Mike

@centyone

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Astronomers have discovered a long-missing element of a galactic collision involving the Perseus galaxy cluster, located 240 million light-years from Earth. This element, a newly detected "subcluster," is 1.4 million light-years to the west of NGC 1275, the central galaxy of the Perseus cluster. These two elements seem to be connected by a faint "bridge" of material. The structural backbone of this bridge is dark matter, the universe's most mysterious "stuff." Dark matter remains effectively invisible by not interacting with light, but its interaction with gravity has helped to shape galactic structures.

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Our neighboring Andromeda Galaxy (Messier 31, or M31) appears to sport a lopsided arrangement of satellite galaxies that defy scientific models, stumping astronomers who are also trying to figure out why so many of this galaxy's family members point in our direction. All but one of M31's brightest 37 satellites are on the side of the Andromeda spiral that faces our Milky Way galaxy – the odd one out being Messier 110, which is easily visible in amateur images of the Andromeda Galaxy. "M31 is the only system that we know of that demonstrates such an extreme degree of asymmetry," Kosuke Jamie Kanehisa of the Institut für Physik und Astronomie at Universität Potsdam in Germany told Space.com

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While slowly climbing the slopes of Mount Sharp — a towering peak inside Mars' Gale Crater — NASA's Curiosity rover made a remarkable discovery: large deposits of carbon locked away in carbonate minerals. That may sound a little dry at first, but in reality this find could be a major piece of the puzzle in our search for ancient life on the Red Planet. Carbonate minerals form when carbon dioxide interacts with water and rock, making them an important marker of past environmental conditions. Scientists have spotted these minerals before on Mars — by rovers on the ground, orbiters above, and even in Martian meteorites that fell to Earth — but Curiosity's latest data adds exciting new details. "It tells us that the planet was habitable and that the models for habitability are correct," said the study's lead author, Ben Tutolo, associate professor with the Department of Earth, Energy and Environment in the Faculty of Science at the University of Calgary, in a statement.

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The universe's largest structure, the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, was already a challenge to explain with models of the universe due to its incredibly vast size — and now, using the most powerful blasts of energy in the universe, Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), astronomers have discovered this structure is even bigger than they realized. Plus, the team even found that parts of the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall are actually closer to Earth than previously suspected. The Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall is a so-called "supercluster" of galaxies; it's a filament of the cosmic web around which the first galaxies in the universe gathered and grew. Its name was coined by Johndric Valdez, a Filipino teenager who aspires to be an astronomer. That name isn't very literal, however. This is because the round-shaped Great Wall spans not just the constellations Hercules and Corona Borealis but also the region of the celestial sphere from the constellations Boötes to Gemini.

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NASA's oldest active astronaut has redefined traveling "home" for your birthday, landing from the International Space Station on the same day that he turned 70. Don Pettit touched down on Saturday (April 19) with his Soyuz MS-26 crewmates, Aleksey Ovchinin, 53, and Ivan Vagner, 39. The U.S. astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts reached the ground in Kazakhstan at 9:20 p.m. EDT (0120 GMT or 6:20 a.m. local time April 20), seven months after they left Earth aboard the same spacecraft. Pettit was born on April 20, 1955, in Silverton, Oregon, but said that the feeling of being home is relative to where you have been.

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Scientists announced on Friday (April 18) that the newest solar investigator in town has captured its first-light images — or should I say the newest solar investigators. That is, this NASA sun-studying mission, named PUNCH, is technically made up of four small satellites that are strategically distributed in our planet's orbit. The quartet is designed, however, to work together as a single instrument with the power to decode some of our star's biggest mysteries. "All four instruments are functioning as designed. We're excited to finish on-orbit commissioning and get these cameras working together," Craig DeForest, at the Solar System Science and Exploration Division of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, said in a statement.

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Scientists have found further evidence of possible biosignature gases on the nearby exoplanet K2-18b, strengthening the case that it could support alien life. In 2023, researchers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reported the potential presence of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) on K2-18b, which is nearly nine times more massive than Earth and circles in the "habitable zone" of a star about 120 light-years away from us. Here on Earth, DMS is produced primarily by life — most prolifically by phytoplankton and other marine microbes — so the 2023 study was met with some enthusiasm. The excitement was tempered, however, by the preliminary nature of the find; JWST's observations were consistent with the presence of DMS but did not confirm it. So the study team looked again, but in a slightly different way this time.

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Aurora chasers, get ready! The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has issued a geomagnetic storm warning due to an incoming one-two punch from the sun, and we have possibly received the first blow. The predicted G3-level storm conditions could bring northern lights as far south as Illinois and Oregon (typically 50° geomagnetic latitude) tonight. The incoming "punch" from the sun is expected to arrive in the form of two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that are expected to strike Earth in succession. The CMEs were launched during a rare double eruption of solar magnetic filaments on April 12 and April 13. Arriving hours earlier than expected, a CME struck Earth's magnetic field at 1 p.m. ET (1700 GMT) on April 15, according to Spaceweather.com.

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A stunning new image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is allowing astronomers to examine the complex and turbulent final stages of a dying star's life. The snapshot above showcases NGC 1514, a planetary nebula that resides roughly 1,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus. Despite the term, however, NGC 1514 has nothing to do with planets. Instead, at its heart, there are two stars. These stars appear as a single point of light in the James Webb Space Telescope's view, and this point of light is encircled by an arc of orange dust. Of particular interest to astronomers is the nebula's faint, Venn-diagram-like structure — two rings of ejected material shaped by the gravitational influence of the central stars. Scientists say the rings offer a unique opportunity to dissect the complex interplay of stellar outflow over eons.

