Water on other planets and moons may be a crucial clue to finding extraterrestrial life. But finding water, even within our own solar system, is proving to be very difficult. It’s a problem which NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) is hoping to resolve with the JUICE [JUpiter ICy moons Explorer] mission launched a year ago on 14 April 2023. Europa captured by NASA’s Juno mission in 2022. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS, Kevin M. Gill (CC BY 3.0). Its objective is to study Jupiter and three of its Galilean satellites: Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. These are all icy worlds which show p ..read more

Despite all appearances, the space between stars, known as the interstellar medium, is anything but empty. Atoms, ions, and molecules reside in this freezing, low-pressure environment. Scientists across disciplines are working to determine the types of chemical reactions that occur in this unique environment, and which produce more than 200 unique molecules known to form there… Most recently researchers have successfully emulated interstellar medium (ISM) reaction conditions on Earth and have been able to study a type of chemical reaction called ion-neutral reactions, using “Coulomb crystals ..read more

The largest stellar black hole in the Milky Way galaxy has been found by the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission. And it is extraordinarily close to Earth. Named as Gaia BH3, it is 33 times the mass of our Sun, more than 50% bigger than the next biggest stellar black hole Cygnus X-1 which is 21 solar masses. Larger black holes exist in our galaxy, but none of these were formed by the collapse of a massive star’s core. For example, Sagittarius A* – the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way – is estimated to be about 4.2 million times that of the Sun. Astronomers have also fou ..read more

Physicists have made a measurement at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) which could expand our understanding beyond the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Since the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, questions have remained open in fundamental physics about what lies beyond the Standard Model’s framework which describes all of the particles and forces in the universe. One such parameter which has, until now, remained a mystery is the width of the W boson particle. The W boson along with the Z boson is responsible for communicating the weak nuclear force – the force responsible for radioacti ..read more

Astrophysicists have used data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to determine the source of the brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) of all time. But their results have opened a new mystery. Dubbed BOAT (“brightest of all time”), GRB 221009A was observed in October 2022. Now, it has been shown that the BOAT was generated by the death of a massive star. The star would have initially collapsed in on itself, before violently exploding in a supernova. The findings are detailed in a paper published in Nature Astronomy. But it’s not all so straightforward. “When we confirmed that the GRB was ..read more

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has made a remarkable observation of the earliest galaxy merger in the early universe. The discovery challenges current cosmological theories by indicating faster and more efficient star formation than previously thought. The galactic merger occurred more than 13 billion years ago – just 510 million years after the Big Bang. The finding is reported in a paper published in Nature Astronomy. “When we conducted these observations, this galaxy was 10 times more massive than any other galaxy found that early in the universe,” says lead author Dr Kit Boyett ..read more

It is believed that 4.5 billion years ago a young Earth was smashed into by another proto-planet called Theia. The resulting debris formed our Moon. Scientists now think they have a better understanding of how this may have formed the Moon’s mantle. Understanding these mechanisms might help make sense of how other rocky planets like Mars or Earth formed. Mantle sits between the core and crust of rocky planets and plays the crucial role in many geological phenomena including volcanism and the movement of tectonic plates. The Theia hypothesis was first proposed nearly 80 years ago. It is suppor ..read more

Unusual radio pulses from a previously dormant magnetar have been detected by the Parkes radio telescope, also known as Murriyang, in Australian state New South Wales. The signals come from magnetar XTE J1810-197 and are detailed in a new paper published in Nature Astronomy. Magnetars are a type of neutron star with an extremely powerful magnetic field. Their magnetic field is more than a trillion times stronger than that of the Earth or Sun. Murriyang, CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope. Credit: Alex Cherney / CSIRO. XTE J1810-197 is 8,000 light-years from Earth, making it the closest known magn ..read more

The first results from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) have been released. The findings will help build a picture of how the universe has evolved over 11 billion years. DESI’s components, based on a mountain peak in Arizona, include a focal plane containing 5,000 robots which position fibres within the instrument to produce spectrographs. Its primary aim is to uncover the mysterious hypothetical “dark energy” which is believed to be the driver behind the accelerating expansion of the universe. DESI has created the largest 3D map of the cosmos ever. The map is based on the most ..read more

Scientists are going to extreme lengths – and places – to try and understand the fundamental nature of the universe. Physics as we know it doesn’t seem to agree with itself. Gravity and quantum mechanics are two pillars of modern physics, but they don’t gel well together. One theory which suggests that there is a way of marrying the two worlds of physics is called “quantum gravity.” “Today, classical physics describes the phenomena in our normal surroundings such as gravity, while the atomic world can only be described using quantum mechanics,” says Tom Stuttard from the University of Copenha ..read more