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For decades, Pluto remained one of the most mysterious objects in our solar system, until July 14, 2015, when NASA's New Horizons spacecraft became the first mission to visit it up close, capturing breathtaking images of the distant world.It took over nine years for New Horizons to reach Pluto after blasting off atop an Atlas 5 rocket on Jan. 19, 2006. After traveling billions of miles through the solar system, New Horizons sent home stunning images of Pluto and its moons, making headlines around the world. It took more than 15 months for the spacecraft to send all of the...

Explanation: What is going on with this galaxy? NGC 2685 is a confirmed polar ring galaxy - a rare type of galaxy with stars, gas and dust orbiting in rings perpendicular to the plane of a flat galactic disk. The bizarre configuration could be caused by the chance capture of material from another galaxy by a disk galaxy, with the captured debris strung out in a rotating ring. Still, observed properties of NGC 2685 suggest that the rotating helix structure is remarkably old and stable. In this sharp view of the peculiar system also known as Arp 336 or the...

Gravitational waves from massive black holes challenge current astrophysical models The LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) Collaboration has detected the merger of the most massive black holes ever observed with gravitational waves using the US National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded LIGO observatories. The powerful merger produced a final black hole approximately 225 times the mass of our Sun. The signal, designated GW231123, was detected during the fourth observing run of the LVK network on November 23, 2023. LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, made history in 2015 when it made the first-ever direct detection of gravitational waves, ripples in space-time. In that case, the...

This artist's conception depicts ordinary matter in the warm, thin gas making up the intergalactic medium (IGM)—which has been difficult for scientists to directly observe until now. Different colors of light travel at different speeds through space. Here, the artist has used blue to highlight denser regions of the cosmic web, transitioning to redder light for void areas. Credit: Jack Madden, IllustrisTNG, Ralf Konietzka, Liam Connor/CfA ==================================================================================== Using Caltech's DSA-110 radio telescope, astronomers pinpoint whereabouts of "fog" between galaxies ============================================================== The vast majority of matter in the universe is dark—it is entirely invisible and detected only through its gravitational effects....

Scientists predict up to 100 invisible galaxies may orbit the Milky Way, hiding just beyond our current detection limits. Credit: Shutterstock *********************************************************************** Astronomers may be on the verge of uncovering a long-lost galactic population. Using ultra-high-resolution simulations and sophisticated modeling, researchers at Durham University predict that the Milky Way could be surrounded by up to 100 previously undetected satellite galaxies. These faint, elusive “orphan galaxies” may have been stripped of their dark matter halos, making them nearly invisible to current telescopes. But with the advent of powerful new instruments like the Rubin Observatory, scientists believe we’re finally approaching the ability...

Explanation: Why isn't this ant a big sphere? Planetary nebula Mz3 is being cast off by a star similar to our Sun that is, surely, round. Why then would the gas that is streaming away create an ant-shaped nebula that is distinctly not round? Clues might include the high 1000-kilometer per second speed of the expelled gas, the light-year long length of the structure, and the magnetism of the star featured here at the nebula's center. One possible answer is that Mz3 is hiding a second, dimmer star that orbits close in to the bright star. A competing hypothesis holds...

NEW YORK — For sale: A 54-pound (25-kilogram) rock. Estimated auction price: $2 million to $4 million. Why so expensive? It's the largest piece of Mars ever found on Earth. Sotheby's in New York will be auctioning what's known as NWA 16788 on Wednesday as part of a natural history-themed sale that also includes a juvenile Ceratosaurus dinosaur skeleton that's more than 6 feet (2 meters) tall and nearly 11 feet (3 meters) long. According to the auction house, the meteorite is believed to have been blown off the surface of Mars by a massive asteroid strike before traveling 140...

Explanation: As the Sun set, a bright Full Moon rose on July 10. Its golden light illuminates clouds drifting through southern hemisphere skies in this well-composed telephoto image from Conceição do Coité, Bahia, Brazil. The brightest lunar phase is captured here with both a short and long exposure. The two exposures were combined to reveal details of the lunar surface in bright moonlight and a subtle iridescence along the dramatically backlit cloudscape. Of course, July's Full Moon is a winter moon in the southern hemisphere. But in the north it's known to some as the Thunder Moon, likely a nod...

Skylab was America’s first space station and first crewed research laboratory in space. The complex consisted of four major components: the Orbital Workshop (OWS), the Airlock Module (AM), the Multiple Docking Adapter (MDA), and the Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM). The Apollo Command and Service Module transported crews to and from Skylab and remained attached to the station throughout a crew’s occupancy. The OWS, converted from the upper stage of a Saturn rocket, served as the main working, living and sleeping compartment for the crews, and contained exercise equipment, a galley, and many of the scientific experiments, in particular for the...

Uranus has entered Gemini for the first time in 84 years, and astrologers and social media users are panicking about this transition, believing that it could herald turbulent times. The Context On July 7, 2025, Uranus entered Gemini. The planet will briefly retrograde into Taurus on November 7 and reenter Gemini in April of 2026, where it will stay until May 2033. What To Know So what does this mean and what (on earth) does it have to do with politics and world events? All the planets in the solar system will eventually return to a certain spot they were...

