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NASA's fridge-sized quantum lab on the ISS expands ultracold-atom research in orbit
1 hour ago•Source: Live Science
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105.2 min•4 hours ago
Nearby ravenous black hole mirrors early-universe feeding frenzy
Astronomers observe a supermassive black hole at the center of SDSS J110546.07+145202.4 (about 1.8 billion light-years away) in a rapid accretion phase, launching jets and causing a roughly 20-fold increase in radio brightness over about eight years. The behavior resembles the vigorous feeding seen in the early universe, providing a nearby laboratory to study extreme accretion physics and jet production. The finding, published in The Astrophysical Journal (May), suggests such rapidly changing radio galaxies could help fill gaps in our understanding of early galaxy growth, with future SKA surveys expected to identify more transients.
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Webb detects two-faced WASP-121b: scorching dusk and cloudy dawn
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Sub-Neptunes Could Forge Oceans from Within
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Titan's Methane Rivers Echo Earth's Hydrology, Flowing Through Ice
Titan, Saturn's largest moon, hosts standing surface liquid—methane and ethane—driven by a slow hydrological cycle that forms rivers, rain, lakes and seas, with bedrock of water ice and surface features mapped by Cassini-Huygens; Kraken Mare and Ligeia Mare are fed by Vid Flumina, and a Dragonfly rotorcraft mission is planned for the 2030s to study Titan up close; while Earthlike in form, Titan's cycle uses different liquids and conditions, and life as we know it is unlikely.
Cosmic ghost neutrinos whisper from ancient supernovae
Researchers analyzing 14 years of data from the Super-Kamiokande detector report a likely signal of the Diffuse Supernova Neutrino Background—the universe’s background of neutrinos from all past core-collapse supernovas—marking a potential first detection of these cosmic 'ghost' particles; if confirmed, it would illuminate how dying stars enrich their environments and form compact remnants, with plans to combine data with Hyper-Kamiokande to boost sensitivity.
New Horizons Wakes to Edge of Solar System
NASA’s New Horizons has awakened from a 321‑day hibernation about 64 astronomical units from Earth (roughly 10 billion km) and will begin sending back a year’s worth of stored data while studying the outer heliosphere’s termination shock—the boundary where the solar wind slows and blends with interstellar material. Having passed Pluto and Arrokoth, the probe is now venturing farther into the Kuiper Belt region and beyond, with no new target identified; its path could see it leaving the Kuiper Belt around 2028–2029 as it continues toward interstellar space, with an approximate nine‑hour one‑way radio link and a current “green” status from mission control.
China nails first sea-based recovery of a reusable rocket
China’s Long March-10B successfully completed its maiden flight and recovered its first-stage booster on a sea-based net, marking the country’s first controlled recovery of a reusable orbital rocket and signaling progress toward lower-cost launches alongside SpaceX and Blue Origin.
NASA's New Horizons Awakens to Return Clues from the Outer Solar System
NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has awakened from a 321-day hibernation about six billion miles from Earth, with all systems reporting green health status throughout. The probe will downlink its health data and begin transmitting science data from instruments like the Venetia Burney dust counter, Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer, and Solar Wind at Pluto, with the ultraviolet Alice spectrograph set to map hydrogen in the outer heliosphere in coming weeks. Launched in 2006 and famous for Pluto flybys in 2015, it is expected to continue its mission toward the Kuiper Belt through the decade.
China plots space-ground early-warning system for sunward asteroids
China's space agency announced plans to develop a coordinated space-ground asteroid early-warning network that would combine ground-based optical telescopes with a space-based observing constellation to detect near-Earth asteroids, especially those approaching from the sunward direction. The proposed architecture includes a basic model with a Sun-Earth L1 satellite plus northern and southern ground stations, and an extended model that adds Venus-like or distant retrograde orbits to improve sky coverage. The move aligns with China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, complements ongoing international efforts (e.g., NASA's DART, ESA's Hera), and emphasizes open data sharing and potential radar capabilities as gaps in current asteroid tracking persist. The development comes amid calls for stronger planetary defense and the upcoming International Year of Planetary Defense in 2029 and notable close approaches such as Apophis' flyby.
Milky Way could be bigger and more lopsided after new arm measurements
New gamma-ray burst echoes mapped two of the Milky Way’s largest spiral arms, suggesting they’re about 10% farther from Earth than previously thought. The finding implies the galaxy may be wider and more massive, with asymmetry in its shape, prompting scientists to revisit estimates of the Milky Way’s size and mass.
ESA hunts life clues in Martian clay with Rosalind Franklin rover
Europe’s ESA plans to send the Rosalind Franklin rover to Mars, targeting Oxia Planum where orbiters have detected extensive clay deposits that could record a watery past; the rover will drill beneath the surface to search for signs of ancient life, with the clay-rich region possibly extending toward Mawrth Vallis as part of the ExoMars mission slated for a 2028 launch.
Ancient quasar reveals rapid black hole growth in the universe’s infancy
Astronomers using ESA’s Euclid telescope identified 31 quasars dating to about 670 million years after the Big Bang, including the oldest quasar yet observed that shines with the light of roughly a trillion suns, helping explain how supermassive black holes grew so quickly and shedding light on the epoch of reionization; the findings, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, come from Euclid’s Wide Survey which will map a large portion of the sky.
Giant Unexplained Radio Rings Hint at a New Class of Cosmic Structures
Astronomers have identified eight gigantic rings of radio emission in deep space, each more than 50 times the Milky Way’s width and visible only at radio wavelengths; their origins are unknown, though three rings sit at galaxy centers, suggesting the rings may be produced by galactic activity and could represent a new class of astronomical objects.