Named Beta Pictoris d, the newly-discovered world is 100 times fainter than Beta Pictoris b -- the first planet discovered around the A5-type star Beta Pictoris -- and is among the lightest exoplanets ever to be imaged from the ground.
The post Astronomers Discover and Directly Image Third Planet in Beta Pictoris System appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
Entre os dias 22 e 25 de julho, a ilha de Santa Maria acolhe a conferência Atlantic Space Hub: Designing the Future of Space, com quatro dias de reflexão e debates sobre o papel dos Açores como centro atlântico para a exploração e investigação espacial.
The post Conferência internacional reúne astronautas e especialistas para debater o futuro espacial dos Açores appeared first on Tek Notícias.
NASA is teaming up with 37 companies to develop the next generation of technologies that could make long-term exploration of the Moon and Mars possible. NASA has chosen 41 proposals from 37 U.S. companies to help develop technologies needed for a sustained human presence on the Moon and eventual crewed missions to Mars. The companies [...]Anil Menon, a NASA flight surgeon, felt crushed nine years ago as his hopes and aspirations collapsed around him.
For the fourth time, he had diligently applied to become an astronaut at the US space agency, seeking to fulfill a lifelong dream. Although he made it to the final round, NASA had once again rejected his application at the end of the grueling process.
"I was so sad, and I admitted defeat," Menon said. "I just did not see a pathway forward. So I pretty much, at that point in time, gave up on being an astronaut. I thought there was a zero percent chance."
© John Kraus/NASA
Anil Menon, a NASA flight surgeon, felt crushed nine years ago as his hopes and aspirations collapsed around him.
For the fourth time, he had diligently applied to become an astronaut at the US space agency, seeking to fulfill a lifelong dream. Although he made it to the final round, NASA had once again rejected his application at the end of the grueling process.
"I was so sad, and I admitted defeat," Menon said. "I just did not see a pathway forward. So I pretty much, at that point in time, gave up on being an astronaut. I thought there was a zero percent chance."
© John Kraus/NASA
NASA is taking another major step toward a permanent Moon base with four new commercial missions that will test technology, deliver science, and help prepare for humanity’s future beyond Earth. NASA has selected three commercial space companies to carry out four new lunar missions in late 2028 through the agency’s Moon Base Program. Astrobotic, Firefly [...]A new NASA orbital image captures Perseverance after completing a marathon across the surface of Mars. NASA’s Perseverance rover has completed the equivalent of a full marathon on Mars, reaching 26.2 miles (42.195 kilometers) after five years and four months of driving across the Red Planet. The milestone came on the 1,890th Martian day, or [...]A new crew arrived at the International Space Station on July 14 on a launch witnessed in person by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman.
The post Isaacman attends Soyuz launch of ISS crew appeared first on SpaceNews.
New images of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4696 from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveal gas filaments funneling material into a spinning disk around a supermassive black hole 800 light-years across.
The post Webb Catches Supermassive Black Hole Feeding from Cosmic Gas Streams appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
Using near-UV spectroscopic data from the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) on the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers discovered four white dwarfs orbiting nearby red dwarf stars.
The post Astronomers Discover Four New White Dwarfs in Solar Neighborhood appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
A new study favors buried explosions over Hollywood-style head-on impacts.NASA this week released a much-anticipated document, known as a "draft Request for Proposals," that provides some clarity about what it expects from US companies attempting to build privately operated space stations in low-Earth orbit.
The stakes are high with this document, known as a draft RFP. The space agency, publicly, has set an end date for the International Space Station of 2030. Although there is likely to be a two-year extension, time is still running short to build, test, and fly a vehicle as complex as a space station. NASA officials and the US Congress have both said they want to avoid a gap in having a human presence in orbit, and this has created considerable urgency about what comes next.
