A buck moon rising on Thursday night will deliver stargazing conditions across Australia by outshining two meteor showers, thanks to a positioning further from Earth than usual, according to the Sydney Institute for Astronomy. Micro Moon Timing and Visibility Across States Stargazers in Tasmania, the ACT, Victoria, and New South Wales can expect the micro … Read more
Rising ocean temperatures are reshaping shark habitats and migration routes along the U.S. East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, according to recent scientific studies. While overall shark populations are not necessarily growing, changing marine climates are pushing certain species into regions where they were once less common, raising questions about potential shark-human interactions ahead … Read more
Stargazers across North America and mid-northern latitudes can use the moon as a celestial guide this week to locate two of the night sky’s most prominent features: the blue-white star Spica and the red supergiant Antares. According to data provided by Stellarium, the moon’s position relative to these stars offers an accessible entry point for … Read more
Human reproduction in space faces significant biological hurdles, according to a recent study by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics and Tsinghua University. Experiments conducted aboard two Tianzhou cargo missions reveal that microgravity and cosmic radiation disrupt the development of human reproductive cells, with precursor germ cell generation dropping … Read more
Astronomers have identified LHS 1140b as a rocky exoplanet with a helium-rich atmosphere, marking the first clear evidence of a potentially habitable planet with an atmosphere. According to a study published in the journal Science, the planet resides in its star’s habitable zone, where temperatures allow for the existence of liquid water. LHS 1140b: A … Read more
Solar storm risks to Earth’s infrastructure may be significantly underestimated because there is no known upper limit to how the planet responds to solar wind, according to a study published in Nature. Research led by Nithin Sivadas of NASA and Maria Walach from Lancaster University suggests that previous beliefs in a “leveling off” of atmospheric … Read more
Plant life on Earth will persist for another 1.8 to 1.87 billion years, according to a study by astrobiologists Jacob Haqq-Misra and Eric Wolf. Using the Exo-CAM 3D climate simulation, the researchers found that resilient species can survive much longer than previous estimates, which placed the end of greenery between 900 million and 1.5 billion … Read more
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) successfully navigated its Hayabusa2 spacecraft within 800 meters of the near-Earth asteroid Torifune on Sunday. This fly-by serves as a critical test for planetary defense technologies, aiming to prove that space agencies can precisely maneuver probes to monitor or deflect potentially hazardous space rocks before they threaten Earth. How … Read more
Researchers have identified garnet in the Martian meteorite Northwest Africa (NWA) 8171, marking the first time the mineral has been confirmed in samples from the Red Planet. According to the study published in Geochemical Perspectives Letters, this discovery provides a new geological record of the extreme temperatures and pressures that shaped Mars billions of years … Read more
NASA has selected the Dynamic Atmosphere-Ionosphere Explorer (DAPHNE) mission to study how Earth’s lower atmosphere drives space weather, a move intended to protect GPS, satellite communications, and future lunar astronauts. Led by Aimee Merkel of the University of Colorado, Boulder, the mission will enter Phase B development using twin satellites to map thermospheric conditions. According … Read more