Bedtime Astronomy

The Search for Alien Moons Just Got Much More Promising

Could the James Webb Space Telescope finally detect small moons orbiting distant planets? New research shows that combining observations from multiple planetary transits

How Did Young Stars Form So Close to the Milky Way’s Black Hole?

How can young stars exist so close to the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole? New simulations suggest they may have formed right where we see them, despite the extreme

Scientists Map Phobos to Prepare for a Historic Mars Moon Mission

A new atlas of Phobos reveals how dust and rocks migrate across Mars’s mysterious moon, helping scientists choose and interpret sampling sites for JAXA’s MMX mission. By

The Strange Ice Inside Neptune and Uranus May Explain Their Magnetic Fields

Deep inside Neptune and Uranus, an exotic form of ice may behave nothing like ordinary ice. Researchers have created a new superionic phase under extreme conditions, whe

Could James Webb Finally Detect the Universe’s First Stars?

Could some of the universe’s first stars have formed much later than expected? New research suggests rare bursts of pristine Population III stars may have emerged under

A Massive Asteroid Just Reshaped the Moon

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has identified a massive new impact crater on the Moon, created by a collision in early 2024. Measuring about 728 feet across, it is t

eROSITA Maps Nearly 2 Million Sources Across the X-Ray Universe

The eROSITA space telescope has released its second major X-ray catalog, offering one of the most detailed views yet of the high-energy universe. With nearly two million

How 3D Printing and Living Organisms Could Build the Future on Mars

What if future Mars habitats could be 3D-printed using materials grown and gathered on the planet itself? Researchers have developed a bio-based construction material co

BepiColombo Finally Awakens: The Instrument About to Map Mercury in 3D

After nearly a decade asleep in space, a crucial instrument aboard the BepiColombo mission has finally been switched on. The BELA laser altimeter survived years of extre

The Great Nothing: Inside the Largest Void in the Universe

Boötes Void, known as the “Great Nothing,” is a vast region of space roughly 330 million light-years across containing far fewer galaxies than expected. Formed as smalle

Hubble and Webb Reveal Tiny Worlds That Remember the Solar System’s Past

Hubble and James Webb have revealed surprising clues about tiny icy worlds at the edge of the Solar System. Studying objects as small as 5 kilometers across, astronomers

Dark Energy May Be Changing — And That Could Rewrite Cosmology

A massive new analysis of nearly 3,000 supernovae suggests dark energy may not be constant after all. Researchers at the University of Queensland combined three decades

Three Mysterious Pulsar Glitches Reveal What’s Happening Inside a Neutron Star

Astronomers have discovered three sudden rotation changes, or glitches, in the young neutron star PSR J1637−4642. After more than a decade of apparent stability, observa

Scientists Plan an Unprecedented Rendezvous With Halley’s Comet

A bold mission concept could give humanity its first extended rendezvous with Halley’s Comet during its 2061 return. Using Hall-effect thrusters and gravity assists from

James Webb May Have Finally Solved a 20-Year-Old Cosmic Mystery

Astronomers using James Webb and Hubble may have finally solved the mystery of GRB 061201, a gamma-ray burst that has puzzled scientists since 2006. Once considered “hos

Astronomers Discover What May Be Shaping Betelgeuse’s Strange Atmosphere

ALMA has revealed that Betelgeuse’s atmosphere is far more chaotic and asymmetric than expected. Giant hotspots and shifting convection may even be influenced by a smalle

How Radio Telescopes Are Revealing the Hidden Structure of the Cosmos

Astronomers have detected an incredibly faint hydrogen signal from billions of light-years away using South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope. The observation opens a new way t

Why Does Venus Have No Moon? Scientists Reveal a Surprising Answer

Why does Venus have no moon, despite being so similar to Earth? Scientists used simulations spanning billions of years to investigate what may have happened to a hypothe

Are the Ingredients for Life Common Across the Milky Way?

Astronomers have discovered a new interstellar cloud, G+0.633, near the center of the Milky Way containing more than 120 molecular species, including compounds linked to

The Rare Stellar Objects AI Is Helping Astronomers Find

Astronomers at Vilnius University are using artificial intelligence to uncover rare hot subdwarfs hidden within Gaia’s enormous star catalog. A convolutional neural netw