Phys.org Astronomy and Space

• Perseverance rover witnesses one Martian dust devil eating another

  The six-wheeled explorer recently captured several red planet mini-twisters spinning on the rim of Jezero Crater.

• Rising odds asteroid that briefly threatened Earth will hit moon

  A huge asteroid that was briefly feared to strike Earth now has a nearly 4% chance of smashing into the moon, according to new data from the James Webb Space Telescope.

• Exploring Titan's icy hydrocarbon cycle

  Though wildly different in so many ways, Earth and Saturn's moon Titan have something important in common. Among all the objects in the solar system, they're the only two with liquids on their surfaces. There are parallels in how the liquids move in cycles on both worlds and a new mission proposal outlines how we can understand Titan better by studying these parallel processes.

• When a black hole winks at you: Variability identified in supermassive black hole in Andromeda galaxy

  A Michigan State University researcher saw X-rays coming from a black hole using the NASA Chandra X-Ray Observatory telescope.

• Students design a mission to Venus on the cheap

  Sometimes, the best way to learn how to do something is just to do it. That is especially true if you're learning to do something using a specific methodology. And in some cases, the outcome of your efforts is something that's interesting to other people.

• Studying Uranian moons using passive radar sounding

  How can Uranus be used to indirectly study its moons and identify if they possess subsurface oceans? This is what a recent study presented at the 56th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated using passive radar sounding methods from Uranus to study its five largest moons: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, and Oberon. This study has the potential to help researchers better understand the formation and evolution of Uranus and its largest moons despite a spacecraft not currently visiting Uranus.

• Astronomers listened to the 'music' of flickering stars—and discovered an unexpected feature

  The "music" of starquakes—enormous vibrations caused by bursting bubbles of gas that ripple throughout the bodies of many stars—can reveal far more information about the stars' histories and inner workings than scientists thought.

• Video: What are the dangers of going to space? We asked a NASA expert

  What are the dangers of going to space?

• Dark energy may not be constant—this discovery could undermine our entire model of cosmological history

  The great Russian physicist and Nobel laureate Lev Landau once remarked that "cosmologists are often in error, but never in doubt." In studying the history of the universe itself, there is always a chance that we have got it all wrong, but we never let this stand in the way of our inquiries.

• Hierarchical cluster formation in the Milky Way's core caps birth of massive stars

  An international research team led by Dr. Zhang Suinan from the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has uncovered the unique mechanisms governing star formation in the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) of the Milky Way.

• Solar cells made of moon dust could power future space exploration

  The same dirt that clings to astronauts' boots may one day keep their lights on. In a study published in Device, researchers created solar cells made out of simulated moon dust. The cells convert sunlight into energy efficiently, withstand radiation damage, and mitigate the need for transporting heavy materials into space, offering a potential solution to one of space exploration's biggest challenges: reliable energy sources.

• Solar wind compresses Jupiter's magnetosphere, creating a hot region spanning half the planet's circumference

  A massive wave of solar wind that squished Jupiter's protective bubble has been detected for the first time.

• HD 144812 is a rare post-red supergiant star in a binary system, observations find

  Astronomers from the Czech Republic and Argentina have employed the Gemini South telescope to observe a yellow supergiant star designated HD 144812. The observations found that HD 144812 is a rare post-red supergiant orbited by a companion star. The finding was reported in a paper published March 25 on the arXiv pre-print server.

• Webb telescope captures photos of the asteroid that won't hit Earth in 2032

  The Webb Space Telescope has captured pictures of the asteroid that caused a stir earlier this year when it topped Earth's hit list.

• The significance of the recent 'baby pictures' showing the universe when it was just 380,000 years old

  The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) collaboration, which includes researchers from the University of Toronto, recently produced the clearest images yet of the universe's infancy from the earliest cosmic time accessible to humans.

• Ultralight dark matter could explain early black hole formation

  A black hole is a region of space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape. There are two main types of black hole; stellar mass and supermassive black holes, and they differ in size, formation, and impact on their host galaxy. Stellar mass black holes, a few to dozens of times the mass of the sun, form from collapsing massive stars. Supermassive black holes, on the other hand, are millions to billions of times more massive and tend to live in the center of galaxies and grow through accretion and mergers.