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In this era of commercial space travel, Blue Origin has become a major player in turning the dream of spaceflight into reality for people with the means — including some celebrities. Case in point: Pop star Katy Perry and journalist Gayle King are part of Blue Origin's upcoming all-female spaceflight, which is set to launch on Monday (April 14). That mission, known as NS-31, also includes Aisha Bowe, Kerianne Flynn, Amanda Nguyen and Lauren Sánchez (the partner of Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos), all of them notable figures in their own right.

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The farthest, smallest and faintest full moon of the year rises this weekend — and you can watch it live online. April's full moon — also called the Pink Moon, or Paschal Moon — rises Saturday (April 12) and peaks at 8:22 p.m. EDT (0022 GMT April 13). While it won't appear pink, this month's full moon will look slightly smaller and dimmer in the night sky because the moon will be farthest from Earth, also known as apogee. That's why it's said to be a "micromoon." The Virtual Telescope Project will provide a view of the micromoon using its robotic telescopes in Manciano, Italy. The project's free online livestream will begin at 8:00 p.m. EDT on Saturday (0000 GMT on April 13), as the moon reaches its full phase. You can watch the livestream here on Space.com courtesy of the Virtual Telescope Project or directly on their WebTV page or YouTube channel.

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We've all woken up in a terrible mood from time to time, but a newly observed monster black hole is really having a bad day. The previously inactive supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy SDSS1335+0728, located about 300 million light-years away from us, was seen erupting with the longest and most powerful X-ray blasts ever seen from such a cosmic titan. This active phase marks the start of the supermassive black hole devouring matter around it and erupting with short-lived flaring events called quasiperiodic eruptions (QPEs).

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Skywatchers, get ready for a dazzling lunar display this weekend: April's full moon, known as the Pink Moon or Paschal Moon, will rise on the evening of Saturday, April 12. While it won't appear pink, this full moon holds a special distinction — it's the smallest full moon of the year, also known as a "micromoon". This is because April's full moon occurs when the moon is farthest from Earth in its orbit (known as apogee), making it appear slightly smaller and dimmer than usual, though the difference may be hard to spot with the naked eye.

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Humans are quite rightly fascinated by black holes, but could we ever harness them as an energy source? New research poses this question in order to explore some of the most wonderous cosmic events. Black holes are bounded by outer barriers called event horizons that prevent us from ever viewing their interiors or their hearts, singularities at which all known laws of physics collapse. This means black holes couldn't be more mysterious. Black holes are also unlike anything found on Earth or in the solar system in another respect: their sheer power. When surrounded by matter, black holes can be responsible for the most energetic phenomena in the known universe, including quasars that outshine the combined light of the billions of stars found in the galaxies that contain them. It's little wonder that physicists have long pondered if some of this energy could be harvested.

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ASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) just released a stunning image of the NGC 346 star cluster from the Hubble Space Telescope — but it isn't quite "new." Rather, it's an old photo from the Hubble Space Telescope's archives that has been augmented with additional data and processing techniques as a part of a new image series that celebrates Hubble's 35th anniversary. "This view includes new data and is the first to combine Hubble observations made at infrared, optical and ultraviolet wavelengths into an intricately detailed view of this vibrant star-forming factory," ESA wrote in a statement.

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Gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful kinds of explosions known in the cosmos, may help provide a piece of the puzzle when it comes to one of the most challenging open problems in all of physics — how the universe's heaviest elements are forged. A new study's findings suggest that extraordinarily powerful light from gamma-ray bursts might help produce these elements from the outer shells of dying stars.

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If all goes to plan, scientists may someday begin building outposts on the moon — and some experts believe that these outposts could be constructed with bricks made out of lunar regolith. And now, a new study based on lunar regolith simulant experiments suggests that if these moon-dust bricks crack, bacteria could be used to seal them back up. Using as many local lunar resources as possible to construct a base on the moon is essential to keep costs down; launching large masses of material from Earth to the moon is very expensive. Thus, making bricks out of lunar regolith has long been mooted as a potential solution. Many teams around the world, including researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), have been experimenting making these kinds of bricks with lunar regolith simulants.

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If you're lucky enough to have clear skies tonight, you can catch a "mini planet parade" as Mars and Jupiter appear alongside a half-lit moon in the southwestern sky. All three bodies will be visible in the western sky at sunset tonight (April 5) as seen from mid-latitudes in the United States. Mars will be closest to the moon, separated by just 2 degrees in the sky as seen from Earth. (Your fist at arm's length equals around 10 degrees.) The pair will be in the Gemini constellation.

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The first four humans to orbit over Earth's north and south poles have safely returned to Earth. SpaceX's private Fram2 mission splashed down today (April 4) at 12:18 p.m. ET (1618 GMT), softly parachuting down into the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Oceanside, California. Their return wraps up about three and half days spent in space, completing the first crewed mission to fly a polar orbit around Earth. "We have confirmation of splashdown of the Dragon spacecraft. Dragon has returned home with the Fram2 crew," SpaceX officials said on the mission's livestream.

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The recent VLT observations were taken as part of a larger study on how winds move in galaxies. The MUSE data shows that the galactic winds observed in NGC 4945 speed up as they travel away from the central black hole, toward the outskirts of the galaxy. This is unusual behavior, given galactic winds generally slow down as they travel further outwards in a galaxy.

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