Phys.org Astronomy and Space

• Launching the idea of data centers in space

  Tech firms are floating the idea of building data centers in space and tapping into the sun's energy to meet out-of-this-world power demands in a fierce artificial intelligence race.

• NASA's Artemis II plans to send a crew around the moon to test equipment and lay the groundwork for a future landing

  Almost as tall as a football field, NASA's Space Launch System rocket and capsule stack traveled slowly—just under one mile per hour—out to the Artemis II launchpad, its temporary home at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, on Jan. 17, 2026.

• Reading the moon's diary, one speck of dust at a time

  Magnetism on the moon has always been a bit confusing. Remote sensing probes have noted there is some magnetic signature, but far from the strong cocoon that surrounds Earth itself. Previous attempts to detect it in returned regolith samples blended together all of the rocks in those samples, leading to confusion about the source—whether they were caused by a strong inner dynamo in ages past, or by powerful asteroid impacts that magnetized the rocks they hit. A new study from Yibo Yang of Zhejiang University and Lin Xing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, published recently in the journal Fundamental Research, shows that the right answer seems to be—a little of both.

• What's the point of a space station around the moon?

  The Lunar Gateway is a planned space station that will orbit the moon. It is part of the NASA‑led Artemis program. Artemis aims to return humans to the moon, establishing a sustainable presence there for scientific and commercial purposes, and eventually reach Mars.

• Reproduction in space, an environment hostile to human biology

  As commercial spaceflight draws ever closer and time spent in space continues to extend, the question of reproductive health beyond the bounds of planet Earth is no longer theoretical but now "urgently practical," according to a new study published in the journal Reproductive Biomedicine Online.

• One-of-a-kind 'plasma tunnel' recreates extreme conditions spacecraft face upon reentry

  Picture a spacecraft returning to Earth after a long journey. The vehicle slams into the planet's atmosphere at roughly 17,000 miles per hour. A shockwave erupts. Molecules in the air are ripped apart, forming a plasma—a gas made of charged particles that can reach tens of thousands of degrees Fahrenheit, many times hotter than the surface of the sun.

• SpaceX grounds Falcon 9 missions, could impact ISS launch

  NASA said Tuesday its next crew rotation to the International Space Station could be delayed after SpaceX announced it was grounding flights of its Falcon 9 rocket to investigate an unspecified issue.

• Supermassive black holes sit in 'eye of their own storms,' studies find

  Gigantic black holes lurk at the center of virtually every galaxy, including ours, but we've lacked a precise picture of what impact they have on their surroundings. However, a University of Chicago-led group of scientists has used data from a recently launched satellite to reveal our clearest look yet into the boiling, seething gas surrounding two supermassive black holes, each located in the center of massive galaxy clusters.

• Cosmic radiation brought to light: Researchers measure ionization in dark cloud for the first time

  Where starlight doesn't reach, new things are born: For the first time, an international research team has directly measured the effect of cosmic radiation in a cold molecular cloud. The observation shows how charged high-energy particles influence the gas in these lightless regions where stars are formed. Dr. Brandt Gaches, head of the Emmy Noether Group Towards the Next Generation in Cosmic Ray Astrochemistry at the University of Duisburg-Essen, was part of the effort to propose and observe these effects with the James Webb Space Telescope and provided support through astrochemical models of cosmic-ray chemistry. The findings are published in Nature Astronomy.

• Did we just see a black hole explode? Physicists think so—and it could explain (almost) everything

  In 2023, a subatomic particle called a neutrino crashed into Earth with such a high amount of energy that it should have been impossible. In fact, there are no known sources anywhere in the universe capable of producing such energy—100,000 times more than the highest-energy particle ever produced by the Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful particle accelerator. However, a team of physicists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently hypothesized that something like this could happen when a special kind of black hole, called a "quasi-extremal primordial black hole," explodes.

• NASA's Crew-12 begins quarantine before February launch to space station

  Four astronauts preparing for an extended stay in space have started quarantine as they get ready for their next big mission.

• NASA Moon mission launch delayed to March after test

  NASA said Tuesday it's delaying until March the launch of its first crewed flyby mission to the moon in more than 50 years, after encountering leaks during final tests.

• We ate space mushrooms and survived to tell the tale

  The mushrooms spread out on the chopping board seemed normal enough. They were rich and dense, and had a strong earthy aroma. In the saucepan, they melted—along with the cheese—to form a creamy pasta sauce.

• NASA targets a March launch of the moon rocket after test run reveals fuel leaks

  NASA said Tuesday it will now target a March launch of its new moon rocket after running into exasperating fuel leaks during a make-or-break test a day earlier.

• JWST discovers a new extremely metal-poor dwarf galaxy

  Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers have discovered a new dwarf galaxy, which received designation CAPERS-39810. Further investigation of CAPERS-39810 revealed that it is an extremely metal-poor galaxy. The discovery was detailed in a paper published January 24 on the arXiv pre-print server.

