Category Astronomy/Space

Among the many challenges with a Mars voyage, one of the most pressing is: How can you get enough fuel for the spacecraft to fly back to Earth?

Houlin Xin, an assistant professor in physics & astronomy, may have found a solution.

He and his team have discovered a more efficient way of creating methane-based rocket fuel theoretically on the surface of Mars, which can make the return trip all more feasible.

The novel discovery comes in the form of a single-atom zinc catalyst that will synthesize the current two-step process into a single-step reaction using a more compact and portable device.

Rocks on Ryugu, a ‘rubble pile’ near-Earth asteroid recently visited by Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft, appear to have lost much of their water before they came together to form the asteroid, new research suggests.

Last month, Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission brought home a cache of rocks collected from near-Earth asteroid Ryugu. While analysis of those returned samples is just getting underway, researchers are using data from the spacecraft’s other instruments to reveal new details about the asteroid’s past.

In a study published in Nature Astronomy, researchers offer an explanation for why Ryugu isn’t quite as rich in water-bearing minerals as some other asteroids...

An international team of astronomers has investigated a nearby emission nebula and star-forming region dubbed the Cat’s Paw Nebula as part of the B-field In STar-forming Region Observations (BISTRO) survey. Results of this study, presented in a paper published December 24 on arXiv.org, provide essential information about the structure of the object’s complex magnetic field.

At a distance of some 4,240 light years away, the Cat’s Paw Nebula (other designations: NGC 6334, Gum 64) is a high-mass star-forming complex that lies within the galactic plane. The nebula has a form of a filamentary cloud structure spanning 1,000 light years and hosts several star-forming regions.

Observations show that NGC 6334 is dominated by both a dense ridge threaded by sub-filaments, and by two hub-li...

An enormous black hole keeps slipping through astronomers’ nets. Supermassive black holes are thought to lurk at the hearts of most, if not all, galaxies...