https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A group of astronomers from across the globe, including a team from the University of Washington and led by Queen's University Belfast, have revealed new research showing that millions of new solar system objects will be detected by a brand-new facility, which is expected to come online later in 2025. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-rubin-observatory-millions-solar-vivid.html Astronomy Wed, 04 Jun 2025 10:29:18 EDT news668251752 University of Central Florida (UCF) scientists and their collaborators discovered new insights into the formation of distant icy objects in space beyond Neptune, offering a deeper understanding of our solar system's formation and growth. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-webb-scientists-solar.html Astrobiology Fri, 25 Apr 2025 11:18:07 EDT news664798676 New studies led by researchers at the University of Central Florida offer for the first time a clearer picture of how the outer solar system formed and evolved based on analyses of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) and centaurs. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-webb-glimpse-icy-planetesimals-early.html Astronomy Thu, 19 Dec 2024 10:22:30 EST news653826143 Although our solar system is billions of years old, we've only recently become better acquainted with one of its more dynamic and captivating inhabitants known as (2060) Chiron. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-uncovering-centaur-tracks-scientists-unique.html Astronomy Wed, 18 Dec 2024 13:23:04 EST news653750581 Inspired by the half-human, half-horse creatures that are part of Ancient Greek mythology, the field of astronomy has its own kind of centaurs: distant objects orbiting the sun between Jupiter and Neptune. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has mapped the gases spewing from one of these objects, suggesting a varied composition and providing new insights into the formation and evolution of the solar system. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-webb-telescope-unusual-gas-jets.html Astronomy Wed, 02 Oct 2024 13:22:48 EDT news647094153 For the first time, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide ices have been observed in the far reaches of our solar system on trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). https://phys.org/news/2024-05-scientists-ices-outskirts-solar.html Astronomy Sat, 25 May 2024 05:39:13 EDT news635834337 The unique two thin rings around the Centaur Chariklo could be shaped by an even smaller satellite. Chariklo is a Centaur, which are small bodies similar to asteroids in size but to comets in composition, that revolve around the sun in the outer solar system, mainly between the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-small-satellite-centaur.html Astronomy Tue, 06 Feb 2024 13:07:03 EST news626447222 Sierra Space's shuttle-like Dream Chaser has been put through its paces at a powerful NASA vibration facility that mimics conditions during launch and atmospheric reentry, officials said Thursday ahead of its planned first flight to the ISS this year. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-rattle-chaser-spaceplane-vibration.html Space Exploration Thu, 01 Feb 2024 16:35:07 EST news626027703 At the National Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, there is a marble head that was once part of the ancient Greek Parthenon temple on the Acropolis in Athens. The head originally belonged to a centaur figure and was part of a scene depicting the Greek mythological Lapiths' battle against the centaurs (mythical creatures that were half-horse, half-human). https://phys.org/news/2024-01-intensive-scientific-analyses-centaur-mystery.html Archaeology Thu, 18 Jan 2024 16:07:30 EST news624816445 A rapid reshaping of orbits resulting from a close encounter with Jupiter or Saturn can lead Centaurs to exhibit comet-like activity, according to a Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Eva Lilly paper. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-centaurs-gain-comet-characteristics-encounters.html Astronomy Tue, 09 Jan 2024 17:27:04 EST news624043622 While many holiday traditions involve feasts of turkey, soba noodles, latkes or Pan de Pascua, this year, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is bringing you a holiday chicken. The so-called Running Chicken Nebula, home to young stars in the making, is revealed in spectacular detail in this 1.5-billion-pixel image captured by the VLT Survey Telescope (VST), hosted at ESO's Paranal site in Chile. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-billion-pixel-image-chicken-nebula-unprecedented.html Astronomy Thu, 21 Dec 2023 08:00:01 EST news622313440 More than 50 years after the last Apollo mission, the United States will try once again to land a craft on the moon on January 25, said the head of what could be the first private company to successfully touch down on the lunar surface. