Space And The Universe News

by Matthew Williams (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/houseofwilliams) on July 11, 2026 at 12:51 am

The black hole at the centre of a nearby galaxy is growing exceptionally fast, and is producing a burst of radio emission that has never been observed before. With characteristics that are expected in the early Universe, this unique galaxy provides important insights into the processes that governed the growth of the first black holes.

by Matthew Williams (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/houseofwilliams) on July 10, 2026 at 5:05 pm

Swinburne University of Technology and CSIRO have combined telescope and gravitational wave data in an attempt to unlock the true value of the Universe's expansion. Existing measurements of the Hubble Constant have split cosmologists for more than a decade.

by Evan Gough (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/ion23drive) on July 10, 2026 at 3:40 pm

When a massive star reaches the end of its life, it explodes as a supernova that can light up the sky for months. But some supernovae stay luminous for much longer, and astrophysicists have wondered what causes their extended brightness. New research points to binary stars, where one star expels material right before the explosion that creates a cocoon of circumstellar medium.

by Alan Boyle (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/cosmiclog) on July 10, 2026 at 1:41 am

How do you capture the mood of the 1960s space race in a fictional universe where the Soviets beat the Americans to the moon? The production team for Apple TV's "Star City" series rose to the challenge.

by Evan Gough (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/ion23drive) on July 9, 2026 at 7:52 pm

Ptolemy and al-Sufi were keen ancient astronomers, one in Greece and one in Persia, whose observations were separated by almost a thousand years. They both noted that the star Theta Eridani was far brighter than it is today. Now we know why.

by Matthew Williams (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/houseofwilliams) on July 9, 2026 at 6:51 pm

Astrophysicists working tirelessly to tackle the growing impact of satellite constellations have pioneered a new ultra-black coating as one possible way to mitigate the problem.

by Andy Tomaswick (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/andy-tomaswick) on July 9, 2026 at 3:28 pm

Shielding astronauts from the killer radiation they face is a central challenge facing any designer of a deep-space crewed mission. Even relatively low levels of exposure for long periods of time can lead to everything from central nervous system damage to cancer. But current solutions, such as passive water shells or active superconducting magnets, have their own limitations. To get around those, a new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv by Valerio Parisi and a team of researchers from Italy and Germany, looks at the feasibility of using a permanent magnet (and its associated permanent magnetic field) to potentially block some of that deadly radiation without the costs of competing technologies.

by Andy Tomaswick (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/andy-tomaswick) on July 9, 2026 at 2:31 pm

NASA is serious about going back to the Moon. Ongoing missions like the recently completed Artemis II trip around the Moon are just one such sign. But perhaps more importantly, NASA is recognizing how much additional work will have to go into funding technology development if we hope to stay on the lunar surface permanently. To reflect that understanding, the agency recently released a request for public feedback on what it calls the Lunar Enabling Infrastructure Accelerator - which might have been named after a Star Wars fan, since its acronym is LEIA.

by Andy Tomaswick (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/andy-tomaswick) on July 9, 2026 at 2:25 pm

We’ve talked plenty of times here about the infeasibility of launching a mirror big enough to directly image exoplanets using current rocket fairings - at least as long as we’re not sending them 500+ AU away to a gravitational lensing point. We’ve also talked at length about the potential solution to that problem - interferometry, where multiple smaller satellites link up precisely, but are spaced far enough apart to act as one gigantic mirror. The problem is, from a technical standpoint, it’s really hard to build these kinds of systems. But the field has taken another step forward with a new paper from researchers at Xidian University and the Beijing Institute of Control Engineering, published in Space: Science & Technology, which describes a system to both control and calibrate a free-floating interferometer.

by Mark Thompson (https://www.universetoday.com/authors/mark) on July 9, 2026 at 5:44 am

Scientists at UCF have found that the harsh conditions of spaceflight, radiation and weightlessness combined, can trigger changes in the liver that closely resemble accelerated ageing, and remarkably, the same genetic fingerprints show up in real astronaut blood samples. The discovery could shape how we protect future Mars explorers, and might just hold clues to slowing ageing back here on Earth too.