Author: Alan Boyle

Mastermind of Cosmic Log, contributor to GeekWire and Universe Today, author of "The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference," past president of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.

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Universe Today

Scientists make an intriguing find in dark-matter hunt

Main LUX-ZEPLIN detector surrounded by hardware
The LUX-ZEPLIN dark-matter experiment's main detector sits in a surface lab before its installation underground. (Credit: Matthew Kapust / SURF)

Dark matter is the invisible stuff that accounts for roughly 85% of the mass in the universe, and for decades, physicists have been trying to figure out what it’s made of. Now an experimental facility located nearly a mile below ground in South Dakota has recorded a single interaction between subatomic particles that doesn’t match what’s expected from normal matter.

Has a dark-matter particle been detected at last? It’s too early to say, but the anomaly is attracting attention from dark-matter detectives.

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GeekWire

Juno Propulsion gets a boost for non-toxic rocket tech

Juno Propulsion team leaders gathered around tables in a lab
The Juno Propulsion team includes, from left, fluid systems engineer Andrew Adams, facility operations engineer Cody Niggemyer, chief technology officer Ari Martinez and CEO Alexis Harroun. (Juno Propulsion Photo)

The National Science Foundation has awarded a $1.2 million grant to Tukwila, Wash.-based Juno Propulsion to support the startup’s development of a non-toxic propulsion system for in-space applications.

The two-year Phase II project, funded through NSF’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, will be conducted in partnership with the University of Washington and UW Professor Carl Knowlen’s lab. The focus of the funding is to support work on Juno’s Product Development Unit (PDU), which uses rotating detonation rocket engine technology.

By combining high-efficiency propulsion with non-toxic propellants, Juno aims to enable spacecraft to maneuver farther and faster while reducing the risks associated with traditional toxic propellants. Work on the PDU is intended to advance Juno’s system to Technology Readiness Level 8, positioning it near production-ready status on the standard 1-to-9 TRL scale.

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GeekWire

Fermi Explorer team plans a slow trip to Alpha Centauri

Philip Johnston pointing at Alpha Centauri in the night sky from an outcrop in the Atacama Desert
Philip Johnston, president of the Fermi Explorer Mission, stands on an outcrop in Chile’s Atacama Desert and points at Alpha Centauri in the Milky Way. Johnston and his teammates aim to launch a probe by 2029 that would reach Alpha Centauri 80,000 years later. (Photo Credit: Alexis Trigo)

A Seattle-area nonprofit group known as the Fermi Explorer Mission today unveiled its plans to send a spacecraft on an 80,000-year trip to the nearest alien star system, Alpha Centauri.

If the mission goes as planned, it would mark a milestone for interstellar flight. But Philip Johnston, the group’s co-founder and president, doesn’t expect Fermi Explorer to be humanity’s first visitor to Alpha Centauri. He’s counting on our descendants to figure out faster ways to travel between now and the year 82026.

“We’ll be the first to leave, and the last to arrive,” he said.

The robotic spacecraft won’t be powered by antimatter, dilithium crystals or other science-fiction standbys for traveling between stars. Instead, it will depend on a tried-and-true solar electric propulsion system to build up speed for the 4.4-light-year trip.

Johnston and his teammates laid out the mission requirements for a bidding process that aims to keep the cost of designing, building, launching and operating the probe below $15 million. They’re also soliciting contributions, with launch targeted by the end of 2029.

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Fiction Science Club

Quantum physicist takes aim at the arrow of time

Combo photo of intricate clockwork and portrait of Jim Al-Khalili
Physicist Jim Al-Khalili is the author of "On Time: The Physics That Makes the Universe Tick." (Credits: Clockwork photo adapted from Dietmar Rabich / Wikimedia Commons / Dülmen, Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche, Uhrwerk -- 2019 -- 3054. Al-Khalili image: Princeton University Press. Created under CC BY-SA 4.0 license)

Scientists and philosophers have argued over the nature of time since … well, since time immemorial.

Does time flow unceasingly in one direction? Is our perception of time merely an illusion? Does each instant exist eternally, and are we just running through a sequence of instants like film in a movie projector? And if that’s the case, can we run the film backward? Could we even change what happens in the movie?

In a new book called “On Time” — and in the latest episode of the Fiction Science podcast — British physicist Jim Al-Khalili lays out what he thinks is the answer to such questions.

What’s his answer? Spoilers ahead …

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Universe Today

Roman rises! Get to know NASA’s newest space telescope

Falcon Heavy rocket rises with Roman Space Telescope aboard
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket rises from its pad, sending the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into space. (NASA Photo / Joel Kowsky)

NASA’s newest eye on the sky, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, has begun its journey to unravel the secrets of dark matter, dark energy and Earthlike planets — months ahead of schedule.

The 9-ton telescope rode to space today aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket that was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:26 a.m. ET (4:26 a.m. PT). The ascent went off without a hitch, setting up the telescope for a three-month cruise to a gravitational balance point known as Earth-sun L2, almost a million miles beyond our planet.

The Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters flew themselves back to landings on the Florida coast, near the launch site, while the center core booster splashed into the sea after stage separation.

NASA had originally scheduled liftoff for 2027, but the $4.3 billion mission came in ahead of schedule and under budget.