Explanation: Transfusing sunlight as the sky grew darker, this exceptional display of noctilucent clouds was captured on July 10, reflected in the calm waters of Vallentuna Lake near Stockholm, Sweden. From the edge of space, about 80 kilometers above Earth's surface, the icy clouds themselves still reflect sunlight, even though the Sun is below the horizon as seen from the ground. Usually spotted at high latitudes in summer months, the night shining clouds have made a strong showing so far during the short northern summer nights. Also known as polar mesopheric clouds they are understood to form as water vapor...

NASA’s DART asteroid redirection mission may have inadvertently made future asteroid deflections much more challenging after its test sent boulders hurtling through space on unexpected trajectories. In September 2022, the DART mission successfully altered the orbit of asteroid moon Dimorphos. Unfortunately, the smaller space rocks that were dislodged when the kinetic impactor struck the natural satellite achieved three times the momentum of the spacecraft that created them. The University of Maryland-led team (UMD) behind the new research paper on DART’s repercussions cautions that results demonstrate planetary defense may be considerably more complex than previously suspected, with the potential for many...

Explanation: Stars are forming in Lynds Dark Nebula (LDN) 1251. About 1,000 light-years away and drifting above the plane of our Milky Way galaxy, LDN 1251 is also less appetizingly known as "The Rotten Fish Nebula." The dusty molecular cloud is part of a complex of dark nebulae mapped toward the Cepheus flare region. Across the spectrum, astronomical explorations of the obscuring interstellar clouds reveal energetic shocks and outflows associated with newborn stars, including the telltale reddish glow from scattered Herbig-Haro objects hiding in the image. Distant background galaxies also lurk in the scene, almost buried behind the dusty expanse....

Explanation: The beautiful Trifid Nebula is a cosmic study in contrasts. Also known as M20, it lies about 5,000 light-years away toward the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. A star forming region in the plane of our galaxy, the Trifid does illustrate three different types of astronomical nebulae; red emission nebulae dominated by light from hydrogen atoms, blue reflection nebulae produced by dust reflecting starlight, and dark nebulae where dense dust clouds appear in silhouette. But, the red emission region roughly separated into three parts by obscuring dust lanes is what lends the Trifid its popular name. Pillars and jets sculpted...

Explanation: If you have looked at the sky and seen a group of stars about the size of the full Moon, that's the Pleiades (M45). Perhaps the most famous star cluster in the sky, its brightest stars can be seen even from the light-polluted cities. But your unaided eye can also see its nebulosity -- the gas and dust surrounding it -- under dark skies. However, telescopes can catch even more. The bright blue stars of the Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, light up their surrounding dust, causing it to appear a diffuse blue that can only be...

Explanation: It came from outer space. An object from outside our Solar System is now passing through at high speed. Classified as a comet because of its gaseous coma, 3I/ATLAS is only the third identified macroscopic object as being so alien. The comet's trajectory is shown in white on the featured map, where the orbits of Jupiter, Mars, and Earth are shown in gold, red, and blue. Currently Comet 3I/ATLAS is about the distance of Jupiter from the Sun -- but closing, with its closest approach to our Sun expected to be within the orbit of Mars in late October....

The Eagle takes flight this July. Look east after dark to find Aquila, the soaring constellation anchored by Altair, while Mars glows in the west and Venus and Jupiter greet the sunrise. Credit: Shutterstock July’s skies offer a feast: Mars glows at dusk while Mercury peeks out briefly, Venus blazes before dawn, and Jupiter joins it for a photogenic pairing. Saturn lingers past midnight, and the Moon stages close encounters with Mars and the morning planets. Sixty years after Mariner 4’s trailblazing flyby, stargazers can celebrate by tracing Aquila the Eagle soaring overhead, using bright Altair to sketch its wings...

Attention Spaceflight enthusiasts! As you may know, the US Senate just saved SLS, Orion and Gateway with a $10 million investment. What you may not know, is that a recent GAO report revealed that those programs are even more over budget than we thought! And meanwhile, the fiscally responsible NASA programs are getting cut! Congress saves over budget SLS and Gateway, cuts fiscally responsible NASA programs!/a> | 14:42 The Angry Astronaut | 198K subscribers | 14,018 views | July 6, 2025

Explanation: Why is there a spiral around the North Pole of Mars? Each winter this pole develops a new outer layer about one meter thick composed of carbon dioxide frozen out of the thin Martian atmosphere. This fresh layer is deposited on a water-ice layer that exists year round. Strong winds blow down from above the cap's center and swirl due to the spin of the red planet -- contributing to Planum Boreum's spiral structure. The featured image is a perspective mosaic generated in 2017 from numerous images taken by ESA's Mars Express and elevations extracted from the laser altimeter...

Rob O'Neill recounts the ride to Osama Bin Laden’s house.