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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Astronomers capture giant planet forming 440 light-years from Earth

    July 25, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Astronomers may have caught a still-forming planet in action, carving out an intricate pattern in the gas and dust that surrounds its young host star. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), they observed a planetary disc with prominent spiral arms, finding clear signs of a planet nestled in its inner regions. This is the first time astronomers have detected a planet candidate embedded inside a disc spiral.

    “We will never witness the formation of Earth, but here, around a young star 440 light-years away, we may be watching a planet come into existence in real time,” says Francesco Maio, a doctoral researcher at the University of Florence, Italy, and lead author of this study, published on July 21 in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

    The potential planet-in-the-making was detected around...

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    NASA’s Roman telescope will catch 100,000 explosions — and rewrite the Universe’s story

    July 24, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey infographic
    This infographic describes the High-Latitude Time-Domain Survey that will be conducted by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. The survey’s main component will cover over 18 square degrees — a region of sky as large as 90 full moons — and see supernovae that occurred up to about 8 billion years ago. Smaller areas within the survey will pierce even farther, potentially back to when the universe was around a billion years old. The survey will be split between the northern and southern hemispheres, located in regions of the sky that will be continuously visible to Roman. The bulk of the survey will consist of 30-hour observations every five days for two years in the middle of Roman’s five-year primary mission.
    Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

    NASA’s Roman Space T...

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    Mysterious object found dancing with Neptune

    July 23, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A team of astronomers led by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian has discovered a rare object far beyond Neptune, from a class known as trans-Neptunian objects, that is moving in rhythm with the giant planet. This image shows the orbits of all of the objects discovered in the Outer Solar System Origins Survey. The orbit of 2020 VN40 is the thickest one, tilted up and to the left from the orbits of most of the objects.  The orbits of the giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are the white circles. 
    Credit: Rosemary Pike, CfA

    This object, called 2020 VN40, is the first confirmed body that orbits the sun once for every ten orbits Neptune completes.

    Astronomers have discovered a bizarre object in the outer solar system, 2020 VN40, that dances to Neptune’s g...

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    Lunar soil could support life on the Moon, say scientists

    July 21, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Lunar soil could support life on the Moon
    Chang’E-5 lunar soil sitting at the bottom of a photothermal reactor. Credit: Sun et al.

    Scientists have developed a technology that may help humans survive on the moon. In a study published in the journal Joule, researchers extracted water from lunar soil and used it to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and chemicals for fuel—potentially opening new doors for future deep space exploration by mitigating the need to transport essential resources like water and fuel all the way from Earth.

    “We never fully imagined the ‘magic’ that the lunar soil possessed,” said Lu Wang of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen.

    “The biggest surprise for us was the tangible success of this integrated approach...

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