Nearly five years ago the space agency took a concrete step toward filling this gap, awarding funding to three companies to develop space station concepts. Previously, NASA had also provided $140 million to another space station company, Axiom Space. These Space Act Agreements were intended as a prelude to a second phase of the program, which would award substantially more funding to one or two more companies to proceed into the construction and launch of their space stations. But phase two of the program kept getting delayed, in part because Congress dithered on funding.
© NASA
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid Space Telescope has just revealed new evidence for the existence of more than two-and-a-half dozen objects that are among the oldest and most remote in the universe.
These 31 massive objects, known as quasars, rank among the oldest objects astronomers have ever seen, including two that are believed to originate from a period in the universe when our cosmos was only 5% of its current age.
The discoveries, revealed in a new study appearing in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, provide a remarkable look at the earliest generations of galaxies, as well as a rare look at the dynamics of the ancient black holes that once powered them.
As some of the brightest objects anywhere in our universe, quasars are remote objects resembling stars in appearance that emit unprecedented amounts of energy. They are the result of creation processes that involve enormous quantities of gas and dust, which spiral into supermassive black holes.
During the gravity-driven inward acceleration process, immense friction causes temperatures that can reach millions of degrees, which generates large amounts of energy. The resulting celestial features produce enough light to outshine entire galaxies.
Despite their brightness, the 31 newest additions to our growing collection of known quasars were difficult for astronomers to spot, given their extreme distances from Earth. The light that documents their ancient presence in the universe has traveled more than 13 billion years to make its way here, causing it to be extremely faint, and thereby very difficult to distinguish from surrounding stars whose light normally outshines them with ease.
A dozen of the newly discovered collection of quasars date to within the first 770 million years our universe existed. Add to that the fact that two of the ancient objects are believed to have formed just 670 million years after the Big Bang—at such ages, these quasars are among the oldest astronomers have ever observed.
The weight of the discoveries goes beyond just record-breaking astronomical observations, since the data they provide could help astrophysicists unravel some of the most enduring mysteries of cosmology. For instance, these quasars could help to reveal answers to questions about how supermassive black holes grew so quickly while the universe was still in its infancy.
Additionally, studying these energetic ancient giants could help to provide new insights into the formation of the earliest galaxies and the evolution of the universe while it was still in its relative infancy.
The recent research, led by the ESA and with contributions from its partners at NASA, has helped to place the Euclid mission in an ideal place to carry out its mission of mapping billions of galaxies. Doing so may help scientists uncover clues about the questions surrounding mysterious dark energy, which is widely believed to be the force behind the accelerating expansion of the cosmos.
Additionally, the Euclid mission’s findings could be pivotal in helping shape the future work of NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which will continue the quest to unravel the nature of dark energy and help astronomers understand the nature of the universe at large scales. Additional details about the recent quasar discoveries by Euclid can be found at the ESA’s website and on NASA’s FAQ page.
The new findings were detailed in a recent study, “Euclid: Discovery of 31 new quasars at 6.6 < z < 7.8” published in Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.
The post Listening for the echoes of black holes appeared first on MIT School of Science.
High above the remote Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and the northernmost part of Australia, an air-launched rocket fired into space on Independence Day weekend to kick off a weekslong pursuit of a NASA astronomy satellite perilously close to falling out of orbit.
The endeavor to rescue NASA's Swift satellite is the first mission of its kind. NASA put out a call for commercial companies less than a year ago to propose how they could rapidly build and launch a small satellite to latch onto the Swift spacecraft and boost its altitude so that it doesn't come down in a few months.
Katalyst Space Technologies responded with the best offer. NASA awarded the company a contract last September to build and launch a mission to rescue Swift. A little more than nine months later, Katalyst's nearly half-ton Link satellite is safely in orbit. For anyone who follows the space industry, building, testing, and launching a functioning first-of-its-kind satellite of that size in less than a year is a remarkable achievement; it would usually take several years.
