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Universe Today

Bullseye! How a galaxy collision stirred up ripples in space

Hubble view of Bullseye galaxy
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this view of the Bullseye Galaxy. Credit: NASA, ESA, Imad Pasha (Yale), Pieter van Dokkum (Yale)

What happens when one galaxy shoots a bigger galaxy right through the heart? Like a rock thrown into a pond, the smashup creates a splash-up of starry ripples. At least that’s what happened to the Bullseye galaxy, which is the focus of observations made by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

In a study published today by The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a research team led by Yale University’s Imad Pasha identifies nine visible ring-shaped ripples in the structure of the galaxy, formally known as LEDA 1313424. The galaxy is 567 million light years from Earth in the constellation Pisces.

The Bullseye now holds the record for the most rings observed in a galaxy. Previous observations of other galaxies showed a maximum of two or three rings.

“This was a serendipitous discovery,” Pasha said in a news release. “I was looking at a ground-based imaging survey and when I saw a galaxy with several clear rings, I was immediately drawn to it. I had to stop to investigate it.”

Eight separate rings could be spotted in the image captured by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. The ninth ring was identified in data from the Keck Observatory. Follow-up observations also helped the team figure out which galaxy plunged through the Bullseye’s core. It’s the blue dwarf galaxy visible to the center-left of LEDA 1313424 in the Hubble image.

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SpaceX loses Starship’s upper stage but catches booster

Starship Super Heavy booster coming in for a launch-tower catch
SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy booster comes in for a launch-tower catch at the Starbase launch site. (SpaceX via X)

SpaceX’s seventh flight test of its massive Starship launch system brought good news as well as not-so-great news.

The good news? The Super Heavy booster successfully flew itself back to the Texas launch site and was caught above the ground by the launch tower’s chopstick-style mechanical arms. That’s only the second “Mechazilla” catch to be done during the Starship test program.

The bad news is that the upper stage, known as Ship 33, was lost during its ascent.

“Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn. Teams will continue to review data from today’s flight test to better understand root cause,” SpaceX said in a post-mission posting to X. “With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability.”

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Universe Today

NASA lays out two new options for Mars sample return

Montage of sample tube on Mars surface
This montage shows tubes containing Martian samples collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover. (NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS)

Months after deciding that its previous plan for bringing samples back from Mars wasn’t going to work, NASA says it’s working out the details for two new sample return scenarios, with the aim of bringing 30 titanium tubes filled with Martian rocks and soil back to Earth in the 2030s.

One scenario calls for using a beefed-up version of NASA’s sky crane to drop the required hardware onto the Red Planet’s surface, while the other would use heavy-lift commercial capabilities provided by the likes of SpaceX or Blue Origin.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the space agency plans to flesh out the details for each option over the course of the next year and make its choice in 2026. But that all depends on what Congress and President-elect Donald Trump’s administration want to do.

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Universe Today

Starship’s booster (and Donald Trump) make a splash

Starship liftoff as seen from above
SpaceX's Starship lifts off from its Texas pad for the launch system's sixth flight test. (Credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX’s Starship launch system went through its sixth flight test today, and although the Super Heavy booster missed out on being caught back at its launch pad, the mission checked off a key test objective with President-elect Donald Trump in the audience.

Trump attended the launch at SpaceX’s Starbase complex in the company of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who has been serving as a close adviser to the once and future president over the past few months. In a pre-launch posting to his Truth Social media platform, Trump wished good luck to “Elon Musk and the Great Patriots involved in this incredible project.”

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Universe Today

America’s particle physics plan gets a status update

Illustration with subatomic particles and galaxy bubbles
Physics experiments address mysteries at subatomic and astronomical levels. (Illustration by Olena Shmahalo for U.S. Particle Physics)

RALEIGH, N.C. — Particle physicist Hitoshi Murayama admits that he used to worry about being known as the “most hated man” in his field of science. But the good news is that now he can joke about it.

Last year, the Berkeley professor chaired the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel, or P5, which drew up a list of multimillion-dollar physics experiments that should move ahead over the next 10 years. The list focused on phenomena ranging from subatomic smash-ups to cosmic inflation. At the same time, the panel also had to decide which projects would have to be left behind for budgetary reasons, which could have turned Murayama into the Dr. No of physics.

Although Murayama has some regrets about the projects that were put off, he’s satisfied with how the process turned out. Now he’s just hoping that the federal government will follow through on the P5’s top priorities.

