Mike

@centyone

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That's the message from a team of planetary scientists, who have explained Venus' apparent dearth of large craters by discovering that impacts could have produced the mysterious "tesserae" formations on the Venusian surface. Tesserae are large sometimes continent-size expanses of terrain that have been deformed and covered with wrinkle ridges, which make the landforms look like sheets of corrugated iron. They are formed by lava welling up to the surface, where it cools and hardens, while denser material left in the mantle below a tessera forms a plateau made from a substance called residuum. Sometimes that residuum can be swept away by the flowing mantle around it, allowing the tessera to sink back down to surface level. Now, a team of planetary scientists consisting of Ivan López at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, Evan Bjonnes of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and Vicki Hansen of Arizona's Planetary Science Institute, has connected these tesserae regions with impacts.

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Today, NASA's Parker Solar Probe will complete its seventh swing past Venus — the spacecraft's final maneuver around the amber planet — in a flyby that will nudge the probe on a trajectory that will take it within 3.8 million miles of the sun's surface. That will be the closest that any human-built object has come to our star. "We are basically almost landing on a star," Nour Raouafi, an astrophysicist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and project scientist for the Parker Solar Probe mission, told BBC News earlier this year. "This will be a monumental achievement for all humanity. This is equivalent to the moon landing of 1969."

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Astronomers have discovered a "dead star" neutron star is spinning at an incredible 716 times a second, making it the joint fastest-spinning cosmic body ever seen. Not only this, but the neutron star's surface is also erupting with explosions as powerful as detonating atomic bombs. The team discovered the extreme stellar remnant using NASA's X-ray telescope Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), which is mounted on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS). The exploding speed demon neutron star in question is part of the binary system 4U 1820-30, which sits in the globular cluster NGC 6624, which is located toward the heart of the Milky Way around 26 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Sagittarius.

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The planet Venus, which has been languishing low in the dusk from late summer through early fall, at last manages to stay above the west-southwest horizon until a half hour after the end of evening twilight. About 45 minutes after sunset on Monday, look toward the southwest horizon to see Venus hovering near to the moon; an eye-catching tableau in spite of the pair's low altitude. Venus will likely catch your eye first; it will be shining only 10 degrees above the horizon – equal to the width of your clenched fist held at arm's length. Make sure that you have a clear and unobstructed view – no trees or buildings – toward the southwest. Now look below and slightly to the left of Venus and you'll also see the slender sliver of a waxing crescent moon. This eye-catching duo will quickly descend as the sky darkens, finally setting just over 1.5 hours after sunset beyond the southwest horizon.

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Neil Turok is the Higgs Chair of Theoretical Physics at the University of Edinburgh. We live in a golden age for learning about the universe. Our most powerful telescopes have revealed that the cosmos is surprisingly simple on the largest visible scales. Likewise, our most powerful “microscope”, the Large Hadron Collider, has found no deviations from known physics on the tiniest scales.

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The whirling Earth shines brightly in fresh imagery taken from the space station. NASA astronaut Don Pettit, known for his long-exposure photographs from the International Space Station (ISS), recently captured views above Mexico and the United States showing city lights streaking by 250 miles (400 kilometers) beneath him. Pettit also managed to glimpse the aurora, or northern lights, on the horizon. These glowing hues appear when energetic particles from the sun interact with Earth's upper atmosphere.

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Over the last few decades, planetary scientists have been steadily adding to the list of moons in our solar system that may harbor interior oceans either currently or at some point in their past. For the most part, these moons (such as Europa or Enceladus) have been gravitationally bound to the gas giants Jupiter or Saturn. Recently, though, planetary scientists have been turning their attention further afield, towards the ice giant Uranus, the coldest planet in the solar system. And now, new research based on images taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft has suggested that Miranda, a small Uranian icy moon, may have once possessed a deep liquid water ocean beneath its surface.

