compiled by Arlene & David Kaplan

Solar Storm Crashes GPS Systems Used by Some Farmers, Stalling Planting The powerful geomagnetic storm that cast the northern lights’ vivid colors across the Northern Hemisphere over the weekend also caused some navigational systems in tractors and other farming equipment to break down at the height of planting season, suppliers and farmers said…more

Astronomers finally detect a rocky planet with an atmosphere Astronomers have searched for years for rocky planets beyond our solar system with an atmosphere — a trait considered essential for any possibility of harboring life. Well, they finally seem to have located one. Researchers said on Wednesday the planet is a “super-Earth” — a rocky world significantly larger than our planet…more

Alarmed by Climate Change, Astronomers Train Their Sights on Earth On the morning of Jan. 18, 2003, Penny Sackett, then director of the Australian National University’s Mount Stromlo Observatory outside Canberra, received a concerning email from a student at the facility. Bush fires that had been on the horizon the day before were now rapidly approaching. The astronomers on site were considering evacuating, the student wrote….more

Astronomers Uncover a Baffling “Cosmic Mystery” – A Giant Planet As Fluffy as Cotton Candy An international team led by researchers from the EXOTIC Laboratory of the University of Liège, in collaboration with MIT and the Astrophysics Institute in Andalusia, has just discovered WASP-193b, an extraordinarily low-density giant planet orbiting a distant Sun-like star…more

Overlooked No More: Henrietta Leavitt, Who Unraveled Mysteries of the Stars In the early 20th century, when Henrietta Leavitt began studying photographs of distant stars at the Harvard College Observatory, astronomers had no idea how big the universe was. Debate raged over whether all of the objects visible through the telescopes of the day were within our own Milky…more

Webb Telescope offers first glimpse of an exoplanet’s interior A surprisingly low amount of methane and a super-sized core hide within the cotton candy–like planet WASP-107 b. The revelations, based on data obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope, mark the first measurements of an exoplanet’s core mass and will likely underpin future studies of planetary atmospheres…more

Scanning the Dark Universe, Euclid Finds Scenes of Cosmic Light Euclid, a European Space Agency telescope launched into space last summer, finally showed off what it’s capable of with a batch of breathtaking images and early science results released Thursday. The telescope will help astronomers make sense of two of the universe’s greatest mysteries…more

Rivers of Lava on Venus Reveal a More Volcanically Active Planet Witnessing the blood-red fires of a volcanic eruption on Earth is memorable. But to see molten rock bleed out of a volcano on a different planet would be extraordinary. That is close to what scientists have spotted on Venus: two vast, sinuous lava flows oozing from two different corners of Earth’s planetary neighbor…more

Unveiling the Sun: NASA’s Open Data Approach to Solar Eclipse Research As the world eagerly anticipates the upcoming total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, NASA is preparing for an extraordinary opportunity for scientific discovery, open collaboration, and public engagement. At the heart of the agency’s approach to this unusual event lies a commitment to open science, ensuring that the data…more

Meet the Two Women Leading Space Station Science The International Space Station provides researchers access to the unique features of low Earth orbit: long-duration microgravity, exposure to space, and a one-of-a-kind perspective of our planet. These special attributes enable scientists to conduct innovative experiments that can’t be done anywhere else…more