3+ day, 39+ min ago   (1128+ words) Cosmic rays may erode icy interstellar objects far faster than expected, suggesting ‘Oumuamua could once have been much larger. (CREDIT: Credit: European Southern Observatory/M. Kornmesser/ NASA) Interstellar space may look empty, but an icy object drifting between the stars…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago   (1201+ words) Experiments show strong stellar magnetic fields can stop coronal mass ejections, helping explain why astronomers rarely detect them. (CREDIT: Shutterstock) Some of the most active stars in the galaxy appear capable of producing enormous eruptions, yet astronomers rarely see those…...

1+ week, 6+ day ago   (962+ words) A powerful pulsed magnet expands the shock layer around spacecraft models, advancing a possible new approach to surviving reentry heat. (CREDIT: Shutterstock) A spacecraft plunging into an atmosphere faces an environment violent enough to heat the gas around its surface…...

2+ week, 5+ day ago   (1074+ words) An ADN green rocket thruster ignited electrically at room temperature, eliminating the need for a preheated catalyst bed. (CREDIT: Wikimedia / AI-Generated / CC BY-SA 4.0) An experimental “green” rocket thruster has fired successfully using ammonium dinitramide fuel without the catalyst bed normally…...

2+ week, 6+ day ago   (1024+ words) Binary asteroids can behave less like two simple rocks in orbit and more like a tightly coupled mechanical system. Their shapes, positions and rotations all influence one another, making long-term predictions difficult and exposing weaknesses in standard numerical methods. That…...

3+ week, 22+ hour ago   (693+ words) That assumption may not hold. A team from Perimeter Institute and the University of Maryland reports that the conversion process can trigger powerful nonlinear effects in plasma. Those effects quickly disrupt the resonance that drives energy transfer, shutting the process…...

3+ week, 1+ day ago   (1257+ words) This computer-simulated image shows gas from a tidally shredded star falling into a black hole. Astronomers observed the flare in ultraviolet light using NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer. (CREDIT: NASA/ S. Gezari (JHU)/ J. Guillochon (UCSC)) A star can skim dangerously…...

3+ week, 4+ day ago   (850+ words) Radiation belt particle diffusion may be mimicked by predictable particle motion that spacecraft cannot fully resolve. (CREDIT: Shutterstock) High-energy particles trapped in Earth’s radiation belts can look as if they are spreading randomly, even when their motion is fully predictable....

3+ week, 5+ day ago   (1389+ words) A new study captures the first clear evidence of ambipolar diffusion, a process that allows stars to form from dense cosmic clouds. (CREDIT: Shutterstock) Deep within a dark cloud in the constellation Taurus, a quiet shift is taking place. It…...