All About Space

SCAN HERE TO GET OUR DAILY NEWSLETTER If you’ve always wanted an all you need to know guide to the Andromeda Galaxy, then this is the issue for you. We take a deep dive into our closest spiral galaxy, from its structure to its scheduled collision wi

A new Hubble Space Telescope image shows the tiny galaxy UGC 5189A, located about 150 million light years away in the constellation of Leo, in stunning detail. The space telescope, which has been observing the universe since 1990, has been studying t

NASA has started the new year with a self-proclaimed ‘double bang’ – that is, an image of supernova remnant 30 Doradus B. Why is it a double? In creating this image, a team of astronomers studying the remnant discovered that it could not have been fo

The bizarre wisp of green light dubbed the Green Monster, first seen last year snaking through the glowing remnants of an exploded star, belongs to a blast wave bordering the debris field, a new study reveals. Last April, NASA’s James Webb Space Tele

During its 57th flyby of Jupiter, NASA’s Juno spacecraft came closer to the planet’s moon Io than any other mission has in the last two decades. Passing within around 1,500 kilometres (930 miles) of Io, the most volcanic body in the Solar System, on

The International Space Station (ISS) might keep flying past 2030. A senior NASA official said that there is “no big concern” about the health of the ISS that would require an operational stop six years from now, when the current agreement expires be

When plotting sites for crewed lunar landings, mission planners must account for many lunar parameters. The shape of the terrain could make or break a mission, and a possible high volume of buried water could make one spot much more tantalising than

NASA’s Juno spacecraft made a close flyby of Jupiter’s intriguing moon Europa in 2022, revealing potential hints of present-day surface activity. The spacecraft’s Stellar Reference Unit (SRU), which is a star camera designed to assist Juno’s onboard

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered that the atmosphere of a relatively small planet outside the Solar System is rich with water vapour. But don’t plan a vacation to this destination just yet. The planet’s surface is hot eno

Evidence of ancient lake sediments at the base of Mars’ Jezero crater offers new hope for finding traces of life in samples collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover. Perseverance touched down on 18 February 2021 inside the crater, which is believed to

Astronomers have uncovered a huge haul of hidden stars, including some violently erupting newborn protostars and others that fall under an unexpected new category of ancient giant red stars. They dub the latter bodies ‘old smokers’. These old smokers

The Andromeda Galaxy is the most distant object we can see with the naked eye. Even on the darkest night, all the individual stars we can see are part of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Just three naked-eye objects lie beyond its boundaries – two sma

The EmDrive is the brainchild of microwave engineer Roger Shawyer, who after 40 years with aerospace giants Sperry, BAE Systems and Astrium set out to pursue a remarkable idea: a thruster that can produce a force without any exhaust. The problem with

In the summer of 1989, from a remote expanse of our Solar System where sunlight is merely I a tepid glow, NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft radioed to Earth humankind’s very first images of Neptune. The pictures revealed the Sun’s outermost planet was a st

As the Lunar Module pilot for Apollo 16, Duke became the tenth and youngest person to walk on the Moon at the age of 36, when he landed on its surface in 1972. An engineer, retired Air Force officer and test pilot, Duke has spent over 260 hours in sp

The Hubble Space Telescope has seen cyclones raging in the dynamic atmosphere of a hot Jupiter located 880 light years away thanks to observations and computer modelling that could one day be applied to characterise weather on smaller rocky exoplanet

Date taken: 2012 Taken by: The Solar Dynamics Observatory If you take a brief glimpse of the Sun through thin clouds, all you’ll see is a white disc, perhaps with a few small, dark sunspots spattered across it. But the filtered cameras of solar obser

Scientists have used a sophisticated simulation to reconstruct the brutal death of a star that wandered too close to a supermassive black hole and was shredded to bits. The team, led by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Racah Inst

It keeps us on the ground, creates tides and holds planets in their orbits around stars and satellites revolving around Earth – and I maybe it did or didn’t cause that apple to fall on Isaac Newton’s head. We’re talking about gravity, of course. But

The Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is a nearby galaxy that’s very familiar to astronomers, or so they thought. New research suggests that the satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, located around 199,000 light years from Earth, seems to have been hiding a

The cosmological principle is based on the assumption that the universe is isotropic T and homogeneous. In other words, the universe looks the same in all directions regardless of where it is being observed from, allowing astronomers to extrapolate f

Earth and the rest of our Solar System’s inner rocky planets are the products of a myriad of tiny planetesimals – glorified E pebbles of primordial cosmic dust – assembling themselves together more than 4 billion years ago. Now, a new analysis sugges

There are many theories as to how our universe will end. The three main ones are sort of related and all depend on the density of the universe. The first is called the Big Rip. We know that the universe is currently expanding, and it seems to be acce

Many small galaxies that existed early in the universe’s history are elongated in a surfboard-like shape, pointing to the M influence of the cosmic web of matter and constant mergers with other small galaxies. New research using the James Webb Space

Part one Humans have been awed by the night sky for countless millennia. We know so much more about the universe than our ancestors, but the same visceral feelings about the vast, silent majesty of the cosmos sweep through our senses. A wealth of obj

With the spring equinox fast approaching, make the most of the lingering darkness Where you can find the planets this month and the phases of the Moon The king of the Solar System takes pride of place, dazzling as the king of the evening sky Find a

The delays in NASA’s Artemis program are making Congress nervous. NASA has announced that it’s now targeting T September 2025 for its Artemis II mission, which will send four astronauts around the Moon, and September 2026 for Artemis III, which will

PLANET OF THE MONTH Jupiter is by far the largest planet in our Solar System. It’s a gas giant world so huge that it could easily swallow up Earth a thousand times over with room to spare. The planet has been gracing our evening skies for many month

The giant craters on the Moon are named after the giants of astronomy and science. Blasted out of the Moon’s crust by violent impacts, thousands of gaping pits with steep walls and mountains in their centres bear the names of legends such as Copernic

At magnitude +2.1, Denebola is the secondbrightest star in Leo and the 61st-brightest star in the whole sky. Just 36 light years away from Earth, it’s very young in stellar terms at just 400 million years old – less than a tenth the age of our Sun. T

As winter turns to spring, the very nature of the night sky changes. Gone are winter’s bright stars, bold constellations and obvious deep-sky delights such as the Orion Nebula, the Pleiades and open cluster Messier 35. Replacing them are subtler cons

Look to the north this month and there’s plenty of objects to keep you occupied. In particular, the galaxies and star clusters of Cassiopeia (the Vain Queen), Cepheus (the King), Perseus (the Hero) and Auriga (the Charioteer) offer easy pickings for

Cost: €18.99 (approx. £16.30 / $20.45) From: sunnygeeks.com 1 Create your very own window into the universe with this 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle that features stunning imagery from the Hubble Space Telescope. With three awe-inspiring images to choose

Cost: £349.99 / $469.95 From: Celestron Type: Refractor Aperture: 4” Focal length: 25” The mounting of the DX 102 is completely manual, with flexible rods to allow what are T called slow motions providing a finer control over the movement than simply

The existence of a planet beyond Neptune had been predicted by prominent American astrologer Percival Lowell in 1905, but it was never proven in his lifetime. He had aimed a 40-inch reflector at what he believed to be the right section of the sky, bu

Editor Gemma Lavender gemma.lavender@futurenet.com Art Editor Jonathan Wells Production Editor Nikole Robinson Senior Art Editor Duncan Crook Sophie Allen, Martin Archer, Stuart Atkinson, Josh Barker, Keith Cooper, David Crookes, Briony Duguid, Curti