https://phys.org/space-news/ en-us The latest science news on astronomy, astrobiology, and space exploration from Phys.org. The new focus on manned missions to the moon and Mars presents countless pressing challenges, including keeping humans alive in hostile environments. What happens when an astronaut or space tourist has a cardiac emergency millions of miles from the nearest hospital? https://phys.org/news/2026-05-cpr-simulator-space-tracks-differences.html Space Exploration Tue, 05 May 2026 19:40:01 EDT news697204081 A half century after NASA's Apollo 17 lunar module lifted off the moon's northeastern near side quadrant, planetary scientists still don't completely understand when or how our moon first formed. They do agree that it involved a major impactor—an object dubbed Theia by lunar scientists—that likely struck Earth some 4.51 billion years ago. But the estimated size of Theia now ranges from a proto-Mercury-sized object all the way up to an object that was about half the size of present-day Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-moon-formation-mystery-ways.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 05 May 2026 19:00:01 EDT news697212961 A new paper from NASA's Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project announces that volunteers have essentially doubled the number of known brown dwarfs, with over 3,000 new discoveries made over the past 10 years since the project began. Brown dwarfs are balls of gas the size of Jupiter, less massive than stars. There's one for every three or four stars near the sun. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-planet-volunteers-population-brown-dwarfs.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 05 May 2026 18:00:04 EDT news697203249 NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this view of Thebe, the second largest of Jupiter's inner moons, during a close pass on May 1, 2026. The spacecraft's Stellar Reference Unit (SRU) captured this image from a distance of approximately 3,100 miles (5,000 kilometers) at a resolution of about 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) per pixel. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-juno-flyby-sharp-image-jupiter.html Astronomy Tue, 05 May 2026 18:00:02 EDT news697209601 This series of images shows NASA's Curiosity Mars rover as it got a rock stuck to the drill on the end of its robotic arm, and—after waving the arm and running the drill a few times—finally detached the rock. The imagery showing the entire process was captured by the black-and-white hazard cameras on the front of Curiosity's chassis and by navigation cameras on its mast (head). https://phys.org/news/2026-05-nasa-curiosity-rover-frees-drill.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 05 May 2026 17:50:01 EDT news697216441 A collaborative team of scientists has discovered that life on Earth over three billion years ago relied on the metal molybdenum, which was incredibly scarce in the environment at the time. The study, published in Nature Communications, is the first to show that molybdenum was used by ancient life this far back in our planet's history. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-billion-years-earth-life-rare.html Astrobiology Tue, 05 May 2026 16:50:01 EDT news697215543 An international team of astronomers has analyzed the data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to investigate giant molecular clouds in nearby galaxies. The new study, presented April 27 on the arXiv preprint server, unveils crucial information regarding the lifetime of more than 100,000 such clouds across 66 galaxies. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-astronomers-lifetime-molecular-clouds-galaxies.html Astronomy Tue, 05 May 2026 12:40:06 EDT news697193343 Across the Milky Way galaxy, a planetary odd couple is circling a star some 190 light years from Earth. A normally "lonely" hot Jupiter is sharing space with a mini-Neptune, in a rare and unlikely pairing that's had astronomers puzzled since the system's discovery in 2020. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-jwst-pins-planetary-odd-couple.html Astronomy Tue, 05 May 2026 12:00:01 EDT news697196142 Also known as Endurance, MK1 is an uncrewed cargo lander. It's a commercial demonstration mission to advance Human Landing System capabilities in support of NASA's Artemis program. The tests in Chamber A represent a public-private partnership model, with Blue Origin conducting work through a reimbursable Space Act Agreement. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-blue-moon-lander-nasa-vacuum.html Space Exploration Tue, 05 May 2026 11:20:04 EDT news697192021 Io is a world of extremes. It is by far the most volcanically active world in our solar system. Being continually squeezed in the never-ending tug-of-war between Jupiter and its larger satellites will do that to a moon. As a result, Io has over 400 "paterae"—volcanic depressions that spew lava up onto its surface. And, according to a new paper available in pre-print on arXiv and utilizing data from Juno's Jupiter InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) tool, we have been massively underestimating the power output of those paterae for decades. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-massively-underestimated-io-thermal-output.