Category Astronomy/Space

For the first time, researchers have created simulations that directly recreate the full life cycle of some of the largest collections of galaxies observed in the distant universe 11 billion years ago, reports a new study in Nature Astronomy.

Cosmological simulations are crucial to studying how the universe became the shape it is today, but many do not typically match what astronomers observe through te...

In a paper recently published in The Planetary Science Journal, NASA scientists and engineers give new details about the agency’s Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI) mission, which will descend through the layered Venus atmosphere to the surface of the planet in mid-2031. DAVINCI is the first mission to study Venus using both spacecraft flybys and a descent probe.

DAVINCI, a flying analytical chemistry laboratory, will measure critical aspects of Venus’s massive atmosphere-climate system for the first time, many of which have been measurement goals for Venus since the early 1980s...

Infrared emissions reveal secrets invisible with optical wavelength observations. Using NASA’s SOFIA observatory and other data resources, an international team of astronomers has uncovered evidence of metals in local galaxies — found to be deficient in earlier studies — by analyzing infrared data gathered during a multiyear campaign.

A thorough understanding of galaxy evolution depends in part on an accurate measurement of the abundance of...

In the early 2000s, a new set of data revised the chemical abundances at the surface of the sun, contradicting the values predicted by the standard models used by astrophysicists. Often challenged, these new abundances made it through several new analyses. As they seemed to prove correct, it was thus up to the solar models to adapt, especially since they serve as a reference for the study of stars in general...