EurekAlert! News by Subject: Space & Planetary - News by Subject: Space & Planetary

Space & Planetary

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 6-Nov-2025 19:11 ET (7-Nov-2025 00:11 GMT/UTC)

Decades-old mystery of AlCl dipole moment resolved

University of California - Riverside
Peer-Reviewed Publication

n a study that closes a long-standing knowledge gap in fundamental science, researchers Boerge Hemmerling and Stephen Kane at the University of California, Riverside, have successfully measured the electric dipole moment of aluminum monochloride (AlCl), a simple yet scientifically crucial diatomic molecule. Their results have implications for quantum technologies, astrophysics, and planetary science.

Journal: Physical Review A
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation

Why the moon shimmers with shiny glass beads

Washington University in St. Louis
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Using a variety of microscopic analysis techniques not available when the Apollo astronauts first returned samples from the moon, researchers have been able to take a close look at the microscopic mineral deposits on the outside of lunar beads.

Journal: Icarus

In the belly of the beast: massive clumps reveal star factories from a bygone era of the cosmos

University of Arizona
Reports and Proceedings

Surveying nearby galaxies in the process of merging with other galaxies, astronomers have identified massive, dense star factories, unlike any found in the Milky Way. The findings provide a rare glimpse into processes shaping galaxies in the very early universe and possibly the Milky Way a few billion years from now.

Meeting: 246th Meeting

NASA’s Webb ‘UNCOVERs’ galaxy population driving cosmic renovation

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Reports and Proceedings

Data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed dozens of small galaxies that played a starring role in a cosmic makeover that transformed the early universe into the one we know today.

SETI Institute names first William J. Welch Postdoctoral Fellow

SETI Institute
Grant and Award Announcement

The SETI Institute is pleased to announce Dr. Karen I. Perez as the inaugural recipient of the William J. Welch Postdoctoral Fellowship at the SETI Institute. Beginning in the Fall of 2025, Perez will develop real-time, machine-learning-enabled and GPU-accelerated analysis pipelines for detecting single-pulse transients, as well as narrowband and broadband technosignatures, using the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) in Hat Creek, CA and other telescopes around the world.

Her research will bridge science and engineering, advancing the field of radio astronomy through the integration of NVIDIA accelerator technology, which is crucial for advancing the SETI Institute's data-intensive search for signals from intelligent life.

NASA’s CODEX captures unique views of Sun’s outer atmosphere

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Reports and Proceedings

Scientists analyzing data from NASA’s CODEX (Coronal Diagnostic Experiment) investigation have successfully evaluated the instrument’s first images, revealing the speed and temperature of material flowing out from the Sun. These images, shared at a press event Tuesday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, illustrate the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona, is not a homogenous, steady flow of material, but an area with sputtering gusts of hot plasma. These images will help scientists improve their understanding of how the Sun impacts Earth and our technology in space.

Rice students develop an award-winning adaptive exercise harness for astronauts to use in space

Rice University
Grant and Award Announcement

A team of Rice engineering students has designed an innovative space exercise harness that won this year's Technology Collaboration Center’s Wearables Workshop and University Challenge. Their design answered a challenge posed by the HumanWorks Lab and Life Science Labs at NASA and Johnson Space Center.

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