compiled by Arlene & David Kaplan

Pluto May Have Captured Its Biggest Moon After an Ancient Dance and Kiss Some 4.5 billion years ago, the dwarf planet Pluto was suddenly joined by a companion. For a very brief period — perhaps only hours — they danced as if arm in arm before gently separating, a grand do-si-do that resulted in Pluto and its quintet of moons orbiting the sun together today….more

NASA’s SPHEREx Telescope Arrives for Final Launch Preparations NASA’s SPHEREx spacecraft arrived Tuesday, Jan. 14, at Astrotech Space Operations located inside Vandenberg Space Force Base in California for final processing before launching on its two-year mission. The SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer) observatory is targeted to launch at the end of February…more

James Webb Unveils a Mysterious Planet Unlike Anything in Our Solar System The James Webb Space Telescope has provided groundbreaking insights into a new type of exoplanet, fundamentally different from those in our Solar System, by piercing through thick cloud layers to analyze atmospheric compositions. This discovery challenges existing classifications and expands our understanding of planetary formation and characteristics….more

Earth’s recent asteroid visitor might’ve been a piece of the moon Earth’s distant rocky companion was likely a fragment of the moon blasted into space thousands of years ago, according to a new study that deepens our understanding of the types of space rocks that drift near our planet and occasionally impact it. Last year, the space rock named 2024 PT5…more

Universe’s Expansion Defies Explanation: New Data Shatters Cosmological Models The Universe appears to be expanding faster than expected — faster than theoretical models predict and beyond what our current understanding of physics can explain.New measurements have confirmed earlier, highly debated results showing this unexpected rate of expansion. The gap between these findings and established models is known as the Hubble tension…more

Supermassive black hole spotted 12.9 billion light-years from Earth — and it’s shooting a beam of energy right at us Astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole that’s shooting a giant energy beam directly at Earth. The cosmic juggernaut, which is about as massive as 700 million suns, is taking aim at us from a galaxy in the early universe, up to 800 million years after the Big Bang — making this the most distant “blazar” ever found…more

Sound of Meteorite Striking Earth Captured for First Time by Ring Camera Prince Edward Island, Canada resident Joe Velaidum and his wife Laura had just left his home to take his dog for a walk when the incident took place. While firsthand accounts of impacts have been heard before, they haven’t been captured—until now. …more

Astronomers Pinpoint Origins of Mysterious Signal That Traveled 200 Million Years To Reach Us Fast radio bursts are brief and brilliant explosions of radio waves emitted by extremely compact objects such as neutron stars and possibly black holes. These fleeting fireworks last for just a thousandth of a second and can carry an enormous amount of energy — enough to briefly outshine entire galaxies. Since the first fast radio burst (FRB) was discovered in 2007…more

Giant ‘kidney beans’ spotted in Mars satellite images could point to signs of water and life These Martian “kidney beans” aren’t safe to eat: they’re actually frozen sand dunes in Mars’ northern hemisphere. A recently released photo by NASA‘s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) shows a top-down view of the frosty legume lookalikes, taken to help scientists determine if conditions on the Red Planet could have sustained life a long time ago…more

Astronomers Found Strange, Accelerating X-Ray Pulses Coming From a Black Hole. They Might Be a Sign of an Orbiting White Dwarf A supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy is once again surprising scientists. In 2018, a black hole called 1ES 1927+654, located about 270 million light-years away from Earth, showed its first signs of mysterious behavior. Its corona—the billion-degree cloud of plasma that envelopes it—suddenly disappeared and reappeared…more