NASA’s DART mission proved that a spacecraft can nudge an asteroid system in space, offering a real test of planetary defense. NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft changed the motion of an asteroid system in space, demonstrating that a kinetic impactor could be a viable way t

Oxygen isotope analysis of lunar soil shows meteorites delivered only a limited amount of water to the Earth–Moon system after about 4 billion years ago.

Our view of the cosmos changes completely based on how we observe it.

Now, astronomers have released the data from the largest-ever sky survey at radio wavelengths, revealing nearly 13.7 million celestial objects in light the human eye literally cannot see unaided.

This is the third data release from the LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey (LoTSS-DR3). It provides an unprecedented collection of cosmic objects that emit radio waves.

In this clip, physicist Michio Kaku explains to Joe Rogan why the strange behavior of Tabby’s Star briefly led scientists to consider something extraordinary.

Planets usually block less than 1% of a star’s light.
Even Jupiter would block about 1%.
But Tabby’s Star dimmed by nearly 20% — something astronomers had never seen before.

Because of that extreme and unusual dimming, some scientists explored whether an intelligent megastructure — like a Dyson sphere built by a Type II civilization on the Kardashev Scale — could explain the observations.

This video focuses on *why the idea was considered*, not a confirmed conclusion.

The MOTHRA telescope will use over a thousand lenses and narrowband filters to detect faint hydrogen gas linking galaxies.

Astronomers have for the first time seen the birth of a magnetar—a highly magnetized, spinning neutron star—and confirmed that it’s the power source behind some of the brightest exploding stars in the cosmos. The finding corroborates a theory proposed by a UC Berkeley physicist 16 years ago and establishes a new phenomenon in exploding stars: supernovae with a “chirp” in their light curve that is caused by general relativity. A paper describing the phenomenon was published in the journal Nature.

Superluminous supernovae—which can be 10 or more times brighter than run-of-the-mill supernovae—have puzzled astronomers since their discovery in the early 2000s. They were thought to result from the explosion of very massive stars, perhaps 25 times the mass of our sun, but they stayed bright much longer than would be expected when a star’s iron core collapses and its outer layers are subsequently blown off.

In 2010, Dan Kasen, now a UC Berkeley theoretical astrophysicist and professor of physics, was the first to propose that a magnetar was powering the long-lasting glow.

It’s well known that many animals, including migratory birds, butterflies, and even fish, use the sun for navigational purposes. Nocturnal animals are dealt a more difficult hand, however, as the moon’s path is far more variable. But a new study, published in Current Biology, has shown that nocturnal bull ants (Myrmecia midas) not only use the moon as a compass, but are also capable of accounting for speed variations in its movement.

Although there is a slight change every day, the sun’s path in the sky is much more stable than the moon’s. As most people know, the moon goes through monthly phases, varying dramatically in its placement in the sky throughout the month and being entirely absent from the night sky for a portion of time. Additional speed variations further complicate things. Because of this, it was unclear whether nocturnal animals could accurately predict the moon’s complex movement for navigation.

Some diurnal insects, like certain ants and bees, use time-compensated sun compasses that adjust for the sun’s daily movement. Past studies have shown that some nocturnal insects use lunar or polarized light cues, but did not show whether these were used for time-compensated lunar navigation.