© Northrop Grumman
High above the remote Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and the northernmost part of Australia, an air-launched rocket fired into space on Independence Day weekend to kick off a weekslong pursuit of a NASA astronomy satellite perilously close to falling out of orbit.
The endeavor to rescue NASA's Swift satellite is the first mission of its kind. NASA put out a call for commercial companies less than a year ago to propose how they could rapidly build and launch a small satellite to latch onto the Swift spacecraft and boost its altitude so that it doesn't come down in a few months.
Katalyst Space Technologies responded with the best offer. NASA awarded the company a contract last September to build and launch a mission to rescue Swift. A little more than nine months later, Katalyst's nearly half-ton Link satellite is safely in orbit. For anyone who follows the space industry, building, testing, and launching a functioning first-of-its-kind satellite of that size in less than a year is a remarkable achievement; it would usually take several years.
© Northrop Grumman
With the arrival of America’s 250th birthday this Independence Day weekend, NASA is marking the occasion with a patriotic-themed perspective on the cosmos.
Recently, imagery shared by the American space agency revealed a colorful view of red, white, and blue astronomical features from deep space, made possible by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, combined with imagery from multiple telescopes.
The star-spangled result is a colorful composite portrait of cosmic explosions, stellar nurseries, distant galaxies, and other celestial features on par with any brilliant Independence Day fireworks display, albeit at much larger cosmic scales.
In addition to the red, white, and blue celestial imagery, NASA also released a new series of “sonifications” that add layer of enjoyment for audiophiles by transforming astronomical data into sound.
The result is a project that showcases the beauty of the universe as America marks its semiquincentennial.
In a collection of four new images using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the composite views from multiple telescopes offer imagery very fitting for America’s milestone anniversary. Not only that, but they also document several decades of scientific discovery made possible through NASA’s fleet of observatories.
Featured in the new collection of images is Cassiopeia A (the top image in the collection above), notable as one of the most widely-studied supernova remnants anywhere in our galaxy. The new NASA imagery combines X-ray observations from Chandra with infrared data from NASA’s premier space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, in a colorful view of the expanding blast waves emanating from a stellar explosion.
Energetic X-rays captured by Chandra’s powerful eye reveal the presence of iron, oxygen, and calcium, while the layers obtained from the JWST showcase filaments of cosmic dust and stellar debris in the surrounding blast field.
In the other three images NASA revealed in honor of America’s 250th, we see (left to right, bottom, in the image above) NGC 3603, a brilliant star-forming nebula within our galaxy, as well as the spiral galaxy Messier 94 (NGC 4736), where a ring of “baby” stars can be seen encircling its ancient core. Finally, the galaxy cluster ZwCl 0024+1652 is also showcased in the recent images, a location that has become significant in the search for dark matter.
In addition to the stunning images NASA released, sonifications of three of the objects featured in the new collection add a layer of interest by translating scientific data from these distant cosmic features into sound.
The sonification program is led by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Center as part of the agency’s Universe of Learning initiative, a collaboration involving visualization scientist Kimberly Arcand, astrophysicist Matt Russo, musician Andrew Santaguida of the SYSTEM Sounds project, and consultant Christine Malec.
Although the resulting “soundscapes” are not the literal sounds produced by these celestial features, they offer an auditory complement to the astronomical data collected about them, which may be interpreted almost as musical compositions derived from complex datasets.
The result is a cosmic symphony of sorts: sonification of NGC 3603 presents piano notes generated from bright X-ray sources, amid diffuse X-ray emissions that become translated into varying audio frequencies accompanied by sustained tones and guitar harmonics, which can be heard in the video below:
The sonification of Messier 94’s X-ray emissions becomes more abstract, wind-like sounds, while neutron stars and black holes are rendered as subtle tones performed on what sounds like a glass marimba.
Similarly, sonification of ZwCl 0024+1652 features piano tones with airy synthesizers and glockenspiel-like sounds to add a sonic experience to the presence of galaxies, superheated gas, and the inferred distribution of dark matter within this galaxy cluster. You can find all of the recent sonifications here.