• NASA hit by fuel leaks during a practice countdown of the moon rocket that will fly with astronauts

  NASA ran into exasperating fuel leaks during a make-or-break test of its new moon rocket Monday, calling into question how soon astronauts could take off for a trip around the moon.

• Two huge hot blobs of rock influence Earth's magnetic field, study reveals

  Exploring Earth's deep interior is a far bigger challenge than exploring the solar system. While we have traveled 25 billion km into space, the deepest we have ever gone below our feet is just over 12 km. Consequently, little is known about the conditions at the base of the mantle and the top of the core—the most significant interface in Earth's interior and the region where new research has now uncovered exciting magnetic activity.

• NASA fuels its moon rocket in a crucial test to decide when Artemis astronauts will launch

  NASA fueled its new moon rocket in one final make-or-break test Monday, with hopes of sending astronauts on a lunar fly-around as soon as this coming weekend.

• NASA conducts vital tests ahead of slated Moon mission

  NASA on Monday was conducting critical final tests ahead of setting a launch date for its first crewed flyby mission to the moon in more than half a century.

• Europe observatory hails plan to abandon light-polluting Chile project

  Europe's ESO star-gazing organization on Monday welcomed plans to call off building a massive green energy project in the Chilean desert which threatened to spoil its telescopes' view of the darkest skies on Earth.

• Hubble sees galaxy with dark rings in new light

  This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features an uncommon galaxy with a striking appearance. NGC 7722 is a lenticular galaxy located about 187 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus.

• Perseverance rover completes first AI-planned drive on Mars

  NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has completed the first drives on another world that were planned by artificial intelligence. Executed on Dec. 8 and 10, and led by the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the demonstration used generative AI to create waypoints for Perseverance, a complex decision-making task typically performed manually by the mission's human rover planners.

• As Rubin's survey gets underway, simulations suggest it could find about six lunar-origin asteroids per year

  Most near-Earth asteroids are thought to drift in from the main asteroid belt. But a small subset may have a much closer origin: the moon. One intriguing example is 469219 Kamoʻoalewa (2016 HO3), an Earth quasi-satellite whose reported spectrum resembles lunar material and which is a target of China's Tianwen-2 sample-return mission.

• Jupiter's slimmer profile: Giant planet revealed to be narrower at equator

  For over 50 years, we thought we knew the size and shape of Jupiter, the solar system's largest planet. Now, Weizmann Institute of Science researchers have revised that knowledge using new data and technology. In a new study published today in Nature Astronomy, Weizmann scientists, who led an international team from Italy, the US, France and Switzerland, provide the most precise determination yet of Jupiter's size and shape.

• Long-period Jupiter-like exoplanet discovered with TESS

  Using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers has discovered a new extrasolar planet transiting a distant star. The newfound alien world, designated TOI-6692 b, is the size of Jupiter and has an orbital period of about 130 days. The discovery was presented in a paper published January 22 on the arXiv pre-print server.

• Experiments clear up confusion over the form of solid methane

  Through a combination of high-pressure experiments and optical spectroscopy, physicists have revealed new insights into the structural forms of solid methane. Led by Mengnan Wang at the University of Edinburgh in the UK, the team hopes their results, published in Physical Review Letters, could dispel long-standing confusion over where these different forms appear within methane's phase diagram—potentially deepening our understanding of planetary interiors.

• Infrared running of gravity offers a field-theoretic route to dark matter phenomena

  The mystery of dark matter—unseen, pervasive, and essential in standard cosmology—has loomed over physics for decades. In new research, I explore a different possibility: Rather than postulating new particles, I propose that perhaps gravity itself behaves differently on the largest scales.

• A student made cosmic dust in her lab—what she found could help us understand how life started on Earth

  A Sydney Ph.D. student has recreated a tiny piece of the universe inside a bottle in her laboratory, producing cosmic dust from scratch. The results shed new light on how the chemical building blocks of life may have formed long before Earth existed. Linda Losurdo, a Ph.D. candidate in materials and plasma physics in the School of Physics, used a simple mix of gases—nitrogen, carbon dioxide and acetylene—to mimic the harsh and dynamic environments around stars and supernova remnants.

• FAA dismisses airline, sonic boom concerns in signing off on SpaceX Starship plans from KSC

  SpaceX's path to launching its massive Starship rocket from Florida's Space Coast passed another hurdle Friday after the Federal Aviation Administration released results of its nearly two-year long environmental review for launch plans from Kennedy Space Center.

• Cracks on Europa sport traces of ammonia

  The search for life-supporting worlds in the solar system includes the Jovian moon Europa. Yes, it's an iceberg of a world, but underneath its frozen exterior lies a deep, salty ocean and a nickel-iron core. It's heated by tidal flexing, and that puts pressure on the interior ocean, sending water and salts to the surface. As things turn out, there's also evidence of ammonia-bearing compounds on the surface. All these things combine to provide a fascinating look at Europa's geology and potential as a haven for life.