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-years-moon-january.html Space Exploration Thu, 30 Nov 2023 03:03:12 EST news620535787 Observations during a stellar occultation detected the presence of evolving material orbiting around Centaur (2060) Chiron, rather than a two-ring system interpretation, according to a paper by Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Amanda Sickafoose. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-evolving-material-circling-centaur-chiron.html Astronomy Wed, 29 Nov 2023 12:52:44 EST news620484761 A new study from the University of Central Florida has found strong support that the outgassing of molecules from comets could be the result of the composition from the beginning of our solar system. https://phys.org/news/2022-11-comets-insight-chemical-composition-early.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 04 Nov 2022 16:42:23 EDT news586798938 A red ball of spicy fire with luminous patches glowing menacingly against a black background. https://phys.org/news/2022-08-frontier-slice-spanish-sausage.html Space Exploration Thu, 04 Aug 2022 07:37:33 EDT news578817447 Since the advent of penicillin more than 90 years ago, antibiotic drugs have saved countless lives by preventing and treating bacterial infections. However, bacteria are rapidly developing new ways to resist antibiotics, making some of modern medicine's most powerful drugs less effective against many life-threatening infections, such as gonorrhea, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile), among others. Today, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate nearly 3 million drug-resistant infections occur each year in the United States alone. https://phys.org/news/2022-05-mystery-mechanism-small-peptide-big.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 25 May 2022 09:06:10 EDT news572688365 Southwest Research Institute scientists joined a team that reanalyzed and modeled data from a planned lunar impact more than a decade ago. The findings suggest that volatiles present in a crater near the Moon's south pole were likely delivered by a comet. Volatiles are chemical elements and compounds that can be readily vaporized and, in this case, were stabilized in ice lurking in this permanently shaded region. https://phys.org/news/2022-02-scientists-comet-delivery-moon.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 09 Feb 2022 17:09:58 EST news563648991 Deep in the solar system, between Jupiter and Neptune, lurk thousands of small chunks of ice and rock. Occasionally, one of them will bump into Jupiter's orbit, get caught and flung into the inner solar system—towards the sun, and us. https://phys.org/news/2021-10-comet-spacecraft-tag-journey-sun.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 13 Oct 2021 08:46:54 EDT news553333593 Often, the squeaky wheel, or at least the shiniest object, seems to get all the attention. In a new study led by PSI Research Scientist Eva Lilly, it is the inactive Centaurs that take center stage and illuminate why other Centaurs may be so flashy. Centaurs are icy objects out between the orbits of Neptune and Jupiter that in some cases display comet-like tails and jets. This somehow happens despite being located where it is too cold for this kind of activity to occur due to normal solar-driven sublimation processes. Instead, changes to object's orbits or other interactions may be the force driving some Centaurs to become active like comets.  https://phys.org/news/2021-09-quiet-newly-centaurs.html Astronomy Wed, 15 Sep 2021 13:21:32 EDT news550930883 After traveling several billion miles toward the Sun, a wayward young comet-like object orbiting among the giant planets has found a temporary parking place along the way. The object has settled near a family of captured ancient asteroids, called Trojans, that are orbiting the Sun alongside Jupiter. This is the first time a comet-like object has been spotted near the Trojan population. https://phys.org/news/2021-02-comet-pit-jupiter-asteroids.html Space Exploration Thu, 25 Feb 2021 14:56:17 EST news533487370 A new generation of rocket propellants for deep space exploration such as ionic liquid propellants with long endurance and high stability, are attracting significant attention. However, ionic liquid propellants are strongly restricted by their inadequate hypergolic (spontaneous ignition) reactivity between the fuel and the oxidant, where this defect can cause local burnout and accidental explosions during rocket launch. In a new report, Wen-Li Yuan and a research team in Chemistry at the Sichuan University in China and the Idaho University in the U.S. have proposed a visual model to demonstrate features of propellants