Blurs

Space exploration has always been associated with advanced materials, precision engineering and extraordinary technological complexity.  Satellites are typically constructed using aluminium alloys, specialised composites and other materials designed to survive the extreme conditions beyond Earth's atmosphere. Yet one Japanese research team has pursued an unexpectedly different approach: building a satellite using wood. In November 2024, Japan launched LignoSat, an experimental satellite incorporating magnolia wood into its structure. Developed by researchers at Kyoto University in collaboration with Sumitomo Forestry, the project set out to investigate whether a material used in construction for thousands of years could have a role in modern space technology. The satellite was not a wooden spacecraft in the traditional sense of the word. Its electronics, power systems and other essential components remained technological products of the modern space industry.  However, its woo...

The Universe appears to be filled with an enormous cosmic web of galaxies, galaxy clusters, filaments and vast regions containing relatively few galaxies. One of the most intriguing possibilities in modern cosmology is that our own galaxy may sit inside an unusually sparse region. It is known as the KBC Void, named after astronomers Ryan Keenan, Amy Barger and Lennox Cowie. But this isn't an ordinary void. If the interpretation is correct, our cosmic neighbourhood could be significantly less dense than the Universe as a whole — potentially across a region approaching a billion light-years in scale. What is the KBC Void? The KBC Void was proposed following a 2013 study examining the distribution of galaxies around the Milky Way. Rather than finding a uniform distribution, the researchers found evidence that the density of galaxies increased with distance from us. Their results suggested that the region around the Milky Way could contain considerably less matter than the cosmic avera...

On 16 July 2024, a meteor crossed the sky over the northeastern United States. It was not subtle. The daytime fireball was seen across several states.  People reported the shockwave. Radar detected the event. And a doorbell camera captured part of its passage. Then a fragment came down in Hillsborough, New Jersey.  It smashed through the roof of a house. At first, it was an extraordinary piece of luck — a meteorite had effectively delivered itself to a laboratory. But the real surprise came later. Scientists examining the rock discovered something preserved inside it that was potentially far more valuable than the meteorite itself. Evidence that salty liquid water had once circulated through the asteroid from which the rock came. Within that altered material were also amino acids and a surprisingly diverse collection of carbon-bearing organic compounds. The meteorite had apparently spent billions of years carrying around the chemical consequences of an ancient extraterrestrial...

Mars is home to Olympus Mons, the tallest known volcano in the Solar System. But another Martian volcano presents an equally remarkable mystery — not because it is exceptionally tall, but because of how extraordinarily wide and shallow it is. That volcano is Alba Mons. Stretching across hundreds of kilometres, Alba Mons is one of the largest volcanic structures ever identified on a planetary body. NASA describes it as the largest volcano by area on Mars, while the USGS planetary nomenclature database officially recognises Alba Mons as a Martian mons. And compared with Olympus Mons, its shape is almost bizarre. A Mountain That Spreads Instead of Soaring When we picture a mountain, we normally imagine something rising dramatically from its surroundings. Alba Mons doesn't really behave that way. Its slopes are extraordinarily gentle. The volcano is so broad that from the surface, its enormous size would be difficult to appreciate. NASA estimates that the broader Alba volcanic structur...

There are galaxies so large that comparing them with the Milky Way almost stops making sense. IC 1101 is one of them. For years, astronomers have known that this enormous galaxy sits at the heart of the Abell 2029 galaxy cluster, roughly a billion light-years away. It has often been described as one of the largest galaxies known. But there was a problem. Nobody could confidently say where the galaxy actually ended. Its outer regions are extraordinarily faint, gradually blending into the surrounding light of the galaxy cluster. Now, new ultra-deep observations have pushed that boundary much farther out. And the result is extraordinary. IC 1101 appears to stretch for approximately 1.7 million light-years. That is around 17 times the diameter of the Milky Way's main stellar disk. And the really interesting part? It may still be growing. A galaxy at the centre of everything IC 1101 isn't an ordinary galaxy drifting through space. It is a brightest cluster galaxy, or BCG. It sits ne...