Space Exploration

Interplanetary shocks are a type of collisionless shock — events where particles transfer energy through electromagnetic fields instead of directly bouncing into one another. These shocks are a phenomenon found throughout the Universe, including in supernovae, black holes and distant stars. NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission has obtained unprecedented high-time …

  A supernova is, by definition, a huge event. We’re talking about exploding stars, after all. Still, some supernovae are bigger than others, and astronomers recently identified what appears to be the largest supernova we’ve ever observed. The event, dubbed SN2016iet, included a long duration, unusual chemical signatures, and more …

  You don’t usually think of a supermassive black hole as something that can go unnoticed, but many of these interstellar monsters are quite placid. For instance, Sagittarius A* (pronounced “Sagittarius A Star”) in the center of our own Milky Way galaxy. It’s usually very dim, but astronomers recently saw …

  The European Space Agency (ESA) is hoping to launch a new ExoMars mission to the red planet next year, but the future of that mission is in doubt after a second parachute failure. The ESA confirms a recent parachute test here on Earth has failed, making this the second …

  NASA’s Curiosity rover has seen a lot of rocks. In fact, that’s almost all it sees on the surface of Mars. Recently, the rover spotted a rock so strange that the team decided to move in for a closer look. The so-called “Strathdon” has dozens of sedimentary layers squished …

In a study by researchers from the University of California, Irvine and elsewhere, exposure to chronic, low dose radiation — the conditions present in deep space — produced serious neurocognitive complications in mice. Acharya et al uncovered striking neurobehavioral and electrophysiological defects in rodents subjected to continuous (6 month) low …

  The Kepler Space Telescope ended its wildly successful planet-hunting mission last year, but it’s still making discoveries from the grave. NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has since taken up the planet-hunter banner, but it’s got a long way to go before it’s on the same level as Kepler. …

  From everything we’ve been able to tell, the Milky Way is a fairly typical galaxy. It’s a medium-large spiral with several smaller satellite galaxies, and the disk spans some 120,000 light-years. It can be hard to tell what the galaxy looks like from the inside, though. A new analysis …

  The Kepler planet-hunting satellite is long gone, but NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is just getting started. This satellite has spotted a few exoplanets early in its mission, and the most recent batch includes some extremely weird worlds along with yet another super-Earth. The super-Earth is scorching hot, …

  Slowly but surely, the Mars 2020 rover is taking shape at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Engineers have attached some of the rover’s many cameras, its wheels, and now it’s time to give its robotic arm a test run. This arm will have to do some heavy lifting on …