Through analyzes of ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, a research team led by Lund University in Sweden has found evidence of an extreme solar storm that occurred about 9,200 years ago. What puzzles the researchers is that the storm took place during one of the sun's more quiet phases—during which it is generally believed our planet is less exposed to such events.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — He told his family and a few friends. He dropped hints to a couple of colleagues. So hardly anyone knew that the airline pilot could have — should have — been on board when SpaceX launched its first tourists into orbit last year.

Australian scientists say they have discovered an unknown spinning object in the Milky Way that they claim is unlike anything seen before. The object - first discovered by a university student - has been observed to release a huge burst of radio energy for a full minute every 18 minutes. Objects that pulse energy in the universe are often documented. But researchers say something that turns on for a minute is highly unusual.

The Chinese company Space Transportation is developing a "rocket with wings" for space tourism and point-to-point travel. "We are developing a winged rocket for high-speed, point-to-point transportation, which is lower in cost than rockets that carry satellites and faster than traditional aircraft," the company said in a recent interview with Yicheng Times.

At times, it remains difficult to believe this is really happening.

Surviving Hell

A team of astrophysicists believe that a glob of stars in our next-door galaxy is hiding an intermediate-mass black hole, a type predicted to exist but that has never been observed for certain. The globular cluster in question is called B023-G078, and it’s situated on the outskirts of the Andromeda Galaxy, about 2.5 million light-years away. The researchers believe the cluster, which contains the mass of 6.2 million Suns, is actually a stripped nucleus: the remains of several small galaxies that glommed together.

Chang'e 5 continues to break new ground.

Falcon 9 booster was originally launched from Florida in 2015 to deploy Deep Space Climate Observatory

Nearby galaxies and their black holes could hold the answers to the existential questions that remain unanswered about the beginning of the universe. A black hole within a nearby galaxy called Tol 0440-381 shines about one million times brighter than the sun, researchers from the University of Iowa found in a new study. This object suggests that powerful black holes could have played a major role in cosmic evolution, the team asserts in this work.

Radar images of Mars’s southern ice cap indicated that there could be a lake there – but a new set of simulations hints that it could be volcanic rock instead

Probably not.

SpaceX launched its first interplanetary mission nearly seven years ago. After the Falcon 9 rocket's second stage completed a long burn to reach a transfer orbit, NOAA's Deep Space Climate Observatory began its journey to a Sun-Earth LaGrange point more than 1 million km from the Earth. By that point, the Falcon 9 rocket's second stage was high enough that it did not have enough fuel to return to Earth's atmosphere.

Today's the day: Nearly a month after launch, the James Webb Space Telescope will arrive at its deep-space celestial destination on Monday (Jan. 24). Webb will be orbiting Earth-sun Lagrange Point 2 (L2), which is about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from our planet. Here, the spacecraft can use a minimum of fuel to orbit thanks to its alignment with the sun and Earth.

The universe is a pretty busy place, with stars blowing up, black holes consuming material and high-energy radiation galore. Some of these events show up on Earth as high-energy neutrinos, ghostly particles that hardly ever interact with normal matter. Still others show up as fast radio bursts (FRBs), which are brief but intense flashes of radio energy.

NASA is studying several moons of Saturn and Jupiter that carry oceans of liquid water deep beneath their surfaces, where alien life could thrive. Another moon, previously assumed to be a barren ice rock, might join their ranks.

These structures are a sci-fi solution to the problem of getting objects into orbit without a rocket—but you don’t want to be under one if the cable snaps.

Thirty days outbound from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope will slip into its parking orbit nearly a million miles away on Monday, an ideal spot to scan the heavens in search of faint infrared light from the first generation of stars and galaxies. But getting there — and successfully deploying a giant sunshade, mirrors and other appendages along the way — was just half the fun.

In recent years, much has been said about mining water ice in shadowed craters at the Moon's South Pole for use as rocket propellant. Enthusiasm for this idea has led NASA to begin planning the first human missions of its Artemis Program to land near the South Pole instead of the mid-latitudes.

The Hubble Space Telescope has observed a black hole at the center of a dwarf galaxy that is not acting like the destructive monsters they are often portrayed as. Instead, this black hole is creating stars rather than absorbing them. The black hole is at the center of dwarf galaxy Henize 2-10 that lies 30 million light-years away in the southern constellation Pyxis. According to NASA, the black hole is apparently contributing to a “firestorm” of new star formation taking place in the galaxy.