Spiral Galaxy NGC 2566 In Stunning 4K JWST And Hubble Views
The James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope have captured amazing views of spiral galaxy NGC 2566. Credit: Space.com | ESA, NASA & CSA / Hubble /Webb, A. Leroy, N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb), D. Thilker | edited by Steve Spaleta
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34 minutes ago
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Trump Plan to Kill Dozens of NASA Missions Threatens US Space Supremacy
(Bloomberg) -- NASA's car-sized Perseverance rover has been roaming the surface of Mars for four years, drilling into the alien soil to collect dirt it places in tubes and leaves on the ground. Shuttered NY College Has Alumni Fighting Over Its Future Trump's Military Parade Has Washington Bracing for Tanks and Weaponry NYC Renters Brace for Price Hikes After Broker-Fee Ban NY Long Island Rail Service Resumes After Grand Central Fire Do World's Fairs Still Matter? Engineers designed Perseverance to be the first step in the agency's exploration of the Red Planet. In the future, more robotic spacecraft would arrive to sweep up the capsules and rocket them back to Earth, where scientists could look for signs that Mars once was, or is, a world with life. The wait for answers may be about to get longer. President Donald Trump's proposed 2026 budget for the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration would cancel the planned follow-on mission, potentially abandoning the tubes for decades to Martian dust storms. The White House is calling for a roughly 50% cut to NASA's science spending to $3.9 billion, part of an overall pullback that would deliver the lowest funding level in the agency's history and kill more more than 40 NASA science missions and projects, according to detailed plans released last month. The Trump administration has also left the agency without a permanent leader and without a vision for how America's civilian space policy is going to work with US allies and compete with China and other rivals. The cuts would follow a shift in how the American public thinks about space. NASA has long enjoyed a unique place in US culture, with its exploits celebrated by movies, theme parks and merchandise — but companies like Elon Musk's SpaceX have begun to capture more attention. For decades, NASA's scientific undertakings have provided critical groundwork for researchers seeking to understand the structure of the universe, study how planets form and hunt for evidence that life might exist beyond Earth. Pictures from NASA craft like the Hubble Space Telescope and the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope have inspired and delighted millions. Now, the agency's position at the vanguard of discovery is facing foreclosure. Among the other programs set to lose funding are a craft already on its way to rendezvous with an asteroid that's expected to pass close to Earth in 2029, and multiple efforts to map and explore the acidic clouds of Venus. Researchers worry that abandoning missions would mean investments made by earlier generations might be lost or forgotten. 'Once you launch and you're operating, then all those costs are behind you, and it's relatively inexpensive to just keep the missions going,' said Amanda Hendrix, the chief executive officer of the Planetary Science Institute, a nonprofit research organization. 'So I'm very concerned about these operating missions that are still producing excellent and really important science data.' The Trump administration's narrower vision for NASA comes as it is seeking to reduce waste and jobs in the US government. Critics have faulted NASA over sluggish management of key programs, spiraling costs and delays. Still, the administration is eager to pour more money into putting people in space. It wants to use $7 billion of the $18.8 billion it would allocate to NASA overall to ramp up efforts to return people to the moon, and invest $1 billion more in sending people to Mars. 'This is a NASA that would be primarily human spaceflight focused,' Casey Dreier, chief of space policy for The Planetary Society, a nonprofit that advocates for space science and exploration, said of the proposed changes. 'This is a NASA that would say, 'The universe is primarily the moon and Mars,' and basically step away from everything else.' There are signs that the administration's proposed cutbacks won't satisfy lawmakers who view space as vital to US interests. Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who leads a committee that oversees NASA, has proposed legislation that would would provide nearly $10 billion to the agency. 'American dominance in space is a national security imperative,' Cruz said in a statement to Bloomberg. 