Universe Today

Illustration of the Drake Equation (Credit: NOIRLab/AURA/NSF/P. Marenfeld)

Universe Today

A Brief-ish History of METI. Part II: From Interplanetary to Interstellar

Astrobitica 29/10/2026 0

Welcome back to our ongoing series on the Brief-ish History of METI, where we examine the rise,...

This illustration shows a young planet in its magma ocean phase. Terrestrial planets like Earth were entirely molten when they formed. It's possible that water was delivered to young planets by comets and asteroids during the magma ocean phase. Image Credit: Merikanto via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Volcanic_planet_4_r_1.png

Universe Today

No Comets Required? How the Growing Earth May Have Created Its Own Water

Astrobitica 29/10/2026 0

The origin of Earth’s water is one of those foundational issues that explains our planet’s habitability. The...

This is a composite image of of Beta Pictoris as seen in near infrared light. Beta Pictoris B is shown, the closest exoplanet to its star that's ever been directly imaged. Due to its proximity and other factors, it's an object of much observation and research. Image Credit: By ESO, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5268432

Universe Today

Colliding Dwarf Planets Created a ‘Cat’s Tail’ 1,000 Astronomical Units Long

Astrobitica 29/10/2026 0

Beta Pictoris (β Pictoris), a young main sequence star about 63 light years away, is known for...

Universe Today

Astronomers Solve the Mystery of the Sun’s Spinning Plasma Jets

Astrobitica 29/10/2026 0

The torrent of corona related discoveries keeps coming. Lately we’ve covered a variety of potential solutions to...

Universe Today

Virgin Galactic Flies Next-Gen Space Plane to New Home With New Name

Astrobitica 29/10/2026 0

Virgin Galactic is back in the spaceflight spotlight with the unveiling of a shiny new object: an...

Universe Today

Moon Habitats May Use Layered Mylar to Block Extreme Heat

Astrobitica 28/10/2026 0

Living on the Moon, with either trained astronauts or regular civilians, could become a regular occurrence in...

This infographic explains some of what's behind the UVEX mission. UVEX will focus on relatively nearby low-mass galaxies and their bright ultraviolet light. These same galaxies exist billions of light years away, but their light is red-shifted, meaning its now infrared light. The JWST and the Roman Space Telescope can see them. By examining the closer counterparts to these galaxies in UV, UVEX will complement the infrared observations from the other two telescopes. Image Credit: Caltech/Robert Hurt (IPAC-SElab)

Universe Today

NASA’s New UV Space Telescope Will Launch in 2031

Astrobitica 28/10/2026 0

Most of us could spend our entire lives looking at the night sky and see very few...

Universe Today

Betelgeuse Is Disturbed By Its Companion Star

Astrobitica 28/10/2026 0

Betelgeuse is the red supergiant star known as the shoulder of Orion, famous for being the brightest...

The ESA's Rosetta mission, which included the Philae Lander, visited the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in 2014 and detected glycine, an amino acid, and phosphorous, an organic chemical. Phosphorous is an important element in all living things, and is a critical part of DNA and RNA. These findings helped generate the idea that comets played a role in seeding the early Earth with the chemistry necessary for life. Image Credit: Spacecraft: ESA/ATG medialab; Comet: ESA/Rosetta/NavCam – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0; data: Altwegg et al. (2016). LICENCE: ESA Standard Licence

Universe Today

Ancient Comets Carried Organic Compounds, But They Didn’t Survive Crashing Into Earth

Astrobitica 28/10/2026 0

The appearance of life on Earth is still a mystery. It’s constrained by a few factors; for...

This view of the Solar System shows the orbital pathway of the newly discovered dwarf planet candidate 2026 ED138. This image shows ED138's position on May 8th, 2026. Image Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/R. Proctor Image Processing: M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab) Orbit data provided by the IAU Minor Planet Center (MPCorb catalog), funded by NASA PDCO and the Tamkin Foundation. Star map: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. Gaia DR2: ESA/Gaia/DPAC.

Universe Today

The Rubin Observatory Finds Its First Dwarf Planet Candidate

Astrobitica 28/10/2026 0

The Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO) has found its first dwarf planet candidate. The planet, named 2026 ED138...

