with our perception of black holes themselves: dark, mysterious, and eerily quiet, despite their mass and influence. Stellar-mass black holes are born from the final gravitational collapse of massive stars several tens of the mass of our sun which, unlike less massive stars, do not produce bright, supernova explosions.

• Webb delivers unprecedented look into heart of Circinus galaxy

  The Circinus galaxy, a galaxy about 13 million light-years away, contains an active supermassive black hole that continues to influence its evolution. The largest source of infrared light from the region closest to the black hole itself was thought to be outflows, or streams of superheated matter that fire outward.

• Spaceflight causes astronauts' brains to shift, stretch and compress in microgravity

  Spaceflight takes a physical toll on astronauts, causing muscles to atrophy, bones to thin and bodily fluids to shift. According to a new study published in the journal PNAS, we can now add another major change to that list. Being in microgravity causes the brain to change shape.

• New massive hot subdwarf binary discovered

  Astronomers report the discovery of a new binary system, designated LAMOST J065816.72+094343.1. The newfound binary consists of a massive and hot subdwarf and an unseen companion. The finding was detailed in the January issue of the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal.

• SpaceX knocks 3rd Space Coast launch of 2026: Readies for Crew-11 return

  SpaceX launched its third mission of the year from Florida's Space Coast on Monday afternoon while preparing for the early return later this week of Crew-11 from the International Space Station.

• Image: Artist's concept of a white dwarf star

  A smaller white dwarf star (left) pulls material from a larger star into a swirling accretion disk in this artist's concept released Nov. 19, 2025, to illustrate the first use of NASA's IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarization Explorer) to study a white dwarf star.

• Tiny Mars's big impact on Earth's climate: How the red planet's pull shapes ice ages

  At half the size of Earth and one-tenth its mass, Mars is a featherweight as far as planets go. Yet new research reveals the extent to which Mars is quietly tugging on Earth's orbit and shaping the cycles that drive long-term climate patterns here, including ice ages.

• Hubble spies stellar blast setting clouds ablaze

  This new NASA Hubble Space Telescope image captures a jet of gas from a forming star shooting across the dark expanse. The bright pink and green patches running diagonally through the image are HH 80/81, a pair of Herbig-Haro (HH) objects previously observed by Hubble in 1995. The patch to the upper left is part of HH 81, and the bottom streak is part of HH 80.

• Complex life on planets orbiting the galaxy's most common stars may be unlikely

  In a blow to anyone dreaming that complex life may exist elsewhere in the universe, a new study suggests we're unlikely to find it around many of the most common stars in the galaxy.

• The cosmic seesaw: Black holes eject material as winds or jets, but not both at once

  Astronomers at the University of Warwick have discovered that black holes don't just consume matter—they manage it, choosing whether to blast it into space as high-speed jets or sweep it away in vast winds.

• Mars was once a 'blue planet': Ancient river deltas point to vast ocean

  Using images from cameras on Mars orbiters, an international research team has discovered structures on Mars that are very similar to classic river deltas on Earth. These are traces of rivers that have deposited their sediments into an ocean. This shows that Mars was a "blue planet" around 3 billion years ago.

• Asteroseismology study probes properties of newly discovered pulsating white dwarf

  Chinese astronomers have conducted an asteroseismology study of a newly discovered pulsating white dwarf designated WFST J053009.62+595557.0, or WFST J0530 for short. The new findings, presented January 2 on the arXiv pre-print server, provide more insights into the properties of this white dwarf.

• Indian rocket hits snag during launch

  An Indian rocket hit a snag during its launch Monday, forcing a deviation in flight path as it carried an Earth observation satellite and commercial payloads, the country's space agency said.

• How astronomers plan to detect the signatures of alien life in the atmospheres of distant planets

  We live in a very exciting time: answers to some of the oldest questions humanity has conceived are within our grasp. One of these is whether Earth is the only place that harbors life.

• Superheavy-lift rockets like SpaceX's starship could transform astronomy by making space telescopes cheaper

  After a string of dramatic failures, the huge Starship rocket from SpaceX had a fully successful test on Oct. 13, 2025. A couple more test flights, and SpaceX plans to launch it into orbit.

• NASA's Pandora telescope will study stars in detail to learn about the exoplanets orbiting them

  On Jan. 11, 2026, I watched anxiously at the tightly controlled Vandenberg Space Force Base in California as an awe-inspiring SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried NASA's new exoplanet telescope, Pandora, into orbit.

• SpaceX launches 2nd Space Coast mission of 2026

  SpaceX knocked out Friday the first of a series of afternoon launches in the coming week with another Starlink mission from Florida's Cape Canaveral.

• NASA targets Artemis II rollout to pad, details launch options

  NASA could be sending a crew on the Orion spacecraft out past the moon in less than a month if everything falls into place. But first the agency has to get its rocket to the launch pad.

• 'Death by a thousand cuts': Pablo's galaxy ran out of fuel as black hole choked off supplies

  Astronomers have spotted one of the oldest "dead" galaxies yet identified, and found that a growing supermassive black hole can slowly starve a galaxy rather than tear it apart.

• Persistent shock wave around dead star puzzles astronomers

  Gas and dust flowing from stars can, under the right conditions, clash with a star's surroundings and create a shock wave. Now, astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) have imaged a beautiful shock wave around a dead star—a discovery that has left them puzzled. According to all known mechanisms, the small, dead star RXJ0528+2838 should not have such a structure around it. This discovery, as enigmatic as it's stunning, challenges our understanding of how dead stars interact with their surroundings.

• As puzzling as a platypus: The JWST finds some hard to categorize objects

  The platypus is one of evolution's lovable, oddball animals. The creature seems to defy well-understood rules of biology by combining physical traits in a bizarre way. They're egg-laying mammals with duck bills and beaver-like tails, and the males have venomous spurs on their hind feet. In that regard, it's only fitting that astronomers describe some newly discovered oddball objects as "Astronomy's Platypus."

• Radio telescopes uncover 'invisible' gas around record-shattering cosmic explosion

  Astronomers using the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) instruments, the U.S. National Science Foundation Very Large Array (NSF VLA) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), have revealed a dense cocoon of gas around one of the most extreme cosmic explosions ever seen, showing that a ravenous black hole ripped apart a massive star and then lit up its surroundings with powerful X-rays.