'The Commerce Committee's bill carefully invests in beating China to the Moon and Mars — while respecting every taxpayer dollar. It's rocket fuel for the commercial space companies and NASA that are working to keep America ahead of China in the Space Race.' As Trump's spending proposal moves through Congress, NASA has been left without a strong leader who can press its case after the president withdrew his nomination of billionaire commercial astronaut Jared Isaacman to run the agency. In a recent interview on the All-In Podcast, Isaacman appeared to suggest Trump pulled his nomination because of his close ties to Musk, who had a public falling out with the president. Trump threatened to cancel SpaceX's government contracts amid the row, but has since backed down. 'Stopping Jared from becoming confirmed is only going to hurt NASA's ability to push back on budget cuts,' Jim Muncy, a space consultant and lobbyist with PoliSpace, said before Isaacman's nomination was pulled. Spaceflight Shift For decades, NASA handled every step of launching rockets, probes and people into space, from developing, building and launching vehicles, to running missions. Only the government had the resources and the capacity to shoulder the risks without returning a profit. That all changed in recent years with the emergence of a vibrant US space industry dominated by wealthy entrepreneurs with a passion for spaceflight and the financial wherewithal to withstand repeated failure. Over time, NASA has ceded more design, development and production work to those companies. SpaceX is carrying cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station, and sending probes into deep space from a rented launchpad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. After helping to spur the development of SpaceX hardware, NASA is now one of the company's biggest customers. 'This has kind of been the tension with the rise of commercial space,' said Mike French, a consultant for the Space Policy Group. 'NASA has gone from 'We're operating these things; we're building these things' to 'We've gotten really good at buying these things.'' During Trump's presidency, NASA's transformation into an incubator for private industry is likely to gain speed. Throughout its budget proposal, the White House calls for mimicking past programs that have leaned more on outsourcing to the private sector. 'With a leaner budget across all of government, we are all taking a closer look at how we work, where we invest, and how we adjust our methods to accomplish our mission,' NASA's acting administrator, Janet Petro, wrote in a message accompanying the plan. 'At NASA, that means placing a renewed emphasis on human spaceflight, increasing investments in a sustainable plan to return to the Moon for long-term human exploration and accelerating efforts to send American astronauts to Mars.' NASA declined to comment beyond Petro's statement. NASA contracts remain one of the most significant and steady sources of funding for the space industry, which has allowed the agency to set the direction for many businesses. But that balance of power is shifting, and cuts to NASA's funding could cause its leadership to fade. 'NASA would, in a sense, define access and define the culture of spaceflight and define the ambitions of spaceflight,' Dreier said. 'Now, they have competitors for that, and frankly, some of their competitors are laying out more ambitious programs.' Challenging Missions While NASA has evolved into a technical adviser and financial backer for space companies, pure science has remained part of its mission. NASA's transition to more commercial partnerships was started, in part, to free up money to spend on exotic, challenging missions with no obvious near-term commercial rewards. Pulling back is likely to have consequences. Trump's broader push to curtail funding for science — the administration has choked off money for medical, climate and other research — risks eroding an important source of American soft power. After the end of the Cold War-era space race, NASA became a vessel for international cooperation, proving countries with lofty goals can work together. Many of the NASA missions Trump has proposed canceling or pulling away from entailed collaboration with European allies. The prospect of reduced funding is also causing worry about agency talent. Already, NASA is competing with the private space industry for engineers. Shutting down missions could push agency scientists to seek other opportunities. 'Folks are very worried about what they're going to do now with their lives, and where they're going to go,' said Hendrix, the Planetary Science Institute's CEO. The long-term outlook for NASA is difficult to discern. In the coming years, it is expected to continue its Artemis moon program, and start a new program for human exploration of Mars, with commercial companies at the forefront. But the scientific ambitions that long helped define NASA appear likely to become more limited. 