https://phys.org/space-news/ en-us The latest science news on astronomy, astrobiology, and space exploration from Phys.org. SpaceX has pulled off its biggest salvage operation yet, recovering its most recently launched Starship from the Indian Ocean. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-spacex-recovers-starship-indian-ocean.html Space Exploration Fri, 28 Aug 2026 13:34:56 EDT news707142863 The evolutionary histories of Earth and Mercury differ fundamentally. The smallest planet, closest to the sun, likely began cooling early on, much like a setting pudding: As early as about 1 billion years after its formation, Mercury's volcanic activity came to a halt, and a solid, continuous "rock skin" formed on the planet's surface. Earth's crust, on the other hand, is still in motion: Volcanism and plate tectonics are constantly stirring up the "Earth pudding." Exactly what Mercury's unique volcanic past looked like and how it shaped its current appearance remain unclear. However, researchers can gain important clues from the composition of its surface. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-mercury-crust-deeper-hotter-volcanic.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 28 Aug 2026 12:40:01 EDT news707135642 The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to launch this weekend aboard a SpaceX rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. When it becomes operational early next year, it will transform our view of the universe. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-nasa-telescope-honors-nancy-grace.html Astronomy Fri, 28 Aug 2026 09:00:01 EDT news707116922 On Sunday, Aug. 30, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is expected to launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The observatory will join the Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990, and the James Webb Space Telescope, launched in 2021, in scanning the vastness of space and potentially finding answers to longstanding mysteries of the universe. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-telescope-roman-reveal-secrets-universe.html Astronomy Fri, 28 Aug 2026 07:40:03 EDT news707113621 A team of researchers led by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Chemistry has uncovered a faster way large carbon-based molecules may form in space, helping solve a long-standing mystery about how some of the building blocks of the universe grow. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-discovery-reveals-rapid-pathways-complex.html Astrobiology Thu, 27 Aug 2026 18:30:02 EDT news707070961 In dark skies at night, distant starlight twinkles and speaks to vast cosmic histories almost as old as time itself. New data from instruments such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope are helping astrophysicists probe deep cosmic mysteries, including the evolution of black holes and galaxies. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-astrid-billion-years-black-hole.html Astronomy Thu, 27 Aug 2026 17:10:01 EDT news707067781 Most of the stars in our Milky Way galaxy sit neatly on a flat plane. But the space around our galaxy is much more chaotic. Rogue bands of stars called "stellar streams" orbit the Milky Way much like planets in our solar system orbit the sun. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-milky-gravity-mimic-dark-clues.html Astronomy Thu, 27 Aug 2026 17:00:01 EDT news707063221 During the Aug. 12 total solar eclipse over Europe, scientists aimed to study a long-standing mystery: why the sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, is far hotter than its visible surface. Capturing the data they needed meant being in exactly the right place at the right time. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-nasa-johnson-moon-shadow-eclipse.html Space Exploration Thu, 27 Aug 2026 11:40:04 EDT news707047621 Lights blink on as I enter the Rover Operations Center at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, at 7:30 a.m. I'm the first to arrive, even though I already feel late. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-mars-rovers-scientists-groundlevel-view.html Astrobiology Thu, 27 Aug 2026 10:40:03 EDT news707042402 The latest Swedish-led search for technosignatures in the form of Dyson spheres has again come up empty-handed. The two latest stellar candidates in the hunt for such hypothetical extraterrestrial technology have been eliminated as Dyson spheres. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-nasa-webb-telescope-dyson-sphere.html Astronomy Thu, 27 Aug 2026 10:00:03 EDT news707038166 Venus appears pale yellow in visible light, but ultraviolet images reveal dramatic dark and bright patterns moving with the planet's upper sulfuric acid clouds. Scientists have known about these markings for roughly a century, yet the chemical identity of the material responsible—the "unknown absorber"—remains unresolved. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-venus-mysterious-clouds-exceptionally-strong.html Astrobiology Thu, 27 Aug 2026 09:00:05 EDT news707039401 As space missions become longer and ambitions for deep-space travel grow, scientists are working to understand how life beyond Earth may affect every system in the human body. Two years after her initial study took flight, Begum Mathyk, MD, and collaborators are continuing to push the frontier of women's health in space, this time by examining how altered gravity may affect female biology. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-clues-space-affect-women-health.html Space Exploration Thu, 27 Aug 2026 08:40:05 EDT news707038065 Doubts about the standard model of cosmology are deepening after a new study identified fundamental problems in a recent analysis that defended the conventional view that the universe is currently undergoing accelerated expansion driven by dark energy. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-crisis-cosmology-critical-problems-defense.html Astronomy Wed, 26 Aug 2026 20:00:01 EDT news706975983 Researchers have discovered a thermal asymmetry deep beneath the surface across Mars' southern hemisphere. Based on gravitational measurements that provide clues to the Red Planet's interior structure, Mars' southern interior is around 200 to 400 degrees Celsius warmer than the planet's northern half and partially molten. The surprising finding adds context to Martian history and the periods during which it may have hosted conditions favorable for life. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-thermal-anomaly-mars-south-pole.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 26 Aug 2026 16:20:08 EDT news706964473 The Roman Space Telescope is designed to directly image exoplanets using complex optomechanical systems developed by the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy https://phys.org/news/2026-08-roman-telescope-aims-image-exoplanets.html Astronomy Wed, 26 Aug 2026 15:00:01 EDT news706962003 Since we cannot look into the interiors of stars and planets, we rely on lab experiments to replicate the physical processes that occur there. Led by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), an international research team has produced the first experimental verification of a theoretically predicted flow state deemed characteristic of the interiors of rapidly rotating celestial bodies. The Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) also participated in the study, which has been published in Physical Review Letters. The results provide a robust experimental basis for testing theoretical models of the processes that occur inside these celestial bodies. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-liquid-gallium-key-regime-rapidly.html Astronomy Wed, 26 Aug 2026 14:40:05 EDT news706961821 Saturn's moon Enceladus sports a thick shell of ice surrounding a liquid water ocean. As though scraped by an enormous claw, four parallel cracks slash across its south pole. Each about 500 meters (1,600 feet) deep, 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) across and 130 kilometers (81 miles) long, the fissures spew water vapor and other materials from the subsurface ocean directly into space. But the origin of these "tiger stripes" is mysterious. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-ocean-motion-enceladus-tiger-stripes.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 26 Aug 2026 13:20:15 EDT news706960681 Stanford researchers have offered an explanation for why some sizzling, lava-covered worlds nestled tightly around their stars can retain their atmospheres. At such close quarters, intense stellar radiation should strip away a planet's air. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-lava-exoplanets-retain-atmospheres-billions.html Astrobiology Wed, 26 Aug 2026 11:40:04 EDT news706957007 It has been a busy month for astronomy. In the midst of an eclipse season bookended by the total solar eclipse on Aug. 12 and the deep partial lunar eclipse coming up this week on Aug. 28, an outbound comet hanging high in the dawn sky just refuses to die: 220P/McNaught. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-comet-220p-mcnaught-encore.html Astronomy Wed, 26 Aug 2026 10:20:11 EDT news706947961 Planets form from disks of gas and dust around young stars, but the gas needed for growth does not last forever. New observations from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) now offer a new view of how this gas escapes and how the process changes as young planetary systems develop. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-jwst-reveals-planets.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Aug 2026 17:50:01 EDT news706897742 Elon Musk's SpaceX announced plans Tuesday to build a $100 billion facility in the southern U.S. state of Louisiana to launch its anticipated Starship megarockets, currently being developed at the company's Texas Starbase. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-spacex-billion-spaceport-louisiana.html Space Exploration Tue, 25 Aug 2026 15:15:04 EDT news706889686 Dark matter is known to make up roughly 85% of all mass in the universe, as evidenced by the way galaxies spin and how galaxy clusters are held together under gravity. Yet despite decades of searching, physicists have never managed to detect the elusive substance directly. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-gamma-ray-awaited-evidence-wimps.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Aug 2026 14:10:01 EDT news706881433 When a star reaches its final stages of life, it ends in a bright, powerful explosion called a supernova and scatters material across the universe. A new study led by a University of Hawai'i at Mānoa researcher has discovered that the moon's mixed-up soil can be read as a cosmic time capsule for exploding stars. The work is published in the journal Physical Review Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-lunar-soil-cosmic-capsule-stars.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Aug 2026 13:40:05 EDT news706874864 Sometimes images are released before anyone realizes they have been photobombed, meaning something unexpected showed up in the background. A team of researchers found a naked photobombing comet in publicly available archival data from the Subaru Telescope, resulting not in mirth but in serious scientific discoveries. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-naked-photobombing-comet-image.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Aug 2026 13:20:05 EDT news706874587 Galaxies are like cosmic gems, each with characteristics including size and shape that make them distinct. A new gallery released today from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes displays a collection of galactic images that showcase this variety. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-gallery-galaxies-nasa-chandra-ray.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Aug 2026 12:56:07 EDT news706881316 The moon's getting its first airport, and it's about to get busy. Within the next two decades, NASA's planned Gateway—humanity's first lunar spaceport—may become a bustling hub for Orion crew capsules, lunar landers, cargo vehicles and astronauts traveling between Earth, the moon and, eventually, destinations in the deep unknown. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-boarding-miles-earth-moon-airport.html Space Exploration Tue, 25 Aug 2026 09:20:03 EDT news706867861 Little red dots may reside in small, dense galaxies with total masses equivalent to around 1 billion times that of the sun, according to research published in Nature Astronomy. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-red-dots-cosmos-big.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Aug 2026 08:00:04 EDT news706858382 The universe is known to be expanding at an accelerating rate. Physicists typically attribute this acceleration to dark energy, a mysterious component of the universe that exerts negative pressure, causing space to expand faster. Dark energy is thought to have become the predominant influence on the universe's evolution around 3–4 billion years ago, at the beginning of what is known as the dark energy era. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-limits-phase-transitions-dark-energy.html Astronomy Tue, 25 Aug 2026 07:00:04 EDT news706783751 A NASA-led team hopes to take a shortcut to direct imaging of extrasolar Earth-like planets. The idea is to use what they call a hybrid telescope composed of an orbital starshade coupled with the next-generation extremely large ground-based optical telescopes. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-nasa-starshade-enable-astronomers-image.html Space Exploration Mon, 24 Aug 2026 19:20:01 EDT news706784267 Around 4.6 billion years ago, the solar system was little more than a giant ball of gas and dust. Over the next few million years, this "solar nebula" underwent a huge transformation, flattening into a disk of matter that then condensed to form the central sun and orbiting planets. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-meteorite-magnetism-sun.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 24 Aug 2026 19:10:01 EDT news706810983