Space

A new study published in Physical Review D has systematically calculated the probability of detecting gravitational wave signals from primordial black holes (PBHs) interacting with neutron stars in the Galactic center, concluding that current observatories face extremely long odds. Despite the theoretical appeal of PBH-neutron star encounters as a window into dark matter, the probability […]

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have detected for the first time the subtle signature of a planet’s rotation during transit, revealing dramatic temperature and chemical asymmetries across the atmosphere of the ultra-hot Jupiter WASP-121 b. The findings, published in Nature Astronomy, open a new window into the three-dimensional structure of exoplanet atmospheres. WASP-121 […]

Astrophysicists have shown that tiny deviations in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectrum can place some of the most stringent limits yet on whether ultrahigh-energy neutrinos interact with one another, opening a new observational avenue for physics beyond the Standard Model. The study, published in Physical Review D by researchers from India’s Institute of Physics […]

Date: 2026-06-19 Featured image: Katalyst Space’s Link robotic servicing satellite awaits encapsulation inside a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket on June 8, 2026, at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Credit: NASA/Ron Beard Just 10 months ago, NASA asked three companies if they could do something nobody had done before: build and launch a satellite […]

“The rocket is to be powered by the self-developed Lieyan-2 electric-pump-fed engine, with Spark Space aiming for a debut flight in 2027,” the company said in a statement. ### Funding and investors Spark Space announced a Pre-A round of nearly 100 million yuan ($14.8 million) on June 1, led by Yunze Capital and Orbital Chenguang, […]

A new study combining James Webb Space Telescope observations of the earliest galaxies with cosmic microwave background data and baryon acoustic oscillation measurements from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument has resolved the long-standing Hubble tension to just 1.0 sigma — the closest astronomers have come to eliminating the decade-old crisis in cosmology. The Hubble tension […]

Quantum Space has secured a contract from the Department of Defense to develop an orbital refueling spacecraft, marking another step in the Pentagon’s push to treat satellite fuel as a replenishable resource rather than a finite commodity that determines mission lifetime. The contract, awarded by the DoD’s Operational Energy Capability Improvement Fund (OECIF), calls for […]

For the first time, astronomers have directly detected the ultra-dense molecular gas that fuels star formation in a typical massive galaxy from the peak era of cosmic star formation, providing the clearest view yet of how galaxies built their stars 10.5 billion years ago. The detection, reported in a paper submitted to Astronomy & Astrophysics […]

Researchers have introduced CASPER, a lightweight machine learning pipeline that combines a residual neural network classifier with an interpretability layer to detect gravitational wave signals, and explain why it made each decision. The work tackles a growing challenge in gravitational wave astronomy: as detection rates surge past 390 confirmed events (as 1ban.news covered in the […]

China executed four orbital launches in three days across four different rocket families, underscoring the country’s accelerating launch cadence in 2026. But the flurry of missions was tempered by an extended period of silence following the liftoff of a Kuaizhou-11 solid rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, suggesting possible issues with the vehicle or […]