'If we elect to say we no longer want to understand our origins, or we no longer want to challenge ourselves to see if there's life out in the cosmos, that is the equivalent of turning our heads down and burying ourselves in our cell phones when we're standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon,' said The Planetary Society's Dreier. 'We miss something more profound and big and deep that we otherwise have no access to in our modern society.' New Grads Join Worst Entry-Level Job Market in Years American Mid: Hampton Inn's Good-Enough Formula for World Domination The Spying Scandal Rocking the World of HR Software The SEC Pinned Its Hack on a Few Hapless Day Traders. The Full Story Is Far More Troubling Cavs Owner Dan Gilbert Wants to Donate His Billions—and Walk Again ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
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7 hours ago
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World's first images of the sun's south pole spark 'a new era of solar science'
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Just this once, it's OK to stare at the sun — provided you're looking at the European Space Agency's (ESA) newly released, history-making images of the solar south pole. Taken near the sun on March 23 and revealed to Earthlings Wednesday (June 11), the new images from ESA's Solar Orbiter show a view of our star that no human or spacecraft has ever recorded before. While Earth and the other planets orbit relatively in line with the sun's equator on an invisible plane called the ecliptic, Solar Orbiter spent the last several months tilting its orbit to 17 degrees below the solar equator — bringing our star's enigmatic south pole into view for the first time ever. "Today we reveal humankind's first-ever views of the Sun's pole," Carole Mundell, ESA's director of science, said in a statement. "These new unique views from our Solar Orbiter mission are the beginning of a new era of solar science." The new images capture the solar pole in a broad swath of visible and ultraviolet wavelengths, using three of Solar Orbiter's 10 onboard instruments. The result is a colorful confetti of solar data, including an unprecedented look at the perplexing tangles of the sun's magnetic field as it prepares to flip, and the high-velocity movements of specific chemical elements as they ride plumes of plasma that make up the solar wind — the constant stream of charged particles that governs space weather throughout our solar system. These data will help improve our understanding of the solar wind, space weather and the sun's roughly 11-year activity cycle for years to come, according to ESA. But of particular interest right now, as the sun spits out flares in overdrive during its period of peak activity (called solar maximum), are the magnetic measurements taken with Solar Orbiter's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) instrument. Related: NASA spacecraft snaps eerie image of eclipsed sun with an extra moon overhead. What's going on? PHI's maps of the solar magnetic field highlight an intriguing paradox: While most magnets have a distinct north and south pole, the sun's south pole is roiling with both north and south polarity magnetic fields (shown as blue and red patches in the corresponding images). According to ESA, this mess of magnetism is a temporary phenomenon that hints that the sun's magnetic field is about to flip, as it does once every 11 years or so. This magnetic reversal signifies the end of the high-activity solar maximum and begins a transition toward the relative calm of the next solar minimum. When the next minimum begins, approximately five to six years from now, the sun's poles should show only one type of magnetic polarity apiece as our star takes a break from launching violent space weather tantrums. RELATED STORIES —A mysterious, 100-year solar cycle may have just restarted — and it could mean decades of dangerous space weather —NASA's Parker Solar Probe spots powerful magnetic explosion aimed at the sun's surface —Ancient superpowered solar storm that hit Earth 14,000 years ago is the 'biggest ever identified' Solar Orbiter will have several more chances to test these predictions over the coming years. With a little help from the gravitational pull of Venus, Solar Orbiter will continue tilting its orbit further from the solar equator, reaching a tilt of 24 degrees in December 2026 and a whopping 33 degrees in June 2029. These ever-more-angular vantage points will expose the solar poles in even greater detail, improving our knowledge of our home star with every flyby. "This is just the first step of Solar Orbiter's 'stairway to heaven'," Daniel Müller, ESA's Solar Orbiter project scientist, said in the statement. "These data will transform our understanding of the Sun's magnetic field, the solar wind, and solar activity."