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Cosmic Space

Turn the Rubin Observatory’s view of the sky into a song

Screenshot of Skysynth music-generation program showing stars, cursor and concentric circles
An app called Skysynth lets users turn the Rubin Observatory's map of the night sky into music by moving a cursor around the image. The circles represent sounds that are created as the cursor passes over celestial objects. (Credit: NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory / NOIRLab / SLAC / AURA; Sonification by SYSTEM Sounds)

There’s a new way to listen to the music of the spheres, courtesy of the Rubin Observatory and a couple of space-savvy musicians.

An online app known as Skysynth lets you turn the observatory’s imagery of the night sky into a tinkling sequence of musical notes by running a cursor over the picture.

Skysynth made its debut months ago, but the Rubin Observatory team highlighted the app this week in social media clips on Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky and X.

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GeekWire

Starcloud raises $250M more for orbital data centers

Illustration showing Earth's disk with a satellite circling over it
Nvidia’s next-generation AI chip, the Space-1 Vera Rubin Module, is set to be used on Starcloud’s future satellites. (Nvidia Illustration)

Starcloud says it has raised $250 million in new funding to support the creation of a constellation of data center satellites powered by Nvidia’s next-generation AI chips.

The Series A extension funding round was led by Manhattan West, with participation from existing investors including Benchmark, EQT, Soma, NFX and 776. Among the new investors joining for this round are Nvidia, Cisco Investments, Cedar Capital, Goanna Capital and Standard Capital.

Founded in 2024, Starcloud is headquartered in Redmond, Wash., and is building production lines for its Starcloud-3 spacecraft at a new 100,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Woodinville, Wash. The newly announced round brings the startup’s total capital raised to $450 million, with a post-money valuation of $2.3 billion.

Nvidia’s participation in the funding round brings Starcloud’s collaboration with the computer-chip titan to a new level. In November 2025, Starcloud flew Nvidia’s H100 GPU to orbit for the first time. It used the chip to train a large language model called NanoGPT — marking a milestone in space-based AI data processing.

Starcloud plans to equip future satellites with Nvidia’s Space-1 Vera Rubin Module, which Nvidia says will deliver 25 times as much in-space compute capability as the H100. Starcloud’s satellites will serve as an early flight platform for the space-rated chips.

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GeekWire

Get a sneak peek at Portal Space Systems’ first satellite

Portal CEO Jeff Thornburg stretching out arms as he shows off Starburst-1 satellite in lab
Portal Space Systems CEO Jeff Thornburg shows off the Starburst-1 satellite in the company’s Bothell lab. (Portal Space Systems Photo)

BOTHELL, Wash. — Portal Space Systems is getting ready to send its first Starburst spacecraft to Florida for a milestone launch, and at the same time is fleshing out its plans for launching an even more capable spacecraft known as Supernova.

Both spacecraft are designed to offer rapid maneuverability in orbit at low cost, and both will take advantage of Portal’s core technologies, supply chains and manufacturing processes. But Supernova will be heavier than Starburst (1,100 pounds vs. 600 pounds) and will make use of an innovative solar thermal propulsion system to move within a wider range of orbits.

Seventeen months after the official opening of Portal’s 8,000-square-foot development and testing lab in Bothell, I was invited back to the facility to get a peek at Starburst-1 — and get a sense of how far the startup has come.

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GeekWire

Zeno gets a chance to use its nuclear heater on the moon

Illustration: Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander on moon's surface with radioisotope heater unit highlighted by blue glow
An artist's conception shows Firefly's Blue Ghost lander on the moon's surface during the lunar night, with Zeno Power Systems' radioisotope heater unit highlighted by a blue glow on the left side of the lander's top deck. (Firefly Aerospace Illustration)

A nuclear-powered heater built by Zeno Power Systems is slated to fly to the moon aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander for a demonstration mission that could take place as early as 2028.

Zeno’s Seattle engineering hub played a leading role in developing the radioisotope heater unit, which will be powered by americium-241, a radioactive isotope typically recovered from recycled nuclear material.

The unit will provide 5 watts of thermal energy — enough to sustain the lander through the lunar night, which lasts 14 Earth days. Firefly’s first solar-powered Blue Ghost lander, which touched down on the moon in March 2025, operated successfully through the lunar day but gave up the ghost shortly after sunset.

“Our first Blue Ghost mission gave us firsthand insight into the moon’s extreme thermal environment, where we measured temperatures ranging from more than 230 degrees F during the lunar day to below -275 degrees F at night,” Ray Allensworth, Firefly’s vice president of spacecraft, said today in a news release. “Now we’re looking forward to advancing technologies that can extend missions beyond sunset and support long-duration surface operations required for NASA’s Moon Base initiative and the growing lunar economy.”

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GeekWire

Blue Origin unveils its Quartz network of ground stations

Bulb-shaped radio antenna dome with ocean in background
Blue Origin’s ground station network includes a radio antenna in Bermuda. (Blue Origin Photo)

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture says it has successfully tested the first three ground stations for a global communications network that will support the company’s missions in Earth orbit and beyond.

The Quartz network’s first ground stations are in Bermuda, New Zealand and Australia. Blue Origin says the network is due to expand to nine sites by the end of the year.

“Ground communications infrastructure has historically been one of the most fragmented and costly elements of space operations, for national security programs, civil and commercial operators alike,” Tory Bruno, president of national security at Blue Origin, said today in a news release. “With Quartz, we’ve built a single, fully integrated network that changes that equation. One interface, one operations team, transparent pricing and a security architecture built to meet the most demanding mission requirements.”

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