Vera C. Rubin Observatory days away from launching decade-long sky survey

The wait is almost over. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is just weeks, maybe even just days, away from officially beginning its landmark 10-year sky survey, according to officials at the 248th American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting in Pasadena this week. “A lot of people in the community are waiting for that moment for theContinue reading “Vera C. Rubin Observatory days away from launching decade-long sky survey” The post Vera C. Rubin Observatory days away Continue ReadingVera C. Rubin Observatory days away from launching decade-long sky survey

Skin and color pattern of 125-million-year-old crocodile revealed by extraordinary fossil from the Pyrenees

A new study published in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society describes, for the first time in detail, the soft tissues preserved in Montsecosuchus depereti, a Lower Cretaceous crocodylomorph from the Pedrera de Meià site in the province of Lleida (Catalonia, Spain). The analysis, based on ultraviolet light, provides new clues to the coloration of these animals, as well as the evolution of the respiratory system. The research was led by the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont.

Arianespace launches its heaviest payload to date with Amazon Leo flight

An Arianespace Ariane 64 rocket lifts off from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana to begin the Leo Europe 03 mission for Amazon Leo. This mission carried 36 broadband satellites onboard, the heaviest payload launched by an Ariane launcher. Image: ESA-CNES-Arianespace-ArianeGroup Optique Vidéo de CSG – T Leduc Update June 17, 11:20 a.m. EDT (1520 UTC): Arianespace confirms deployment of all Amazon Leo satellites. Arianespace launched its largest and heaviest payload to date on a Continue ReadingArianespace launches its heaviest payload to date with Amazon Leo flight

Payload electronics and flight software being developed for NASA’s Landsat 10 spacecraft

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is developing electronics and flight software for the NASA/U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat 10 satellite, which is set to launch in 2031 to collect new and improved Earth observation data. The mission continues NASA’s and USGS’s partnership on the ongoing Landsat program, which has launched nine satellites since 1972 and provided more than 10 million images of Earth’s surface.

‘High-Res’ is the Secret to Finding Alien Life with the Next Great Space Telescope

We’re still in the definition phase of the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), but it seems like every week a new research group comes out with a paper helping to contribute to what is shaping up to be one of the most important space telescopes of the 2040s. A new paper from a team of researchers led by Daniel Jaffe of the University of Texas at Austin contributes to this ongoing definition work by arguing that it’s time HWO adopted a high-resolution near-IR spectroscopy capability, – which sounds great in practice, but so far hasn’t been attempted due to technological limitations. But, according to the paper, two recent inventions finally make a working version of an extremely high resolution exoplanet hunter viable.

Mineral garnet discovered in Mars meteorite may reveal how the red planet evolved billions of years ago

An international team of scientists has identified a completely new type of rock from the red planet and, for the first time, discovered the mineral garnet in a Martian sample. The breakthrough offers a rare glimpse into Mars’ ancient past and could help researchers piece together the planet’s 4.5-billion-year geological history. The discovery was made by an international research team including James Darling, professor of Earth and planetary science, from the University of Portsmouth’s School of the Environment and Life Sciences.

Dark matter cannot be ruled out as cause of gamma ray glow at the Milky Way’s center, machine learning shows

An international research collaboration between the University of Vienna and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the United States has used machine learning to re-examine one of the most debated signals in astrophysics. The so-called Galactic Center Excess (GCE), a faint, roughly spherical glow of gamma rays at the center of the Milky Way, has fascinated physicists for more than a decade. The new results suggest that an explanation in terms of dark matter cannot currently be ruled out. The results have now been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

June 17, 2 BCE: A conjunction between Venus and Jupiter

On June 17, in the year 2 B.C.E, a significant planetary conjunction occurred involving Venus and Jupiter. From Earth’s perspective, these two bright planets appeared to draw so close that they would have seemed to merge into nearly a single, brilliant object in the sky. This type of celestial alignment occurs because planets move inContinue reading “June 17, 2 BCE: A conjunction between Venus and Jupiter” The post June 17, 2 BCE: A conjunction between Continue ReadingJune 17, 2 BCE: A conjunction between Venus and Jupiter

NASA’s Webb catches exoplanet getting roasted

One well-done gas giant, coming right up! That’s the latest from researchers analyzing NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observations of HD 80606 b, an exoplanet four times the mass of Jupiter with an extremely elliptical orbit that sweeps close by its sun-like star. The research team is presenting its study and preliminary findings Tuesday at the 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS248) in Pasadena, California.

Radar echoes from Europa reveal secrets beneath the ice

A team of scientists has used NASA’s Goldstone Solar System Radar and the U.S. National Science Foundation Green Bank Telescope (NSF GBT) to carry out the most extensive radar study to date of Europa, the ocean world orbiting Jupiter. By repeatedly “pinging” Europa with 3.5-centimeter (1.4-inch) radio waves between 2011 and 2024, the team measured how the moon reflects radar signals and confirmed that its icy surface scatters radio energy in an unusually strong and complex way not seen on rocky worlds.

Tracing a neutrino ghost to a distant ‘shadow blaster’ galaxy

Neutrinos are one of the fundamental particles of the universe. They live a ghostly existence with no electric charge, very little mass and extremely few interactions with matter. They are also the most abundant particles with mass in the universe and can be created through a variety of processes, such as the decay of heavy particles, nuclear reactions in the sun and the explosions of stars.