Phys.org Astronomy and Space

• Weather pushes back SpaceX's Crew-12 window, opening door for first ULA launch of year

  NASA's plans to get the first human spaceflight of the year off the pad have to hold off until at least Friday because of weather constraints along the flight path needed in case of emergency. That delay, though, opens the door for a national security mission aiming for liftoff on Thursday morning.

• NASA selects two Earth System Explorers missions

  Two next-generation satellite missions announced Thursday will help NASA better understand Earth and improve capabilities to foresee environmental events and mitigate disasters.

• Old galaxies in a young universe?

  The standard cosmological model (present-day version of "Big Bang," called Lambda-CDM) gives an age of the universe close to 13.8 billion years and much younger when we explore the universe at high-redshift. The redshift of galaxies is produced by the expansion of the universe, which causes emitted wavelengths to lengthen and move toward the red end of the electromagnetic spectrum.

• Europe's Ariane 6 to launch Amazon constellation satellites into orbit

  An enhanced version of Europe's Ariane 6 rocket will blast off Thursday to launch 32 satellites into orbit, forming part of the Amazon Leo network, which it hopes will rival Elon Musk's Starlink.

• Hubble captures light show around rapidly dying star

  This stunning image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope reveals a dramatic interplay of light and shadow in the Egg Nebula, sculpted by freshly ejected stardust. Located approximately 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Egg Nebula features a central star obscured by a dense cloud of dust—like a "yolk" nestled within a dark, opaque "egg white." Only Hubble's sharpness can unveil the intricate details that hint at the processes shaping this enigmatic structure.

• Chang'e-6 samples constrain lunar impact flux and illuminate early impact history

  Scientists from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the CAS Aerospace Information Research Institute, and other institutions, have revised the decades-old lunar crater chronology model, using samples collected from the far side of the moon by China's Chang'e-6 mission and complementary remote sensing imagery.

• Launch to ISS delayed again over weather: NASA

  NASA is now aiming to launch four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, in another delay over weather conditions, the U.S. agency announced Tuesday.

• Discovery of a possible pulsar in the Milky Way's center could enable unprecedented tests of General Relativity

  Researchers from Columbia University and Breakthrough Listen, a scientific research program aimed at finding evidence of civilizations beyond Earth, have published new results from the Breakthrough Listen Galactic Center Survey, one of the most sensitive radio searches ever conducted for pulsars in the dynamically complex central region of the Milky Way. The study, led by recent Columbia Ph.D. graduate Karen I. Perez, was published in The Astrophysical Journal.

• A possible first-ever Einstein probe observation of a black hole tearing apart a white dwarf

  On July 2, 2025, the China-led Einstein Probe (EP) space telescope detected an exceptionally bright X-ray source whose brightness varied rapidly during a routine sky survey. Its unusual signal immediately set it apart from ordinary cosmic sources, triggering rapid follow-up observations by telescopes worldwide.

• Non-biologic processes don't fully explain Mars organics collected by Curiosity, researchers say

  In a new study, researchers say that nonbiological sources they considered could not fully account for the abundance of organic compounds in a sample collected on Mars by NASA's Curiosity rover. The paper is published in the journal Astrobiology.

• How giant galaxies could form just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang

  The existence of massive, elliptical galaxies in the early universe has puzzled astronomers for two decades. An international team led by Nikolaus Sulzenauer and Axel Weiß from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) used data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to shed light on this open question of galaxy formation. They studied one of the most spectacular galaxy aggregations in great detail and published their results in the current issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

• Experiment relies on pulsars to probe dark matter waves

  Dark matter is a type of matter that is predicted to make up most of the matter in the universe, yet it is very difficult to detect using conventional experimental techniques, as it does not emit, absorb, or reflect light. While some past studies gathered indirect hints of its existence, dark matter has never been directly observed; thus, its composition remains a mystery.

• Fermi data help refine orbital parameters of a gamma-ray binary

  Using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, Chinese astronomers have observed a gamma-ray binary system known as PSR J2032+4127. Results of the new observations, published February 3 on the arXiv preprint server, shed more light on the orbital parameters of this binary, which could help us better understand its nature.

• An emotional countdown to the maiden launch of the Ariane 64, Europe's most powerful rocket

  In a tightly controlled manufacturing hangar west of Paris, workers put the finishing touches on an enormous silver-colored engine. In just a few days, a similar machine will help propel the most powerful version of Europe's Ariane 6 rocket yet, flying for the first time with four boosters.

• Image: Strong solar flare

  This Feb. 4, 2026, image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captures a strong solar flare erupting from the star. Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy that can, along with other types of solar eruptions, impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts. The flare pictured was classified as an X4.2 flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength.

• Stellar remnants may solve mystery of missing mass in galaxy clusters

  Under the leadership of the University of Bonn, a research team led by Prof. Dr. Pavel Kroupa from the Helmholtz Institute for Radiation and Nuclear Physics has discovered that galaxy clusters are about twice as heavy as previously assumed. The additional mass comes mainly from neutron stars and stellar black holes and also explains the observed quantities of heavy elements.

