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Giant craters on metallic asteroid Psyche could finally confirm if it's the exposed core of a destroyed protoplanet.
Top 15 Space & Astronomy Stories
- Giant Craters Hint at Psyche's Core Origin: 24 March 2026 • Universe Today
- Parabolic Flights Test How Dust Forms Planetesimals: 24 March 2026 • Universe Today
- Rubin Observatory Alerts Yield Four Supernovae in Test Runs: 24 March 2026 • Universe Today
- Space Force Creates Cyber Units to Protect Rocket Launches: 24 March 2026 • SpaceNews
- NASA Data Hackathon at University of Florida Inspires Community: 24 March 2026 • NASA
- Two Brown Dwarfs May Merge to Form a Star: 24 March 2026 • Space.com
- Amazon Targets Faster Launches for Project Kuiper: 24 March 2026 • SpaceNews
- Bennu Boulder Mystery Solved by NASA Samples: 24 March 2026 • Sky & Telescope
- Ancient Low-Metallicity Star Found in Dwarf Galaxy: 24 March 2026 • Universe Today
- Rocket Lab to Launch ESA's Celeste Navigation Demonstrators: 24 March 2026 • Astronomy Magazine
- NASA's GUARDIAN System Visualized Tracking a Tsunami: 24 March 2026 • NASA
- Moon to Pass Near Regulus on March 29: 24 March 2026 • Astronomy Magazine
- Hubble and Webb Image Core of Pinwheel Galaxy: 24 March 2026 • NASA
- Black Hole Mergers Used to Test General Relativity: 24 March 2026 • Universe Today
New analysis suggests massive craters on asteroid 16 Psyche may preserve evidence of whether it is the metallic remnant of a protoplanet's core. This helps planetary scientists understand how such a unique metal-rich body formed in the early solar system.
Source: universetoday.com
Swiss researchers flew parabolic micro-gravity flights to observe how dust grains begin clumping together in conditions mimicking protoplanetary disks. The experiments reveal the first steps of aggregation that eventually lead to rocky planets.
Source: universetoday.com
NSF NOIRLab completed end-to-end tests of its alert system using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, successfully triggering follow-up observations that detected four supernovae. This demonstrates the global telescope network ready for Rubin's upcoming ten-year survey of transient events.
Source: universetoday.com
The U.S. Space Force has established dedicated 'cyber defense' squadrons at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg to guard against malicious hacks during launches. This reflects growing concern over cybersecurity threats to space operations.
Source: spacenews.com
Students, library staff, researchers and community members participated in the EMERGE NASA Data Hackathon at the University of Florida’s Marston Science Library. The event showed how real NASA data tools can empower public engagement in environmental and public health science.
Source: science.nasa.gov
Astronomers have identified two "failed stars" known as brown dwarfs that could collide and merge, potentially igniting nuclear fusion to become a true star. This offers a second chance for these objects to shine after missing their initial opportunity.
Source: space.com
Amazon plans to double its annual launch rate for the Leo low Earth orbit broadband constellation to more than 20 missions per year. The schedule depends on new rockets that have yet to demonstrate reliable performance at scale.
Source: spacenews.com
Analysis of samples returned from asteroid Bennu shows that cracks in its boulders create the appearance of loose sand on the surface. This resolves a long-standing puzzle about the asteroid's unexpected texture.
Source: skyandtelescope.org
Astronomers have discovered a Population II star named PicII-503 in the ultra-faint dwarf galaxy Pictor II. This ancient star, more than 10 billion years old, preserves chemical clues from the early universe.
Source: universetoday.com
Rocket Lab is preparing its 85th Electron mission, named Daughter of the Stars, to carry the first two satellites of ESA's Celeste in-orbit demonstration. The CubeSats will test next-generation navigation technologies and secure frequency filings for future European LEO-PNT systems.
Source: astronomy.com
A new data visualization demonstrates how NASA's GUARDIAN software detects distortions in GNSS signals to provide early warnings of approaching tsunamis. The experimental system gives communities additional lead time before waves arrive.
Source: nasa.gov
On the evening of March 29, the Moon will appear close to Regulus, the brightest star in Leo the Lion. The pairing offers a striking visual demonstration of depth in the night sky.
Source: astronomy.com
New combined observations from Hubble and Webb telescopes reveal detailed features in the core of Messier 101, the Pinwheel Galaxy, located 25 million light-years away. The multi-wavelength view highlights the galaxy's structure as one of the closest face-on spirals.
Source: nasa.gov
Data from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA network of gravitational wave detections from colliding black holes is being used to test the limits of Einstein's theory of general relativity. These observations search for any deviations that might point to alternative theories of gravity.
Source: universetoday.com
Cosmic Spotlight
Giant Craters Hint at Psyche's Core Origin
The metallic asteroid 16 Psyche, roughly the size of Massachusetts, stands out in the main asteroid belt because it appears to be made almost entirely of metal rather than rock. Planetary scientists have long suspected it could be the exposed core of a protoplanet that was shattered early in solar system history before it could fully form. Recent studies of its giant craters suggest these impact features may hold preserved evidence of that violent past, potentially revealing the asteroid's true nature. The craters could tell us whether Psyche really is a lost planetary core or something else entirely. This matters because understanding Psyche helps explain how differentiation and core formation worked among the building blocks of planets.
What do you think — could we really be looking at the exposed heart of an ancient world?
Cosmic Deep Dive: How Black Holes Generate Magnetic Fields
If you shrunk our Sun down to the size of a small Canadian city, its density would still be nothing compared to the plasma swirling around a feeding black hole, where temperatures can exceed 10 million degrees Celsius in the inner accretion disk.
Here's what actually happens: as gas and dust spiral inward, the material forms a superheated disk of plasma that rotates at a significant fraction of the speed of light. This rapid motion, combined with the black hole's spin, twists and amplifies magnetic field lines through a process called the magnetorotational instability — essentially a cosmic dynamo that can generate fields strong enough to launch relativistic jets thousands of light-years long.
We can observe these jets and the shadows they cast, yet the exact mechanism that allows the field to thread the event horizon itself remains one of the most stubborn puzzles in high-energy astrophysics. The fields are so powerful they can extract rotational energy from the black hole via the Blandford-Znajek process, powering some of the brightest objects in the universe.
What keeps scientists up at night is exactly how ordered these fields become so close to the singularity — we see the results clearly, but the precise choreography of plasma and magnetism at that extreme scale still defies our best simulations.
Today's edition captures the thrill of both ancient cosmic remnants and brand-new missions — space really is delivering on all fronts. Clear skies!