Phys.org Astronomy and Space

• 3 astronauts return to Earth after 6 months on China's space station

  Three Chinese astronauts landed back on Earth on Wednesday after six months on China's space station.

• Juno mission gets under Jupiter's and Io's surface

  New data from the agency's Jovian orbiter sheds light on the fierce winds and cyclones of the gas giant's northern reaches and volcanic action on its fiery moon.

• Biomass satellite launched to count forest carbon

  ESA's Biomass satellite, designed to provide unprecedented insights into the world's forests and their crucial role in Earth's carbon cycle, has been launched. The satellite lifted off aboard a Vega-C rocket from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on 29 April at 11:15 CEST (06:15 local time).

• Gaia spots odd family of stars desperate to leave home

  Stars in the Milky Way tend to form in families, with similar stars springing to life in roughly the same place at roughly the same time. These stars later head out into the wider galaxy when they're ready to fly the nest. While smaller groups can completely dissipate, siblings from sizable families usually move similarly and largely travel together.

• Astronomers discover explosive outflow in star-forming complex using ALMA data

  By analyzing the data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have investigated a star-forming region known as G34.26+0.15. As a result, they discovered an explosive outflow in this complex. The study was reported in a paper published on April 22 on the arXiv preprint server.

• Astronomers observe largest ever sample of galaxies up to more than 12 billion light years away

  The largest sample of galaxy groups ever detected has been presented by a team of international astronomers using data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in an area of the sky called COSMOS Web. The study marks a major milestone in extragalactic astronomy, providing unprecedented insights into the formation and evolution of galaxies and the large-scale structure of the universe.

• Flares from magnetized stars can forge planets' worth of gold

  Astronomers have discovered a previously unknown birthplace of some of the universe's rarest elements: a giant flare unleashed by a supermagnetized star. The astronomers calculated that such flares could be responsible for forging up to 10% of our galaxy's gold, platinum and other heavy elements.

• Astronomers investigate an extremely X-ray-luminous, radio-loud quasar

  Using the Spektr-RG (SRG) space observatory, astronomers from the Russian Academy of Sciences have inspected a radio-loud quasar known as SRGA J2306+1556, which is extremely luminous in the X-ray band. Results of the new study are reported in a research paper published April 18 on the arXiv preprint server.

• Chinese astronauts' return to earth delayed owing to weather

  Three Chinese astronauts' return to Earth has been postponed owing to weather conditions.

• Amazon launches its first internet satellites to compete against SpaceX's Starlinks

  Amazon's first batch of internet satellites rocketed into orbit Monday, the latest entry in the mega constellation market currently dominated by SpaceX's thousands of Starlinks.

• NASA's oldest astronaut felt the decades melt away in space before returning on his 70th birthday

  Fresh from space, NASA's oldest full-time astronaut said Monday that weightlessness made him feel decades younger, with everyday aches and pains vanishing.

• Quality of 3D printing with lunar regolith varies based on feedstock

  Lately, there's been plenty of progress in 3D printing objects from the lunar regolith. We've reported on several projects that have attempted to do so, with varying degrees of success. However, most of them require some additive, such as a polymer or salt water, as a binding agent. Recently, a paper from Julien Garnier and their co-authors at the University of Toulouse, published in Acta Astronautica, attempted to make compression-hardened 3D-printed objects using nothing but the regolith itself.

• P160C fires up successfully, a new chapter for Ariane 6 and Vega launchers

  The P160C qualification motor was successfully tested on 24 April at the European Spaceport in French Guiana, on the solid-propellant booster test stand (BEAP) operated by the French Space Agency (CNES). The successful test firing of the first P160C motor is a major milestone in the development of the future upgrades of Europe's Ariane 6 and Vega launchers.

• Vesta's missing core shatters long-held beliefs about the asteroid

  For decades, scientists believed Vesta, one of the largest objects in our solar system's asteroid belt, wasn't just an asteroid and eventually concluded it was more like a planet with a crust, mantle and core. Now, Michigan State University has contributed to research that flips this notion on its head.

• ACES finds its home in orbit

  The Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space (ACES), ESA's state-of-the-art timekeeping facility, has been successfully installed on the International Space Station, marking the start of a new chapter in space-based precision science.

