All About Space

SCAN HERE TO GET OUR DAILY NEWSLET TER I’m delighted that my favourite planet, the ringed giant Saturn, graces the cover this issue. From its stunningly beautiful ring system to its family of moons, this month you’ll discover everything you need to

NASA’s Perseverance rover just rolled past a big milestone on the Red Planet. The car-sized Perseverance has now been exploring its exotic environs for 1,000 Mars days, or sols. One sol is slightly longer than an Earth day at 24 hours and 37 minutes.

The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted a record-breaking free-floating brown dwarf and two other so-called ‘failed stars’ in a young star cluster just 1,000 light years from Earth. The recordbreaking brown dwarf is not associated with a parent st

The stars of the Milky Way glisten in the night sky above Chile’s Valle de la Luna in a new photo from the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The photo captures the Milky Way illuminating the picturesque Valle de la Luna, meaning ‘Valley of the Moo

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have observed the luminous cloud of material that surrounds a newborn star, cocooning it in a crib of gas and dust. These so-called Herbig-Haro objects are created when stellar winds and jets of gas b

KEEP IN TOUCH /AllAboutSpaceMagazine @spaceanswers [email protected] The United States Congress just passed legislation that directs the US government to release records related to UFOs – some UFO records, anyway. According to new provisions in

True Anomaly just scored a big chunk of change to continue developing its space security technology. The Colorado-based startup announced that it raised $100 million (£78.6 million) in a ‘Series B’ round of funding led by Riot Ventures. The money “wi

Tasked with finding clues about the origins of life on Earth, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft scooped up pieces of a rugged rubble-pile asteroid named Bennu in late 2020 and delivered them to Earth about a few months ago. On 11 December, scientists got

The gravitational pull from black holes is so strong that nothing can escape their grasp. But could we ever harness the gargantuan power of black holes as a source of energy? In a new study, scientists propose two ways to use black holes as energy so

A new investigation of data collected by NASA’s Cassini mission, which ended six years ago, has revealed that the spacecraft spotted a key ingredient needed for life on Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus. The Cassini observations have revealed a powerful en

Astronomers have developed a new way of measuring cosmic distances by listening to the frequencies of ‘music’ played by vibrating stars that collectively act as a vast orchestra of different cosmic instruments. The results could help the European Spa

We’ve teamed up with telescope manufacturer Meade and distributor Hama Products to offer you the chance to win a telescope kit that comes complete with everything you need to begin touring the night sky. With its five-inch aperture, the Meade Polaris

Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun, the second most massive world in the Solar System and the most distant that can easily be seen without a telescope. It orbits the Sun at an average distance of 1.43 billion kilometres (890 million miles) and a

The question of whether life exists on other planets is one that scientists frequently ponder, but have so far failed to answer. But hoping to change this is the New Worlds mission. While it’s still in the early phases of development following years

Lintott is a professor of astrophysics at the University of Oxford, and also the founder of Galaxy Zoo and the Zooniverse. This is the world’s most successful citizen science project, with over a million people worldwide contributing to a variety of

The human exploration of space is one of the crowning achievements of our species, with humankind not content merely to gaze at the stars, but determined to walk among them. Yet humanity’s exploration of space has not been all glory. The history of s

We’ve seen the movies and read the books about what it would be like to have a habitat on W the Moon, but in order to turn our sci-fi fantasy into a reality, scientists must lay out some groundwork. That’s what the Defense Advanced Research Projects

New research has a duo of scientists unsure that humanity’s first-ever exomoon detections N are accurate. In fact, the same findings also showed that exomoons in general may only show themselves if they are extremely large. The new research demonstra

Betelgeuse was first observed centuries ago, but our knowledge of the orange-red star is still surprisingly vague. The red supergiant, B which is in the twilight years of its life, is the second-brightest star in Orion, marking the Hunter’s right sho

Just when scientists believed they had a handle on how stars and planets form, along come celestial bodies that might turn existing theories on their head. In this case, around 540 planetary-mass objects roughly the size of Jupiter that are freely fl

Orbital smash-ups cause tiny pieces of space junk to emit signals that could be detected from Earth, a new study has found. Space junk is a growing problem. As of November 2023, the world’s space surveillance networks were tracking about 35,610 piece

One answer considered especially useful by astronomers is the barycentre, the point where the masses of the Sun, the planets and all bodies in the system balance out. Imagine placing those masses on a huge platform supported by a single pin; slide th

Surprisingly, yes, a black hole could disappear. It would take a very, very long time though. Black holes are regions of space which have so much mass in such a small volume that the escape velocity – the speed you need to go to escape the gravitatio

When people hear the term ‘astronomer’, most automatically W picture someone peering into a telescope. But you don’t need a telescope to see many of the amazing and beautiful things in the night sky. You can see many of the wonders of the universe us

T he United States, United Kingdom and Australia have all signed an agreement to develop a deep-space radar capable of keeping an eye on what’s happening in geosynchronous orbit. Found around 35,786 kilometres (22,236 miles) above Earth, this region

Buried dozens of metres under the equator of Mars is a large honeycomb pattern similar to what’s found near Earth’s frigid B poles. Each crevasse spans 70 metres (230 feet) – about half a football field – and is bordered by 30-metre (98-feet) wide sl

In this issue... Get fully prepared for a cold night under the stars with our observing guides Where you can find the planets this month and the phases of the Moon Saturn makes a breathtaking appearance for those observing in the evening Small but

D uring February Saturn will be an evening object, but well past its best. At the end of January it will already be quite low in the southwest as the Sun sets, looking like a yellow-white ‘star’ in the setting constellation of Aquarius. Saturn will s

The Moon is famous for its dark seas, or mare, and even nonastronomers know the name of one: the Sea of Tranquillity is where Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed in July 1969 on the Apollo 11 mission. Many of the seas have equally romantic names –

1Hyades (Caldwell 41) The Hyades is a distinctive V-shaped star cluster representing the shoulder of Taurus, the Bull. It’s only 142 light years away, contains between 300 and 400 stars and is easy to see with the naked eye. However, dazzling bright

Gemini, also known as the Twins, sits nicely about halfway up the sky at this time of year and contains many lovely objects for those armed with a telescope. These vary from open star clusters to faint nebulae and even a supernova remnant. The two br

The Dog Star, Sirius, which shines at magnitude -1.46 in Canis Major, is an unmissable sight for those who are content with gazing at the sky without the need for binoculars or a telescope. Meanwhile, red supergiant Betelgeuse on the shoulder of Orio

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Space Shuttle Discovery Cost: £169.99 / $199.99 From:  LEGO 1 If you’re a space fan, then there’s no denying that this LEGO NASA Space Shuttle Discovery is one of the best LEGO space sets you can get your hands on right now. It’s an authentic recrea