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Two of the world's most powerful space telescopes have spied a "spooky pair" of galaxies in deep space, staring out like a pair of "blood-soaked" eyes — and just in time for Halloween. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and Hubble Space Telescope teamed up to image two spiral galaxies known as IC 2163 and NGC 2207 as they appeared millions of years ago. That's because the pair of colliding galaxies resides some 80 million light-years away in the Canis Major constellation, the "Big Dog," which means the light they emit takes that long to reach Earth. This pair of galaxies is currently in the process of colliding and merging into one, a process that will take around a billion years. "Stare deeply at these galaxies," the JWST team wrote in a statement accompanying the new images. "They appear as if blood is pumping through the top of a flesh-free face. The long, ghastly 'stare' of their searing eye-like cores shines out into the supreme cosmic darkness." Spooky!

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Following recent communication issues, NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft resorted to using a backup radio transmitter that has been inactive since 1981. The interstellar explorer experienced a brief pause in communications after putting itself in a protective state to conserve power. This was triggered by a command sent on Oct. 16 from NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) — a global array of giant radio antennas — instructing the spacecraft to turn on one of its heaters. The mission's flight team first realized there was an issue with Voyager 1 on Oct. 18, when the spacecraft failed to respond to that command. The team later discovered that the spacecraft had turned off its primary X-band radio transmitter and instead switched over to its secondary S-band radio transmitter, which uses less power, according to a statement from NASA.

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What is the amount of greenhouse warming required to heat up the cold climes of Mars enough so that trees can grow on the Red Planet? New research points to how much you’ve got to jack up the carbon dioxide (CO2) on Mars to support plant growth, to raise the planet’s temperatures just enough for trees to grow. Surprisingly, the conditions that would allow plant growth on the Red Planet do not occur first in the "tropics" of the planet.

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The European Space Agency (ESA) is charting a bold course for the future, aiming to solidify Europe's position in space exploration through the "Explore 2040" initiative. Josef Aschbacher, director-general of ESA, emphasized the need for Europe to increase its space activities during an Oct. 16 talk at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) 2024 in Milan. The agency is now building a strategy to define its future. One key pillar of this is exploration. "We have a process with our Member States called Explore 2040, which is a perspective at the horizon of 2040 and where Europe can go," Daniel Neuenschwander, director of human and robotic exploration at ESA, said in Milan.

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On Oct. 14, NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft began a vital mission. It will be investigating the potential habitability of Jupiter's icy ocean moon Europa — but first, it has to get there. Though not on an "alien hunting" mission, as some have described it, there's no doubt that the Europa Clipper is an important step forward in our understanding of life elsewhere in the solar system. Europa is thought to harbor some of the essential elements for life under its thick and icy shell, including complex chemicals and water, so the Europa Clipper is tasked with decoding the habitability conditions of this Jovian moon. In doing so, it will help scientists better plan for missions that may have the potential to indeed hunt for living things, even if only by eliminating a once promising target.

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What if we dropped the "terrestrial" from "extraterrestrial"? Scientists recently explored the intriguing possibility that alien life may not need a planet to support itself. At first glance, planets seem like the ideal locations to find life. After all, the only known place life is known to exist is Earth's surface. And Earth is pretty nice. Our planet has a deep gravitational well that keeps everything in place and a thick atmosphere that keeps surface temperatures in the right ranges to maintain liquid water. We have an abundance of elements like carbon and oxygen to form the building blocks of biological organisms. And we have plenty of sunlight beaming at us, providing an essentially limitless source of free energy. It's from this basic setup that we organize our searches for life elsewhere in the universe. Sure, there might be exotic environments or crazy chemistries involved, but we still assume that life exists on planets because planets are so naturally suited to life as we know it.

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The astronauts of Crew-8 were taken to a Florida hospital as a precaution, shortly after their successful splashdown on Friday (Oct. 25), NASA said. The SpaceX Crew-8 group of four astronauts was evaluated at Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola, a hospital nearby their splashdown site in the Atlantic Ocean, a NASA representative told Space.com via email. A newer update from NASA issued at 1:30 p.m. EDT (1730 GMT) said one astronaut, described as "in stable condition," will remain behind in the hospital "as a precautionary measure." The Crew Dragon spacecraft splashdown at 3:29 a.m. EDT (0729 GMT) was described as nominal by NASA officials during the standard post-flight press conference. A few hours later, however, NASA shared an e-mail statement with reporters saying the astronauts "were taken to a local medical facility for additional evaluation ... out of an abundance of caution."

