Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists are studying Saturn’s moon Titan to assess its tidal dissipation rate, the energy lost as it orbits the ringed planet with its massive gravitational force. Understanding tidal dissipation helps scientists infer many other things about Titan, such as the makeup of its inner core and its orbital history.
A pair of astrophysicists with Aix- Marseille Université, CNRS, and Institut Universitaire de France have developed a new theory about the formation of Jupiter’s largest moons. In their paper published in The Planetary Science Journal, Antoine Schneeberger and Olivier Mousis describe how they used a variety of factors to simulate the early years of Jupiter and the formation of some of its moons.
When world-leading teams join forces, new findings are bound to be made. This is what happened when quantum physicists from the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) and the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK) in Heidelberg combined atomic and nuclear physics with unprecedented accuracy using two different methods of measurement.
Australian scientists have found an effective new way to clean up methylmercury, one of the world’s most dangerous pollutants, which often builds up in our food and environment because of industrial activities such as illegal gold mining and burning coal. The discovery, published in Nature Communications on 12 February 2025, could lead to new ways of engineering animals to protect both wildlife and human health.
NASA’s two stuck astronauts may end up back on Earth a little sooner than planned.
Red-and-green-tinted clouds drift through the Martian sky in a new set of images captured by NASA’s Curiosity rover using its Mastcam—its main set of “eyes.” Taken over 16 minutes on Jan. 17 (the 4,426th Martian day, or sol, of Curiosity’s mission), the images show the latest observations of what are called noctilucent (Latin for “night shining”), or twilight clouds, tinged with color by scattering light from the setting sun.
Three small NASA rovers that will explore the lunar surface as a team have been packed up and shipped from the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, marking completion of the first leg of the robots’ journey to the moon.
Particle detectors play a crucial role in our understanding of the fundamental building blocks of the universe. They allow scientists to study the behavior and properties of the particles produced in high-energy collisions. Such particles are boosted to near the speed of light in large accelerators and then smashed into targets or other particles where they are then analyzed with detectors. Traditional detectors, however, lack the needed sensitivity and precision for certain types of research.
SpaceX lined up and knocked out the 14th launch from Florida’s Space Coast on Tuesday afternoon.
Scattering takes place across the universe at large and miniscule scales. Billiard balls clank off each other in bars, the nuclei of atoms collide to power the stars and create heavy elements, and even sound waves deviate from their original trajectory when they hit particles in the air.
For the first time, astronomers have imaged dozens of belts around nearby stars where comets and tiny pebbles within them are orbiting.
At the end of 2024, astronomers detected an asteroid in the night sky. It was given the designation Y, since it was discovered in the last half of December, and R4 since it was the 117th rock to be found in the last couple of weeks of December, and since it was discovered in 2024, it was assigned the name 2024 YR4.
Enabled by supercomputing, University of Pretoria (UP) researchers have led an international team of astronomers that has provided deeper insight into the entire life cycle (birth, growth and death) of giant radio galaxies, which resemble “cosmic fountains”—jets of superheated gas that are ejected into near-empty space from their spinning supermassive black holes.
Late last year, rumors swirled online that HomeSafeID, a private Australian pet microchip registry, had stopped operating.
As night falls on the Atacama desert in northern Chile four giant telescopes turn their gaze towards the star-strewn heavens.
The recent launch of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket marked several historic milestones. The 21-year-old crew member Karsen Kitchen set a record for the youngest woman to cross the Kármán line, the boundary 62 miles overhead that separates Earth’s atmosphere from everything beyond it. It was the first time a NASA-funded researcher had left Earth on a commercially owned rocket. Thanks to that same researcher, it was also the first time that a fossilized snail, horse and early ancestor of modern primates went to space.
A study published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (JCAP) presents a methodology to test the assumption of cosmic homogeneity and isotropy, known as the Cosmological Principle, by leveraging weak gravitational lensing—a light distortion effect described by general relativity—in astronomical images collected by new observatories such as the Euclid Space Telescope. Finding evidence of anomalies in the Cosmological Principle could have profound implications for our current understanding of the universe.
Tracking and predicting sea level rise involves more than measuring the height of our oceans: Land along coastlines also inches up and down in elevation. Using California as a case study, a NASA-led team has shown how seemingly modest vertical land motion could significantly impact local sea levels in coming decades.
In recent decades, museums and galleries have made a sensory turn when it comes to designing displays and engaging visitors.
The annual watchdog report tasked to gauge NASA safety commended the agency’s handling of last year’s beleaguered Boeing Starliner mission, but revealed yet another issue found during the flight and questioned NASA’s needs for the spacecraft in the future.