With the arrival of the nation’s semiquincentennial, NASA’s recent showcase offers a reminder of the innovation—and the exploration—that our pursuits in space have generated over the last several decades. It also serves as a reminder that the greatest frontiers extend beyond Earth itself, and that the combination of cutting-edge science with art, sound, and visualization helps to highlight the promise of American science and innovation in the decades to come.
Additional details about the new imagery and sonifications can be found on NASA’s website.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.
A long-standing ban on commercial supersonic flights over the United States would be overturned in a new rule proposed by the US Federal Aviation Administration. That could pave the way for the possible return of commercial supersonic airliners—as long as such aircraft can reduce the ground-level impacts of their sonic booms.
The FAA originally banned overland supersonic flights by civil aircraft in 1973, following US military tests involving supersonic flights over US cities such as Oklahoma City, Chicago, and St. Louis in the 1960s. But the Trump administration has championed the repeal of the ban to pave the way for supersonic airliners that could operate without disruptive sonic booms. So the FAA’s new rulemaking action on June 30, 2026, follows the direction of an executive order issued by President Trump on June 6, 2025.
The newly proposed rule would replace the 53-year prohibition with an interim “noise-based” certification standard requiring any sonic boom overpressure at the surface to be kept below 0.11 pounds per square foot. That proposed standard is based on the Colorado-based startup Boom Supersonic having demonstrated quiet Mach cutoff flights with its XB-1 aircraft—harnessing specific atmospheric conditions while flying just beyond supersonic speeds at higher altitudes so that the aircraft’s shockwaves are refracted upward into the atmosphere rather than traveling to the ground.
© Boom Supersonic
NASA recently captured a summertime spectacle in orbital imagery of the Black Sea, as eerie-looking swirls of turquoise could be seen swarming in its waters.
The curious curling features were observed by astronauts aboard the International Space Station in May, and more recently by the Ocean Color Instrument (OCI) on NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, Ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite on June 22, 2026, as it passed over the body of water that marks the boundary between Europe and Asia.
The vibrant oceanic display is believed to be the result of summertime blooms of coccolithophores, which begin surging in ocean waters near the shoreline in warmer weather months.
These phytoplankton are armored in plates composed of calcium carbonate, which can often cause discoloration in ocean waters as the blooms occur, which are driven by nutrients entering ocean waters that are often carried from inland sources.
Earlier this year, a similar turquoise spectacle occurred in Atlantic waters along the eastern United States, as coccolithophores surged in numbers as temperatures rose, and meltwater in mountainous regions made its way downstream, carrying vital nutrients which were deposited in coastal waters after they made their way downstream.
Unlike coccolithophores, which generally brighten the color of ocean water in the spring and early summer, later in the year another kind of microscopic organism, known as diatoms, can darken the water due to the silica shells that encase their microscopic bodies.
Similar orbital color shows were observed in recent weeks within the narrow waters of the Bosporus Strait, which separates Turkey as it parts Asia Minor and Thrace. In the recent photos obtained from the ISS, the entire Bosporus can be seen illuminated in turquoise as its waters have been flooded with coccolithophores.
Apart from the odd but beautiful swirling patterns they produce as these phytoplankton are carried by ocean currents, these colorful creatures also provide a more practical benefit, since they can be leveraged by remote sensing technologies to help study the dynamics of these blooms when they occur.
Additionally, these microscopic creatures can also make significant contributions to oceanic carbon cycles, since the creatures sink to the seafloor at the end of their life cycles, carrying carbon they’ve absorbed with them. Once deposited on the ocean floor, this carbon can be maintained at such depths for long periods.
Additional information about the recent coccolithophore blooms in the Black Sea, along with other imagery of our planet as seen from space, can be found at NASA’s Earth Observatory page.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.
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