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Universe Today

Pentagon’s latest UFO report charts global hotspots

Map showing distribution of UFO / UAP sightings
This map from the Pentagon's All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office shows the global distribution for reports relating to unidentified anomalous phenomena in 2023-2024, with red and orange areas representing higher concentrations. (DoD / AARO Graphic)

The Pentagon office in charge of fielding UFO reports says that it has resolved 118 cases over the past year, with most of those anomalous objects turning out to be balloons. But it also says many other cases remain unresolved.

This year’s legally mandated report from the Department of Defense’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, or AARO, also identifies areas of the world that seem to be hotspots for sightings of unidentified flying objects. Such objects have been re-branded as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAPs.

Today’s report come just one day after a House subcommittee hearing about UAPs, during which witnesses — and some lawmakers — voiced concerns about potential alien visitations and undisclosed efforts to gather evidence. In contrast, the Pentagon’s report for the 2023-2024 time period states that, “to date, AARO has discovered no evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology.”

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Congressional hearing fuels fresh debate about UFOs

Infrared view of anomalous alien object
Infrared imagery captured by a Navy fighter jet in 2004 shows an anomalous "Tic Tac" object, highlighted by a red circle. (U.S. Navy Video)

An 11-page document that’s attributed to a Pentagon whistleblower has provided new cases in the controversy over unidentified anomalous phenomena — also known as UAPs, unidentified flying objects or UFOs.

The document, released today in conjunction with a House subcommittee hearing on UAPs, lays out details about what’s said to be a special access program called Immaculate Constellation. It accuses officials in the federal government’s executive branch of a “criminal conspiracy” that has been managing issues surrounding UAPs and evidence for non-human intelligence “without congressional knowledge, oversight or authorization for some time, quite possibly decades.”

Over the past few years, the Department of Defense has become more open to discussing UAP reports publicly, while insisting that there have been no substantiated reports of alien visitations. During today’s hearing, lawmakers called on the Pentagon to be more transparent in its investigations.

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Europa Clipper starts odyssey to mysterious Jovian moon

Europa Clipper liftoff on SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket sends NASA's Europa Clipper into space from its Florida launch pad. (NASA Photo / Kim Shiflett)

NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft today began its six-year cruise to the Jupiter system, with the goal of determining whether one of the giant planet’s moons has the right stuff in the right setting for life.

The van-sized probe was sent into space from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket at 12:06 p.m. ET (9:06 a.m. PT). A little more than an hour after launch, the spacecraft separated from its launch vehicle to begin a roundabout journey of 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) from Earth orbit to Europa.

For decades, scientists have been collecting evidence that Europa harbors a hidden ocean of salty water beneath its icy shell. Or are they hidden lakes? Europa Clipper is built to characterize the moon’s surface, and what’s beneath that surface, to an unprecedented degree.

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SpaceX catches a Starship booster on the first try

Starship SuperHeavy booster catch
SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy booster settles back into the arms of its launch-pad cradle in Texas. (Credit: SpaceX)

For the first time ever, SpaceX has followed through on a Starship test launch by bringing back the Super Heavy booster for an on-target catch in the arms of its “Mechazilla” launch-tower cradle in Texas.

“This is a day for the engineering history books,” SpaceX launch commentator Kate Tice said.

Today’s successful catch marks a giant step toward using — and reusing — Starship for missions ranging from satellite deployments to NASA’s moon missions to migrations to Mars.

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Hera probe heads off to investigate asteroid smash-up

Hera liftoff on SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches the Hera spacecraft into space from its Florida pad. (Credit: SpaceX)

The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft is on its way to do follow-up observations of Dimorphos, two years after an earlier probe knocked the mini-asteroid into a different orbital path around a bigger space rock.

Scientists say the close-up observations that Hera is due to make millions of miles from Earth, starting in 2026, will help them defend our planet from future threats posed by killer asteroids.

“Hera’s ability to closely study its asteroid target will be just what is needed for operational planetary defense,” Richard Moissl, who heads ESA’s Planetary Defense Office, said today in a news release. “You can imagine a scenario where a reconnaissance mission is dispatched rapidly, to assess if any follow-up deflection action is needed.”

The car-sized probe lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 10:52 a.m. ET (7:52 a.m. PT) today, just as Hurricane Milton was approaching from the Gulf of Mexico. The day before the launch, forecasters put the chances of acceptable weather at just 15 percent.

Nevertheless, SpaceX persisted.

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