compiled by Arlene & David Kaplan

Auroras Are Spotted on Neptune for the First Time, and Lead to a New Mystery The vermilion, amethyst and jade ribbons of the northern and southern lights are some of Earth’s most distinctive features. But our planet doesn’t have a monopoly on auroras. Scientists have spied them throughout the solar system, weaving through the skies of Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and even on some of Jupiter’s fiery and icy moons….more

A Fiery Exoplanet With Mysterious Clouds Is Reshaping Our Understanding of Worlds Scientists using JWST have uncovered striking cloud formations and extreme heat contrasts on LTT 9779 b, a rare ultra-hot Neptune. This discovery reshapes our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres and how they endure intense stellar radiation…more

A Lunar Lander’s Busy Day: Eclipse Photos and Rock Collecting While people on Earth were taking in a blood moon and a total lunar eclipse on the evening of March 14, Blue Ghost witnessed and photographed a total solar eclipse. During the eclipse, temperatures dropped from 100 degrees Fahrenheit to minus 270 degrees…more

‘More Than a Hint’ That Dark Energy Isn’t What Astronomers Thought An international team of astronomers on Wednesday unveiled the most compelling evidence to date that dark energy — a mysterious phenomenon pushing our universe to expand ever faster — is not a constant force of nature but one that ebbs and flows through cosmic time…more

New planet named Enaiposha is unlike anything in our solar system It started as another exoplanet in a group labeled “ordinary.” No one expected that a world, once thought to be a mini-Neptune, would reveal traits of a super-Venus and change how we see certain planetary types. Astronomers used JWST data to learn more about an unusual place called Enaiposha, that orbits a red dwarf star about 47 light-years away from the Sun….more

We May Have Finally Laid Eyes on The Universe’s Very First Stars Once, there was a time before stars. In the primordial darkness, after the Big Bang, nothing drifted but a vast sea of hydrogen and helium. It wasn’t until stars came along, born from crushing densities in that clumping gas, that heavier elements emerged, forged by the fusion in their powerful hearts…more

Texas Company’s Lander Dies on Moon the Day After Toppled Landing A day after landing on the moon, the robotic Athena spacecraft built by Intuitive Machines of Houston is dead. In an update on its website on Friday, the company confirmed that Athena had tipped onto its side — the same fate that befell its first lunar lander, Odysseus, last year…more

Scientists Confirm The Moon Has A Solid Iron Core, Just Like Earth
A major scientific breakthrough has settled a decades-old debate about the moon’s interior. Researchers have confirmed that the moon has a solid inner core, similar to Earth’s, composed of iron with a density of about 7,822 kg/m³. This discovery not only changes how we understand the moon’s structure but also provides new insights into the history of our solar system…more

Cosmic anomaly: Webb Telescope finds ancient planetary disk that should have faded millions of years ago Astronomers have discovered a 34-million-year-old planet-forming disk around a small red star more than 30 million years after such disks typically disappear, challenging our understanding of how long planets have to form…more

Astronomers Discover a Rare Magnetic White Dwarf System A team of astronomers has identified a new polar cataclysmic variable, a rare type of binary star system featuring a highly magnetic white dwarf siphoning material from its companion star. The system, designated ZTF J0112+5827, was discovered using data from the ROentgen SATellite (ROSAT) and has an unusually short orbital period of just 81 minutes…more