• United Launch Alliance and Amazon set first launch for SpaceX Starlink competitor Project Kuiper

  A launch date is set for the first batch of what will be thousands of satellites for Amazon's Project Kuiper as the company looks to play catch-up with SpaceX and its Starlink internet constellation.

• Image: X-ray clues reveal a star that may have destroyed a planet

  This image of the Helix Nebula, released on March 4, 2025, shows a potentially destructive white dwarf at the nebula's center; this star may have destroyed a planet. This has never been seen before—and could explain a mysterious X-ray signal that astronomers have detected from the nebula for over 40 years.

• Q&A: Webb finds asteroid 2024 YR4 is building-sized

  NASA's James Webb Space Telescope recently turned its watchful eye toward asteroid 2024 YR4, which we now know poses no significant threat to Earth in 2032 and beyond.

• Unique bacteria that survive by employing multicellular behavior offer clues to life's evolution

  In a recent study, researchers gained new insight into the lives of bacteria that survive by grouping together as if they were a multicellular organism. The organisms in the study are the only bacteria known to do this in this way, and studying them could help astrobiologists explain important steps in the evolution of life on Earth.

• Existing international law can help secure peace and security in outer space, study shows

  World leaders should look to existing international law on the use of force to address the threat of space becoming ever more militarized, a new study shows. The research is published in the Leiden Journal of International Law.

• How space law aims to regulate 'space junk' and protect Earth

  While life on Earth has been dramatic enough lately, there's also been an unusual amount of news from space in the early months of 2025. So far, debris from SpaceX and Blue Origin rockets has landed in locations including the Bahamas, Florida, Poland, and Turks and Caicos and caused flight delays at airports in Florida. On February 18, NASA estimated that asteroid 2024 YR4 had a 3.1% chance of hitting Earth in 2032—the highest probability of impact ever recorded by the agency—although they later reduced that estimate to 0.004%.

• Webb explores effect of strong magnetic fields on star formation

  Follow-up research on a 2023 image of the Sagittarius C stellar nursery in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, captured by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, has revealed ejections from still-forming protostars and insights into the impact of strong magnetic fields on interstellar gas and the life cycle of stars.

• Sagittarius C: Webb provides closest look yet at one of Milky Way's most extreme environments

  Sagittarius C is one of the most extreme environments in the Milky Way galaxy. This cloudy region of space sits about 200 light-years from the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. Here, a massive and dense cloud of interstellar gas and dust has collapsed on itself over millions of years to form thousands of new stars.

• Melodies of musical 'starquakes' shed new light on how our galaxy formed

  They say music is the universal language of humankind, but some stars in our galaxy exhibit their own rhythm, offering fresh clues into how they and our galaxy evolved over time.

• Miso made in space tastes nuttier, researchers find

  Miso is a traditional Japanese condiment made by fermenting cooked soybeans and salt. In a study published in iScience, researchers successfully made miso on the International Space Station (ISS). They found that the miso smelled and tasted similar to miso fermented on Earth—just with a slightly nuttier, more roasted flavor.

• Galaxies die earlier than expected: Webb sees signs of halted star formation 700 million years after Big Bang

  An international team led by UNIGE shows that red and dead galaxies can be found only 700 million years after the Big Bang, indicating that galaxies stop forming stars earlier than predicted by models.

• Asteroid impact threat estimates improved for the Earth and the moon

  Asteroid 2024 YR4, first discovered in December 2024, triggered a first-ever notification from the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) on January 29, 2025. The early calculations predicted an impact probability of 1.3% with Earth on December 22nd, 2032, and estimated its size to be between 40 and 90 meters.

• New distant warm Jupiter discovered with TESS

  Using the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers has detected a new warm Jupiter exoplanet located more than 1,000 light years away. The newfound alien world, designated TOI-2005 b, is about the size of Jupiter and orbits its host star on a highly eccentric orbit. The discovery was reported March 25 on the arXiv pre-print server.

• KiDS dataset doesn't shake up cold dark matter model after all, say researchers

  Data from 41 million galaxies does not shake up the standard cosmological model after all. To that conclusion, to their own surprise, comes an international team of researchers including Koen Kuijken, professor at the Leiden Observatory.