• A road map to truly sustainable water systems in space

  If humans want to live in space, whether on spacecraft or the surface of Mars, one of the first problems to solve is that of water for drinking, hygiene, and life-sustaining plants. Even bringing water to the International Space Station (ISS) in low Earth orbit costs on the order of tens of thousands of dollars. Thus, finding efficient, durable, and trustworthy ways to source and reuse water in space is a clear necessity for long-term habitation there.

• Building blocks of life discovered in Bennu asteroid rewrite origin story

  Amino acids, the building blocks necessary for life, were previously found in samples of 4.6-billion-year-old rocks from an asteroid called Bennu, delivered to Earth in 2023 by NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission. How those amino acids—the molecules that create proteins and peptides in DNA—formed in space was a mystery, but new research led by Penn State scientists shows they could have originated in an icy-cold, radioactive environment at the dawn of Earth's solar system.

• Why only a small number of planets are suitable for life

  For life to develop on a planet, certain chemical elements are needed in sufficient quantities. Phosphorus and nitrogen are essential. Phosphorus is vital for the formation of DNA and RNA, which store and transmit genetic information, and for the energy balance of cells. Nitrogen is an essential component of proteins, which are needed for the formation, structure, and function of cells. Without these two elements, no life can develop out of lifeless matter.

• Tiny Enceladus exercises giant electromagnetic influence at Saturn

  A major study by an international team of researchers using data from the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini spacecraft has revealed a lattice-like structure of crisscrossing reflected waves that flow downstream behind the moon in Saturn's equatorial plane, but also reach up to very high northern and southern latitudes. The analysis of data from four instruments aboard Cassini, collected over the mission's 13-year duration, demonstrates the crucial role that Enceladus plays in circulating energy and momentum around Saturn's space environment.

• In Antarctica, balloon lands after 23-day search for particles from outer space

  After years of work building an exquisitely sensitive instrument, University of Chicago scientists stood and watched as it flew up and out of sight into the fiercely blue Antarctic sky. Launched on Dec. 20, it would travel for the next 23 days on a NASA balloon along the very highest reaches of the atmosphere, scanning the continent of Antarctica from its 120,000-foot vantage point for minuscule visitors from outer space known as neutrinos.

• Launch to ISS pushed to Thursday over weather: NASA

  NASA on Monday delayed by one day the journey of four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) over weather conditions.

• Looking for advanced aliens? Search for exoplanets with large coal deposits

  The combustible sedimentary rock, better known as coal, was not only crucial to the onset of advanced technology here on Earth, but it should also be key to the development of advanced E.T.s residing on any given exoearth. Or so say the authors of a new paper just published in the International Journal of Astrobiology.

• A long-lost Soviet spacecraft: AI could finally solve the mystery of Luna 9's landing site

  Using an advanced machine-learning algorithm, researchers in the UK and Japan have identified several promising candidate locations for the long-lost landing site of the Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft. Publishing their results in npj Space Exploration, the team, led by Lewis Pinault at University College London, hope that their model's predictions could soon be tested using new observations from India's Chandrayaan-2 orbiter.

• Third exoplanet detected in the planetary system HD 176986

  Using HARPS and HARPS-N spectrographs, astronomers have observed a nearby K-type star designated HD 176986, known to host two super-Earth exoplanets. The observations resulted in the discovery of another planet in the system at least several times more massive than Earth. The finding was detailed in a paper published January 28 in the Astronomy & Astrophysics journal.

• How big can a planet be? With very large gas giants, it can be hard to tell

  Gas giants are large planets mostly composed of helium and/or hydrogen. Although these planets have dense cores, they don't have hard surfaces. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants in our solar system, but there are many other gas giant exoplanets in our galaxy and some are many times larger than Jupiter.

• First evidence of a subsurface lava tube on Venus

  Volcanic activity is not unique to Earth: traces of volcanic activity, such as lava tubes, have been found on Mars and the moon. Now, the University of Trento has demonstrated the existence of an empty lava tube even in the depths of Venus, a planet whose surface and geology have been largely shaped by volcanic processes.

• SpaceX shifts focus from Mars to moon, Musk says

  SpaceX is putting its longstanding focus of sending humans to Mars on the back burner to prioritize establishing a settlement on the moon, founder Elon Musk said Sunday.

• US astronaut to take her 3-year-old's cuddly rabbit into space

  When the next mission to the International Space Station blasts off from Florida next week, a special keepsake will be hitching a ride: a small stuffed rabbit.

• The 'Little red dots' observed by Webb were direct-collapse black holes

  The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was designed to look back in time and study galaxies that existed shortly after the Big Bang. In so doing, scientists hoped to gain a better understanding of how the universe has evolved from the earliest cosmological epoch to the present. When Webb first trained its advanced optics and instruments on the early universe, it discovered a new class of astrophysical objects: bright red sources that were dubbed "Little Red Dots" (LRDs). Initially, astronomers hypothesized that they could be massive star-forming regions, but this was inconsistent with established cosmological models.