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7 hours ago
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Laws of physics are still broken: Attempt to explain away black holes' central singularity falls short, scientist says
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Reports of the singularity's demise may have been premature. Earlier this year, new research suggested a potential solution to one of the most troubling aspects of modern physics — that "singularities" seem to exist at the hearts of black holes. The idea of the singularity has existed since black holes first emerged from the solutions to Albert Einstein's magnum opus theory of gravity, general relativity, which was published in 1916. It represents the point at which mass becomes infinitely dense — so concentrated that the curvature of space-time (the four-dimensional unification of space and time) it creates becomes infinite also. This was and remains somewhat concerning, because it represents a breakdown of the laws of physics. Thanks to their central singularity, black holes don't obey the laws of physics — even general relativity, the theory that first described them. That's a paradox that just won't do for many physicists, who are working hard to eliminate it by busting the central singularity. One of them is Robie Hennigar, a researcher at Durham University in England. "The singularity is the most mysterious and problematic part of a black hole. It's where our concepts of space and time literally no longer make sense," Hennigar told back in March. "If black holes do not have singularities, then they are much more ordinary." In a study published in February, Hennigar and his colleagues used an effective theory that modified the Einstein field equations of general relativity so that gravity behaves differently when space-time is highly curved. This replaces the central singularity with a highly warped static region located at the core of the black hole. Unfortunately, this recipe of gravity just isn't to the taste of many scientists, including Polish theoretical physicist Nikodem Poplawski of the University of New Haven, who told that he has three main issues with the team's theory. "Firstly, the team assumes the existence of five dimensions, whereas the experiments and observations indicate that we live in a four-dimensional space-time," Poplawski said. While lots of other theories that could account for singularities also rely on extra dimensions (string theory needs at least 11!), no evidence of such extra dimensions has yet presented itself. "Secondly, in the team's model, the interior of a black hole is static," Poplawski continued, explaining that gravitational field equations predict that space-time within the outer boundary of a black hole, the event horizon, can't be static. "Thirdly, their model adds ad hoc an infinite number of terms to the field equations, for the purpose of eliminating a singularity," Poplawski added. "That lacks a solid physical motivation, and it is merely a mathematical exploration of a theory of gravity with extra dimensions." The singularity-busting theory differs from a great deal of other attempts to solve this issue, which take the route of uniting general relativity with quantum physics, our best theory of the universe on subatomic levels, attempting to produce a unifying theory of "quantum gravity." That doesn't mean those theories are any closer to answering the singularity puzzle, however. One of the most favored unification theories is string theory, mentioned above, which replaces point-like particles with vibrating strings. "The problem with string theory is that it requires extra dimensions, for which there is no experimental evidence," Poplawski said. "Also, there are many forms of string theory, so it would be impossible to falsify it. Another problem is that many forms of string theory require the existence of supersymmetric particles, for which there is no experimental evidence. Consequently, string theory is not a physical theory."Poplawski added that attempts to eliminate black hole singularities within a classical physics framework have also failed or will fail because they are entirely mathematical and lack what he describes as "deep physical motivation." Of course, that doesn't mean there is no value in exploring ideas, as the singularity-busting team has done. "There could be some mathematical value to exploring ideas like this," Poplawski said. "Sometimes physicists invent new mathematical techniques or find solutions to equations that could be used in other branches of physics." Related Stories: — James Webb Space Telescope sees little red dots feeding black holes: 'This is how you solve a universe-breaking problem' — Largest-ever discovery of 'missing link' black holes revealed by dark energy camera (video) — Black holes can squash star formation, James Webb Space Telescope finds So does Poplawski think that humanity could ever discover what lies within a black hole and close the book on physics-breaking singularities for good? Yes, but with a caveat. "I believe humanity will discover what lies at the heart of a black hole only if every black hole creates a new universe and our universe was accordingly created in a black hole," Poplawski said, referring to a hypothesis he has been working on since 2010. "If our universe was created in a black hole, its early expansion could be tested with the cosmic microwave background radiation, and possibly in the future, with neutrinos or gravitational waves, which could probe the earlier times in the universe," Poplawski continued. "Otherwise, we would not be able to empirically understand what happens inside a black hole." Getting to the bottom of this mystery may be incredibly difficult, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Poplawski cited the example of another aspect of physics that emerged from the theory of general relativity and took great perseverance to solve: tiny ripples in space-time called "gravitational waves." "It took 100 years to detect gravitational waves on Earth after Einstein predicted them from his equations of general relativity," Poplawski said. "Therefore, it may take decades before we find out what happens in black holes."