• Life on Earth-like planets may emerge rapidly once conditions are favorable

  An astronomer at Columbia University is suggesting that because life emerged so soon on Earth after its formation, it may emerge rapidly on Earth-like planets after the right conditions arise in general.

• Hubble visits glittering cluster, capturing its ultraviolet light

  As part of ESA/Hubble's 35th anniversary celebrations, the European Space Agency (ESA) shared new images that revisited stunning, previously released Hubble targets with the addition of the latest Hubble data and new processing techniques.

• Amazon set for launch of Starlink-rival satellites

  After delaying an earlier attempt due to bad weather, Amazon is preparing to launch its first batch of Project Kuiper internet satellites on Monday, stepping into direct competition with Elon Musk's Starlink.

• Global first test success for NASA space power system

  A spacecraft power system that combines the technological know-how of engineers and scientists at the University of Leicester and NASA Glenn has passed its first test with flying colors.

• Searching for the dark in the light on Mars

  Perseverance has been busy exploring lower "Witch Hazel Hill," an outcrop exposed on the edge of the Jezero crater rim. The outcrop is composed of alternating light and dark layers, and naturally, the team has been trying to understand the makeup of and relationships between the light and dark layers.

• New Horizons observations lead to first Lyman-alpha map from the galaxy

  The NASA New Horizons spacecraft's extensive observations of Lyman-alpha emissions have resulted in the first-ever map from the galaxy at this important ultraviolet wavelength, providing a new look at the galactic region surrounding our solar system. The findings are described in a new study authored by the SwRI-led New Horizons team.

• Sun's explosions echo in Earth's skies: How the atmosphere synchronizes with solar flare pulsations

  Earth's atmosphere is much more sensitive to ripples of radiation from the sun than scientists previously believed, new research by Queen's University Belfast has found.

• An astronomer explains the extraordinary evidence scientists need to claim discoveries like extraterrestrial life

  The detection of life beyond Earth would be one of the most profound discoveries in the history of science. The Milky Way galaxy alone hosts hundreds of millions of potentially habitable planets. Astronomers are using powerful space telescopes to look for molecular indicators of biology in the atmospheres of the most Earth-like of these planets.

• FAST reveals new millisecond pulsar missed by earlier surveys due to signal overlap

  Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST), Chinese astronomers have discovered a new millisecond pulsar. The newfound pulsar, designated PSR J2129-1210O, was missed by previous searches as its spin period is close to the harmonics of the known pulsar PSR J2129+1210A.

• 30-year mystery of dissonance in the 'ringing' of black holes explained

  A scientist from Tokyo Metropolitan University has solved the longstanding problem of a "dissonance" in gravitational waves emitted by a black hole.

• A vast molecular cloud, long invisible, is discovered near our solar system

  An international team of scientists led by a Rutgers University–New Brunswick astrophysicist has discovered a potentially star-forming cloud that is one of the largest single structures in the sky and among the closest to the sun and Earth ever to be detected.

• Multi-spacecraft radio observations trace the heliospheric magnetic field

  Solar flares accelerate energetic electrons that escape into interplanetary space, guided by the Parker spiral magnetic field, and are responsible for the generation of the interplanetary Type III solar radio bursts. With multiple spacecraft now in orbit around the sun, we are in a unique position of observing the propagation of radio emission through the heliosphere from multiple vantage points.

• Circinus West: A dark nebula harboring a nest of newly formed stars

  A celestial shadow known as the Circinus West molecular cloud creeps across this image captured from Chile with the 570-megapixel Department of Energy–fabricated Dark Energy Camera—one of the most powerful digital cameras in the world. Within this stellar nursery's opaque boundaries, infant stars ignite within cold, dense gas and dust, while outflows hurtle leftover material into space.

• Webb helps scientists better understand solar system's origins

  University of Central Florida (UCF) scientists and their collaborators discovered new insights into the formation of distant icy objects in space beyond Neptune, offering a deeper understanding of our solar system's formation and growth.

• Fully automated laboratory heads into orbit to test food production in space

  Cranfield University spin-out company Frontier Space has sent a fully automated laboratory into orbit as part of a European Space Agency project to assess the viability of creating lab-grown food in microgravity.