Space & Planetary
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 29-Jun-2025 13:10 ET (29-Jun-2025 17:10 GMT/UTC)
11-Mar-2025
Study by UChicago scientists finds four tiny planets around one of our nearest stars
University of ChicagoPeer-Reviewed Publication
UChicago astronomers have revealed new evidence that there are not just one but four tiny planets circling around Barnard’s Star, the second-nearest star system to Earth.
- Journal
- The Astrophysical Journal Letters
11-Mar-2025
SwRI receives $3 million NASA astrobiology grant to study microbial life in Alaska’s arctic sand dunes
Southwest Research InstituteGrant and Award Announcement
SAN ANTONIO — March 11, 2025 —Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has received a three-year, $2,999,998 million grant from NASA to identify and characterize life and its biosignatures in frozen sand dunes in Alaska, under conditions similar to dune fields on early Mars and Saturn’s moon Titan. The Assessing Regional Reflectors of Astrobiology in Kobuk dunes for Interplanetary Science (ARRAKIS) project team, which includes researchers from Brigham Young University and the University of California—Davis, seek insight into how microbial life may thrive in extreme environments on other worlds by understanding the limits on and constraints affecting life in similar planetary analog environments on Earth.
11-Mar-2025
Small, faint and 'unexpected in a lot of different ways': U-M astronomers make galactic discovery
University of MichiganPeer-Reviewed Publication
The discovery of the dwarf galaxy Andromeda XXXV—located roughly 3 million light-years away and the smallest yet found in the Andromeda system—is forcing astronomers to rethink how galaxies evolve in different cosmic environments and survive different epochs of the universe.
- Journal
- The Astrophysical Journal Letters
- Funder
- U.S. National Science Foundation, Space Telescope Science Institute
11-Mar-2025
Earth's 'dirty mirror' effect is accelerating climate change
University of ReadingPeer-Reviewed Publication
Cloudy areas over oceans are reflecting less sunlight to space than before
- Journal
- Environmental Research Letters
10-Mar-2025
$100 million investment to expand Cornell's Engineering college
Cornell UniversityGrant and Award Announcement
A $100 million philanthropic commitment, the largest in Cornell Engineering’s history, from David A. Duffield ’62, MBA ’64, will significantly expand the college’s existing Duffield Hall, creating a new state-of-the-art home for the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and critical new lab space for strategic research priorities.
10-Mar-2025
James Webb Space Telescope reveals unexpected complex chemistry in primordial galaxy
University of ArizonaPeer-Reviewed Publication
University of Arizona astronomers have peered back to a time when the universe was just less than 300 million years old. The research team, using JWST revealed something extraordinary in the galaxy: significant amounts of oxygen.
- Journal
- Nature Astronomy
- Funder
- NASA, NASA, European Research Council, European Research Council, Science and Technology Facilities Council, UKRI Frontier Research, Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, U.S. National Science Foundation