to estimate their performance and applications. The materials genome and visualization model of the propellants greatly improved the efficiency and quality of developing performance propellants with applications to discover new and advanced functional molecules in the field of energetic materials. The work is now published in Science Advances. https://phys.org/news/2020-12-high-performance-hypergolic-propellants-space-rockets.html Analytical Chemistry Mon, 21 Dec 2020 09:40:02 EST news527759545 Space manifolds form the boundaries of dynamic channels to provide fast transport to the innermost and outermost reaches of the solar system. Such features are an important element in spacecraft navigation and mission design, providing a window to the apparently erratic nature of comets and their trajectories. In a new report now published on Science Advances, Nataša Todorović and a team of researchers in Serbia and the U.S. revealed a notable and unexpected ornamental structure of manifolds in the solar system. This architecture was connected in a series of arches spreading from the asteroid belt to Uranus and beyond. The strongest manifolds were found linked to Jupiter with profound control on small bodies across a wide and previously unknown range of three-body energies. The orbits of these manifolds encountered Jupiter on rapid time-scales to transform into collisional or escaping trajectories to reach Neptune's distance merely within a decade. In this way, much like a celestial highway, all planets generate similar manifolds across the solar system for fast transport throughout. https://phys.org/news/2020-12-accessing-arches-chaos-solar-fast.html General Physics Wed, 09 Dec 2020 09:40:03 EST news526729021 A mysterious object temporarily orbiting Earth is a 54-year-old rocket, not an asteroid after all, astronomers confirmed Wednesday. https://phys.org/news/2020-12-nasa-mystery-year-old-rocket-asteroid.html Space Exploration Thu, 03 Dec 2020 04:20:45 EST news526191642 A comet discovered last year is offering scientists new insights into how these objects "turn on" and evolve, as it actually transitions out of the Centaur population and into the Jupiter Family of Comets (JFCs), according to a paper by Planetary Science Institute Research Scientist Jordan Steckloff. https://phys.org/news/2020-11-comet-ld2-atlas-transitioning.html Astronomy Fri, 27 Nov 2020 13:10:51 EST news525705048 Oversized, hairy tarantulas may be unsightly and venomous, but surprisingly their hunter toxin may hold answers to better control of chronic pain. https://phys.org/news/2020-11-tarantula-toxin-molecular-stinger.html Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 23 Nov 2020 13:20:54 EST news525360049 Earth has captured a tiny object from its orbit around the sun and will keep it as a temporary satellite for a few months before it escapes back to a solar orbit. But the object is likely not an asteroid; it's probably the Centaur upper stage rocket booster that helped lift NASA's ill-fated Surveyor 2 spacecraft toward the moon in 1966. https://phys.org/news/2020-11-earth-captured-stray-1960s-era-rocket.html Space Exploration Fri, 13 Nov 2020 08:24:02 EST news524478236 Beyond the orbit of Neptune, a diverse collection of thousands of dwarf planets and other relatively small objects dwells in a region called the Kuiper Belt. These often-pristine leftovers from our solar system's days of planet formation are called Kuiper Belt objects, or trans-Neptunian objects. NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will examine an assortment of these icy bodies in a series of programs called Guaranteed Time Observations shortly after its launch in 2021. The goal is to learn more about how our solar system formed. https://phys.org/news/2020-10-nasa-webb-graveyard-solar.html Astronomy Thu, 29 Oct 2020 09:04:08 EDT news523181045 Centaurs are minor planets believed to have originated in the Kuiper Belt in the outer solar system. They sometimes have comet-like features such as tails and comae—clouds of dust particles and gas—even though they orbit in a region between Jupiter and Neptune where it is too cold for water to readily sublimate, or transition, directly from a solid to a gas. https://phys.org/news/2020-10-astronomers-distant-planetary.html Astronomy Wed, 28 Oct 2020 11:00:02 EDT news523100456 The jig may be up for an "asteroid" that's expected to get nabbed by Earth's gravity and become a mini moon next month. https://phys.org/news/2020-10-fake-asteroid-nasa-expert-ids.html Space Exploration Sun, 11 Oct 2020 17:14:15 EDT news521655248 To understand the significance of the Spitzer Space Telescope on the understanding of our solar system, think of what the steam engine meant for the industrial revolution. https://phys.org/news/2020-10-legacy-spitzer-space-telescope.html Astronomy Fri, 09 Oct 2020 12:07:13 EDT news521464028