See what it’s like to plunge into a black hole in this new NASA video. Plunge into a black hole in new video Have you ever wondered what happens when you fall into a black hole? On May 6, 2024, a NASA supercomputer produced a new, immersive visualization that lets viewers plunge into the event horizon. That’s a black hole’s point of no return. Jeremy Schnittman is an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and created the visualizations. Schnittman said: People often ask about this, and simulating these difficult-to-imagine processes helps me connect the ..read more

Artist’s concept of Venus – the hellishly hot world orbiting next-inward from Earth – with oceans! Scientists believe that, as on Earth, water was once abundant on Venus. But now, Venus has lost almost all of its water, and the molecule HCO+ might be to blame. Image via NASA. Water has been gradually escaping Venus’ atmosphere for billions of years. Now scientists think they know why. A new study shows the molecule HCO+ may be responsible. Electrons in the atmosphere split the HCO+ ions in two, allowing hydrogen atoms – the H in H2O – from Venus’ atmosphere to escape into space. The wrinkle i ..read more

View larger. | Artist’s concept of the hot Jupiter exoplanet called WASP-43 b. The Webb telescope mapped the weather on the tidally locked planet. Both sides are sizzling hot, but the nightside is a little cooler than the dayside. There are likely thick clouds on the nightside but none on the dayside, and wind speeds reach 5,000 miles per hour (over 8,000 kph). Image via NASA/ ESA/ CSA/ Ralf Crawford (STScI).Weather on exoplanet WASP-43 b We can’t yet directly see the weather on exoplanets. But for some closer worlds, the James Webb Space Telescope can analyze the atmosphere to determine what ..read more

Here’s a sample of simulated Martian regolith after removal from the simulation chamber at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. In the sample, a solid crust of salt formed on the surface. A new study says methane on Mars may be trapped beneath such crusts, only seeping out when conditions are a bit warmer and the crust seal weakens. Image via NASA/ Alexander Pavlov. On Earth, methane mostly has a biological origin. On Mars, methane has only been discovered in Gale crater, and its origins are unknown. The Curiosity rover on Mars found strange bursts of methane seeping from the ground. A new exp ..read more

View larger. | ESA’s Mars Express orbiter captured this view of Martian spiders at the South Pole on October 4, 2020. The “spiders” form when sunlight causes deposits of carbon dioxide ice to warm up and turn to gas, which then builds up and breaks through slabs of overlying ice. The gas and dark dust fall back to the surface, creating the spider-like formations. Image via ESA/ TGO/ CaSSIS. The European Space Agency (ESA) released more images of the enigmatic “spiders” and Inca City at the South Pole of Mars. The “spiders” are dark patches resembling spiders. They’re created by geysers of car ..read more

View larger. | Artist’s concept of a magnetar, a type of neutron star but with vastly more powerful magnetic fields. Scientists saw a giant magnetar eruption in the galaxy M82, located only a hop and a skip away at 12 million light-years from Earth. It’s the 1st time we’ve seen such a powerful magnetar burst outside our own galaxy. Image via ESA. Scientists found a massive outburst of gamma rays from the galaxy M82, 12 million light-years away. The observation didn’t fit with typical gamma ray bursts, and astronomers found no afterglow in visible light to X-rays. Plus, they didn’t detect any ..read more

Meet the lunar crater Giordano Bruno. It’s 13 miles (21 km) wide and located on the moon’s far side. This mosaic image of the crater is from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC)/ NASA/ GSFC/ Arizona State University.Something knocked a chunk off the lunar surface For a while, starting in the year 2016, it looked as if Earth might have a second, much-smaller moon. But, after preliminary studies of the object’s orbit, astronomers labeled 469219 Kamo’oalewa as a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) and a quasi-satellite to Earth. So we know that, like our moon, Kamo’oalewa stays close to Earth ..read more

View larger. | Artist’s concept of the brown dwarf W1935. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have detected emission of methane here. This is the 1st time astronomers have found methane emitting light instead of absorbing it on a brown dwarf. Auroras, as seen here, may create the methane emission in the brown dwarf’s atmosphere. Image via NASA/ ESA/ CSA/ Leah Hustak (STScI). Brown dwarfs are star-planet hybrid objects, too massive to be called ordinary planets, but not massive enough to shine as stars do. Astronomers have detected methane emission from a brown dwarf for the 1st ..read more

View larger. | This image from Hubble shows the barred spiral galaxy UGC 12158. This means a “bar” of stars runs across its center, and the spiral arms extend from either end. Barred spiral galaxies are not uncommon in the universe. The curved segmented line is an asteroid “photobombing” the image. The image shows how researchers and citizen scientists were able to use Hubble for an asteroid hunt. They were looking for previously unknown small asteroids in the main asteroid belt. Image via NASA/ ESA/ Pablo García Martín (UAM). Over 1,000 new small asteroids have been found in Hubble Space Tel ..read more

EarthSky’s Deborah Byrd created this 1-minute video summary for you, on Io‘s volcanoes. Jupiter’s rocky moon Io is the most volcanically active world in the solar system. It has hundreds of volcanoes, some with erupting lava fountains dozens of miles (kilometers) high. Io’s volcanoes have been active for billions of years, a new study says, ever since Io first formed. How do they know? The researchers studied the ratio of different light and heavy sulfur isotopes in Io’s thin atmosphere. The results suggest the volcanoes’ age, and also provide clues about how much sulfur Io has lost since it ..read more