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 04 May 2026 18:40:03 EDT news697126088 Using various telescopes, an international team of astronomers has performed multi-wavelength observations of a recently identified gamma-ray burst source designated GRB 250416C. Results of the observational campaign, published April 23 on the v pre-print server, could help us better understand the nature of GRB 250416C and gamma-ray bursts in general. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-optically-dark-gamma-ray-reveals.html Astronomy Mon, 04 May 2026 14:40:09 EDT news697112740 A new publication from Bielefeld University sets a benchmark in optimization research. Together with an international team, Professor Michael Römer from the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics has developed a mathematical framework that solves a complex problem from space logistics exactly for the first time: the optimal planning of a route to visit several asteroids under conditions that are as close to reality as possible. The study is published in the INFORMS Journal on Computing. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mathematical-framework-asteroid-route.html Space Exploration Mon, 04 May 2026 12:40:04 EDT news697112882 A team of professional and amateur Japanese astronomers have found evidence for a thin atmosphere around a small body in the outer solar system. The object is so small that it should not have a sustainable atmosphere, raising questions about when and how the atmosphere formed. Future observations to better characterize the atmosphere will help solve these mysteries. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-tiny-world-neptune-atmosphere-shouldnt.html Astronomy Mon, 04 May 2026 11:00:09 EDT news697097941 Astronomers recently carried out a comprehensive search for strange "winged" radio galaxies using data from the LOFAR Two-meter Sky Survey Data Release 2 (LoTSS DR2) and discovered over 1,000 new systems. The paper outlining these results was submitted to the arXiv preprint server on April 24, 2026. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-astronomers-uncover-radio-galaxies-wings.html Astronomy Mon, 04 May 2026 10:40:09 EDT news697104312 Our most massive satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), has been the center of a heated debate in the astrophysics community over the last few years. That debate centers on whether this is the LMC's first or second "pass" by the Milky Way itself—and it has huge implications for the evolution of our galaxy given the disruption such a large grouping of stars has. A new paper from Scott Lucchini, Jiwon Jesse Han, Sapna Mishra, and Andrew J. Fox and his co-authors, currently available on the arXiv preprint server, provides what they claim to be definitive evidence that this is, in fact, the first time LMC has encountered the Milky Way. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-large-magellanic-cloud-visitor.html Astronomy Mon, 04 May 2026 10:20:07 EDT news697106221 Rogue planets sound like rare travelers among the stars, freed from the gravitational constraints of a host system, left to forever wander the interstellar void. But modern models suggest these free floating planets (FFPs) as they are technically known, are actually very common—19 times more common than planets beyond the "snow line," which is the distance from the central star where it becomes cold enough that hydrogen compounds like water, ammonia, and methane can condense into ice. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-planets-bouncers-rogue-worlds.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 04 May 2026 08:40:06 EDT news697101601 Using MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) on board the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a team of researchers led by former MPIA (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany) Ph.D. student Sebastian Zieba (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, U.S.) and Laura Kreidberg, MPIA Director and study PI (principal investigator), analyzed the surface composition of the rocky exoplanet LHS 3844 b. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-astronomers-explore-surface-composition-nearby.html Astronomy Mon, 04 May 2026 05:00:01 EDT news696851882 The Eta Aquarid meteor shower soon will light the sky with debris from Halley's comet. But a bright moon will spoil the fun this year, making the display harder to glimpse. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-bright-moon-dim-eta-aquarid.html Space Exploration Sun, 03 May 2026 06:40:22 EDT news697009166 Solar radio bursts are intrinsically linked to the motion of their emitting source through the coronal and heliospheric plasma. Electron transport is mostly confined to magnetic field lines. These electrons move at a substantial fraction of the speed of light and often generate radio emission via the plasma emission process. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-solar-radio-reveal-hidden-magnetic.html Astronomy Sat, 02 May 2026 19:30:01 EDT news696784894 Exoplanet science and the search for life beyond Earth continue to advance at break-neck speeds, with the number of confirmed exoplanets by NASA rapidly approaching 6,300, with 223 of those exoplanets being designated as terrestrial (rocky) exoplanets. With the promise of discovering an increasing number of Earth-sized exoplanets increasing every day, new telescopes from across the world have the opportunity to contribute to this incredible field. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-canada-poet-mission-earth-sized.html Space Exploration Sat, 02 May 2026 18:00:01 EDT news696681018 Millions of people watched the historic launch of Artemis II and were captivated by the mission's 10-day journey around the moon as NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen ventured farther into space than any human before. Part of the public's ability to experience the mission in high-definition was due to laser communications. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-nasa-laser-terminal-views-artemis.html Space Exploration Fri, 01 May 2026 20:40:01 EDT news696844161 The astronauts on Artemis II's trip to the moon in April 2026 didn't just have an amazing journey through space. They also saw something extraordinary. They were the first humans to see a total solar eclipse from space. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-eclipse-earth-aweinspiring-astronauts-space.html Space Exploration Fri, 01 May 2026 14:00:17 EDT news696856262 There are tens of thousands of near-Earth objects (NEOs) that represent some of the most easily accessible resources in the solar system. Planning trajectories to rendezvous with these miniature worlds is notoriously difficult, and requires a massive amount of computational power to calculate. But a new paper from astrodynamicist Alessandro Beolchi of Khalifa University of Science and Technology and his co-authors offers a much less computationally intensive way to find these trajectories, and has the added bonus of finding much less energy-intensive paths to boot. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-trajectories-asteroids.html Space Exploration Fri, 01 May 2026 13:20:07 EDT news696850261 You're on the fourth human mission to Mars, and you're told the Odyssey spacecraft designed to take you there will be the smoothest ride you'll ever take. It features a newly christened electric propulsion engine which was in the late stages of testing during the first three missions. The mission starts and the spacecraft travels at a crawl, and you wonder if it's broken. A week goes by and you're now traveling at more than 400,000 kilometers (250,000 miles) per hour, and your mind is blown as to how fast you're going, how quickly that happened, and that this mission might be more awesome than you thought. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-lithium-plasma-key-mars-propulsion.html Space Exploration Fri, 01 May 2026 12:20:06 EDT news696847982 The Copernicus Sentinel-1D satellite, launched last November, is now fully operational after successfully completing its critical in-orbit commissioning phase. With all four Sentinel-1 satellites having now been deployed, this achievement marks a major milestone for this flagship radar mission—a journey that began more than a decade ago and that has helped pave the way for the future of Earth observation. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-sentinel-1d-milestone-europe-radar.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 01 May 2026 11:40:04 EDT news696847261 Chinese astronomers report the discovery of DESI-HVS1, which may be an old metal-poor hypervelocity star of galactic center origin. The finding, based on the data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) and ESA's Gaia satellite, was detailed in a research paper published April 23 on the arXiv pre-print server. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-desi-hvs1-hypervelocity-star-ejected.html Astronomy Fri, 01 May 2026 10:00:03 EDT news696763810 Early May is a good time to watch for a powerful yet often elusive meteor shower, the annual Eta Aquariids. They're a prolific, yet often elusive for northern hemisphere observers. If skies are clear, watch for a strong annual meteor shower that's attained an almost mythical status: the May Eta Aquariids. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-elusive-eta-aquariid-meteors.html Astronomy Fri, 01 May 2026 09:40:04 EDT news696843662 Expose an animal to extreme physical stress, and the expectation is simple: It will break down. But when UC Riverside scientists subjected fruit flies to forces many times stronger than Earth's gravity—a condition called hypergravity—the insects did something unexpected. They survived. They even mated and reproduced. Their movements and behaviors changed dramatically and then, over time, they recovered. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-hypergravity-fruit-flies-recover.html Space Exploration Fri, 01 May 2026 09:40:03 EDT news696845581 When you're looking for signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, it helps to know what you're looking for and to go about it in the most efficient way. But work so far has generally not done so, writes Benjamin Zuckerman, an astrophysicist and emeritus professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). https://phys.org/news/2026-04-extraterrestrial-intelligence.html Astrobiology Fri, 01 May 2026 08:30:01 EDT news696769964 Our sun is a bit of an outlier in the general stellar population. We typically think of stars as being solitary wanderers throughout the galaxy. But roughly half of sun-like stars are locked in with more than one companion star. If there are two, it's known as a "binary" system, but in many cases there are even more stars all collectively tied together by gravity. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-binary-stars.html Astronomy Fri, 01 May 2026 07:00:01 EDT news696834241