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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Using moon dirt with 3D printing to build future lunar colonies

    March 3, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Novel additive manufacturing systems may help future space explorers better survive extreme environments.
    Novel additive manufacturing systems may help future space explorers better survive extreme environments.Photo: Getty Images

    Simulated lunar dirt can be turned into extremely durable structures, potentially paving the way to more sustainable and cost-effective space missions, a new study suggests. Using a special laser 3D printing method, researchers melted fake lunar soil—a synthetic version of the fine dusty material on the moon surface, called regolith simulant—into layers and fused it with a base surface to manufacture small, heat-resistant objects.

    If utilized on the lunar surface, the material may help build sturdy, nontoxic habitats and tools for future astronauts, capabilities that would be vital to the NASA Artemis missions that aim to establish a long-term human presen...

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    A lost moon may have created Titan and Saturn’s rings

    March 2, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Cassini gazes upon Titan in the distance beyond Saturn. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute.

    Titan may be the battered survivor of a colossal moon merger that reshaped Saturn’s rings and rewrote the planet’s history.

    Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, may have been born in a colossal cosmic crash. New research suggests Titan formed when two older moons slammed together hundreds of millions of years ago—an event so violent it reshaped Saturn’s entire moon system and may have indirectly sparked the formation of its iconic rings. Clues come from Titan’s unusual orbit, its surprisingly smooth surface, and the strange behavior of the tumbling moon Hyperion.

    New research suggests that Saturn’s brilliant rings and its largest moon, Titan, may share a violent past shaped by c...

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    20 billion galaxies: New survey of the sky will reveal the universe in unprecedented detail

    February 27, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A cosmic tapestry of glowing tan and pink gas clouds with dark dust lanes. In the upper right, the Trifid Nebula resembles a small flower in space. Its soft, pinkish gas petals are surrounded by blue gas, and streaked with dark, finger-like veins of dust that divide it into three parts. It radiates a gentle, misty glow, diffuse and soft like the warmth of breath on a cold hand. To the lower left, the much larger Lagoon Nebula stretches wide like a churning sea of magenta gas, with bright blue, knotted clumps sprinkled throughout where new stars are born. Both nebulae are embedded in a soft tan backdrop of gas that is brighter on the left than on the right, etched with dark tendrils of dust and sprinkled with the pinpricks of millions of stars.
    This image combines 678 separate images taken by NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in just over seven hours of observing time. Combining many images in this way clearly reveals otherwise faint or invisible details, such as the clouds of gas and dust that comprise the Trifid nebula (top) and the Lagoon nebula, which are several thousand light-years away from Earth. More information about this image is available on RubinObservatory.org. Download Trifid and Lagoon at full resolution (24.14GB)
    Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

    When you look up at the night sky, it appears unchanging. But if you look deep enough you will find that the sky is in fact constantly shifting. Satellites, asteroids and interstellar objects pass by...

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    One of the biggest stars in the universe might be getting ready to explode

    February 26, 2026, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Image of WOH G64, taken by the GRAVITY instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (ESO’s VLTI). ESO/K. Ohnaka et al.

    One of the largest known stars in the universe underwent a dramatic transformation in 2014, new research shows, and may be preparing to explode. A study led by Gonzalo Muñoz-Sanchez at the National Observatory of Athens, published in Nature Astronomy today, argues that the enormous star WOH G64 has transitioned from a red supergiant to a rare yellow hypergiant—in what may be evidence of an impending supernova.

    The evidence suggests we may be witnessing, in real time, a massive star shedding its outer layers, shrinking as it heats up, and moving closer to the end of its short life.

    A very special star
    WOH G64 was fir...

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