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

The ‘Devil Comet’ is now visible in the night sky and without the aid of binoculars or a telescope, but keen comet-watchers will need to wait a few more weeks for the best view. Officially designated as 12P/Pons-Brooks, the  Halley-type comet is making a brief visit to our neck of the Solar system – it will be closest to the Sun, ironically, this Sunday – before it shoots out beyond Neptune’s orbit over the next 35 years. It means a child born later this year will have to wait until their 70th birthday to see the Devil’s return. But it will also be difficult to spot the comet, at least f ..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

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

In 2029 the asteroid once considered the most probable to strike the Earth will fly uncomfortably close to the planet’s surface. Spanning 335-375m, asteroid 99942 – dubbed ‘Apophis’ after the Egyptian god of chaos – was discovered in 2004 by astronomers from the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. Initially, it was assessed as being a 2.7% chance of impacting Earth in 2029, 2036 or 2068. In the years since, though, observations of Apophis’ orbit around the Sun have led astronomers to reassess those changes: no impact is expected to occur within the next 100 years. Still, Near E ..read more

Harry Potter and the… new ant! A study has unearthed a new species of subterranean ant, which has been named Leptanilla voldemort for its pale colouration, slender build, spindly legs, and long, sharp mandibles. The name, L. voldemort for short, pays homage to the dark wizard Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. “The fearsome antagonist in Harry Potter and the ant both have a ghostly and slender appearance, and live in the shadows,” says Dr Mark Wong, a researcher at the University of Western Australia and lead author of a paper describing the species in the journal Zookeys. “Adapting t ..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