The NICER instrument mounted on the exterior of the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

Universe Today

The Leap Second is History. Long Live the ‘Leap Hour’

Astrobitica 28/10/2026 0

A recent decision will allow for observed time to begin to depart from accounted time starting next...

Universe Today

Glowing Salt Crystals Tracked Radiation Aboard Artemis I

Astrobitica 28/10/2026 0

There weren’t any humans strapped into the bucket seats of the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis I...

Universe Today

NASA Systems Engineering Team Details HWO Mission Architecture

Astrobitica 27/10/2026 0

Finding an Earth-like world beyond the solar system is the Holy Grail of exoplanet research, and the...

A graphical representation of ion-neutral drift in the L1544 prestellar core. The blue lines represent the magnetic field lines, which are bent due to the gravitational contraction of the core. The red and green dots depict the ion and neutral molecular species, respectively, and the arrows trace their inflow motion towards the core center (the faster they travel, the longer the arrows). While in the outer part of the core both the ions and neutrals are attached to the magnetic field lines, within the inner part of the core the neutrals decouple from the magnetic field lines and infall faster compared to the ions, which remain attached to the field lines. This ion-neutral decoupling, known as ambipolar diffusion is required for the onset of the gravitational collapse of the prestellar core, which will produce a protostar in its center and ultimately a stellar system similar to our own Solar System. Credit: Arzoumanian, et al.

Universe Today

Unveiling Starbirth Mysteries

Astrobitica 27/10/2026 0

In 1985, the physicist Heinz R. Pagels wrote, “Stars are like animals in the wild. We may...

Universe Today

Dead Planets Orbiting a Dead Star

Astrobitica 27/10/2026 0

All stars die eventually, but they don’t all die the same. A star’s death is determined by...

This image has become famous in astronomical circles. It shows the JWST's famous Little Red Dots, of which hundreds have been observed in the early Universe. They could be ancient black holes surrounded by gas, which masks the x-rays that would give away their nature. If they are black holes, they could be growing quickly due to super-Eddington accretion. This research supports that idea, by showing that plentiful stellar collisions could be generating all the gas, which is fuel for the black hole's growth, but also masks x-rays. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, D. Kocevski (Colby College)

Universe Today

Massive Stellar Collisions Could Explain Early Supermassive Black Holes

Astrobitica 27/10/2026 0

Astronomers are in an ongoing scientific wrestling match with some of the JWST’s observations. The telescope can...

This graphic shows the JWST's NIRSpec spectrum for TOI-561 b from the 2025 research. Though the data was less complete than the new observations, it showed that the exoplanet likely had a thick volatile-rich atmosphere. Image Credit: Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI), Science: J. Teske (Carnegie Science Earth and Planets Laboratory), A. Piette (University of Birmingham), T. Lichtenberg (Groningen), N. Wallack (Carnegie Science Earth and Planets Laboratory)

Universe Today

This Oddbal Reflective Lava World is Challenging to Understand

Astrobitica 27/10/2026 0

Among Kepler and TESS’s many surprising exoplanet discoveries are the ultra-short period (USP) planets. These planets move...

In this image, the red foreground galaxy produced two arcs of light that are distorted, multiplied images of a background galaxy; a large arc on the top and a smaller one on the bottom. With images like this, astronomers can measure the total mass in the foreground galaxy and the degree of magnification of the background galaxy. By comparing the two, they can determine the amount of dark matter present in the foreground galaxy. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and X. Huang (University of San Francisco); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

Universe Today

Hubble Will Give the Roman Space Telescope a Helping Hand

Astrobitica 27/10/2026 0

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (NGRST) is on its way to its station at the Sun–Earth...

Universe Today

A Deep-Mantle Garnet Might Hold the Secret to Ancient Martian Magma

Astrobitica 27/10/2026 0

A history of a planet’s volcanic activity is contained in its rocks. And Mars’ rocks – or...

Universe Today

Asymmetric space waves map pressure on Earth’s magnetic shield

Astrobitica 26/10/2026 0

The Earth’s magnetic field is responsible for shielding us from harmful space weather, including solar radiation from...

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