The planets in our Solar System orbit the Sun along a plane extending from the solar equator. That’s typically the case for exoplanets too but just recently, a team of astronomers have found a system where a planet is in a perpendicular orbit around a binary pair! The brown dwarf system with its strange planetary companion is likely the result of three-body interactions between the stars and planet, tweaking it into the crazy orbital configuration we see today.

On any clear, moonless night, the light from the billions of stars in our Milky Way Galaxy can be seen arching across the sky. A large spiral galaxy, the Milky Way we see today is the result of billions of years of galactic evolution. A team of astronomers have announced the discovery of a galaxy very similar to our own but this one is less than a billion years old! Typically galaxies like the Milky Way with a developed central bulge and spiral arms are only seen in nearby galaxies suggesting it’s a process that takes time. This latest discovery challenges that theory!

SpaceX launched the third in its series of mid-inclination dedicated rideshare missions April 21, but with very few rideshare payloads on board. The post SpaceX launches third mid-inclination rideshare mission appeared first on SpaceNews.

Astronomers discovered a planet that orbits its star so closely that its surface is being scorched into magma and vaporizing into space. Continue ReadingAstronomers discover doomed planet shedding a Mount Everest’s worth of material every orbit, leaving behind a comet-like tail→

In groundbreaking photos, eclipse chasers captured the elusive solar corona during a partially eclipsed sunrise/moonrise in Quebec. It could change eclipse chasing forever. Continue ReadingAmateur astronomers capture groundbreaking photos of sun’s corona during partial solar eclipse→

The Italian Space Agency paid tribute to Pope Francis in the wake of his death early Monday morning (April 21). Continue ReadingItalian Space Agency mourns death of Pope Francis→

The Andromeda galaxy’s family of satellite galaxies point towards the Milky Way, and nobody knows why. Continue ReadingOur galactic neighbor Andromeda has a bunch of satellite galaxies — and they’re weirdly pointing at us→

A SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule arrived at the International Space Station this morning (April 22), docking to the orbital lab after more than a day catching up in orbit. Continue ReadingSpaceX CRS-32 Dragon cargo capsule arrives at the ISS with 6,700 pounds of supplies (video)→

SpaceX sent a pioneering private reentry capsule to space today (April 21) on a rideshare mission called Bandwagon-3. Continue ReadingSpaceX launches European reentry capsule on ‘Bandwagon-3’ rideshare mission→

SAN FRANCISCO – A White House budget proposal calls for replacing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s future geostationary satellite constellation, GeoXO, with a far less expensive and ambitious program. […] The post OMB suggests NOAA scale back plans for geostationary satellites appeared first on SpaceNews.

Where did the water we believe is on the Moon come from? Most scientists think they know the answer – from the solar wind. They believed the hydrogen atoms that make up the solar wind bombarded the lunar surface, which is made up primarily of silica. When that hydrogen hits the oxygen atoms in that silica, the oxygen is sometimes released and freed to bond with the incoming hydrogen, which in some cases creates water. But no one has ever attempted to replicate that process to prove its feasibility. A new paper by Li Hsia Yeo and their colleagues at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center describes the first experimental evidence of that reaction.

After spending 220 days on board the International Space Station, astronaut Don Pettit is back on Earth. He returned to Earth on Sunday, April 20th, which coincides with his 70th birthday.

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft made a successful flyby of the second asteroid on its must-see list over the weekend, and sent back imagery documenting the elongated object’s bizarre double-lobed shape. It turns out that asteroid Donaldjohanson — which was named after the anthropologist who discovered the fossils of a human ancestor called Lucy — is what’s known as a contact binary, with a couple of ridges in its narrow neck.

The plume from a rocket engine burn high in Earth’s atmosphere caused a glowing spectacle similar in appearance to a nebula. Continue ReadingSpaceX launch creates a ‘nebula’ | Space picture of the day for April 21, 2025→