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Astronomers have discovered one of the largest carbon-based molecules found in deep space, located within the Taurus molecular cloud, 430 light-years from Earth. The finding is significant because it provides further clues that might help solve a longstanding mystery in astrochemistry: Where does carbon, the building block of life, come from? The molecule, called pyrene, is made up of four fused planar rings of carbon. It's therefore categorized as a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) — one of the most abundant complex molecules in the visible universe. PAHs were first detected in the 1960s, in meteorites known as carbonaceous chondrites, which are remnants from the primordial nebula that formed our solar system.

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Astronomers have discovered the first "black hole triple" system, consisting of a black hole hungrily feeding on a companion star while being orbited by a more distant, cautious star. Black holes form during the violent death of massive stars in supernova explosions, but this surprising discovery could indicate a more gentle black hole birthing process called "direct collapse." That is because if the origin of this black hole had been more violent, it would have supplied a "pre-natal kick" that would have launched the loosely bound distant star out of this triple star system. The system in question is V404 Cygni, located within the Milky Way and around 8,000 light-years from Earth. This so-called "X-ray binary" of the black hole and its victim star were previously known, and the system has been well-studied. However, a deeper investigation performed by a team led by Kevin Burdge from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) revealed that this binary actually sits at the heart of a triple star system

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In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted on the definition of a planet. Famously, Pluto no longer met the criteria and was demoted to a dwarf planet. Things have been a bit of a mess since then — so is it time to redefine the planet? To be fair, Pluto had it coming. The word "planet" never had an official definition, and astronomers had always played fast and loose with its use. To the ancient Greeks, a planet was any "wandering star," which included the sun and the moon. With the Copernican revolution, the definition changed: Earth was considered a planet in its own right, the moon was demoted to a satellite, and the sun got promoted.

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Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is growing dimmer as it speeds away from Earth. It should be visible through at least Saturday (Oct. 26), but the comet is speeding away from Earth and growing more difficult to see with the naked eye. The comet is currently high in the west at sunset as seen from the mid-latitudes of North America, but is dim enough that a pair of binoculars or small telescope is likely your best bet at this point. If you'd like a more up-close view of the comet without the need for optics, astronomer Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project will be livestreaming telescope observations Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS beginning at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) on Monday (Oct. 21). Watch it live here courtesy of the Virtual Telescope Project or at the project's YouTube channel.

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Teleoperated rovers could soon be working on the moon, with human controllers on Earth manipulating the rovers' tools virtually, allowing for greater dexterity when taking samples, digging or assembling. Researchers from the robotics laboratory at the University of Bristol in England have tested their new teleoperations system at the European Space Agency's (ESA) European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications at Harwell in Oxfordshire. By controlling a virtual simulation of a rover, they were able to manipulate a robotic arm to dig a sample of pretend lunar regolith (called simulant). The process negates the need for camera feeds, which can lag because of the 1.3-second time delay between Earth and the moon. The signals between the teleoperators and robotic missions on the moon could in future be relayed by satellites belonging to ESA's planned Moonlight project.

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Next to the Geminids of December and the Perseids of August, the most reliable of the annual displays of "shooting stars" are the October Orionids. The Orionid meteor shower normally lasts from about Oct. 16 to 26. A few swift Orionids may appear as early as the start of October and a lingering straggler or two as late as Nov. 7. The numbers seen by any one observer tend to reach a maximum of around 20 per hour when conditions are clear and dark and the shower radiant point near the Orion-Gemini border is well up in the sky. Unfortunately, this year, the Orionids are going to face a formidable handicap. When these meteors reach their peak early on Monday morning (Oct. 21), the waning gibbous moon will be in the sky almost all night long. Hence, its glare will severely hamper observations in 2024.

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