Cosmic Rays News

October 9, 2026

Top Headlines

This Suitcase-sized Spacecraft Could Hear the Universe Before Stars Existed

Sep. 28, 2026 CosmoCube will use the far side of the Moon as a shield from Earth’s radio noise to search for a faint signal from the universe before the first stars existed. The suitcase-sized satellite could reveal how the cosmic dark ages ended and how dark ...

A $100 Detector Can See Invisible Particles Raining Down from Space

Sep. 17, 2026 A pocket-sized, roughly $100 detector can reveal the invisible stream of cosmic particles constantly passing through Earth and even through our bodies. What began as a student physics project is now being used in major experiments, balloon missions, ...

Interstellar Solar Sails Hit a Strange Problem at 75% of Light Speed

Sep. 2, 2026 Solar sails pushed by powerful lasers could reach incredible speeds, but relativity may eventually make the light itself work against them. At around 75% of the speed of light, scattered photons can begin creating drag, adding a surprising obstacle ...

NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft Aces Mars Flyby Capturing Stunning Timelapse Video

July 28, 2026 NASA’s Psyche spacecraft aced its Mars flyby, using the planet’s gravity to speed toward its 2029 encounter with a metal-rich asteroid. The spacecraft tested its cameras, magnetometer, and ...

China’s Chang’e-6 Reveals Why Solar Wind Hits the Moon’s Two Sides Differently

July 21, 2026 China’s Chang’e-6 samples have uncovered a surprising difference between the Moon’s two hemispheres. Solar wind particles penetrated deeper into the far-side soil because Earth’s ...

New AI Model Reveals How Neutron Star Mergers Forge Heavy Elements

July 8, 2026 Researchers have created an AI-based simulation that makes it much faster to model how neutron star mergers produce many of the universe's heaviest elements. The new tool could improve predictions of these powerful explosions while helping ...

The Milky Way’s Weird Gamma-ray Glow May Be Dark Matter After All

June 30, 2026 A strange gamma-ray glow at the center of the Milky Way has long sparked debate over whether it comes from hidden neutron stars or elusive dark matter. By applying machine learning to more than a million simulated observations, researchers included ...

Tiny X-ray Telescope Could Unlock the Moon's Hidden Chemistry

June 6, 2026 A lightweight new X-ray telescope could finally give scientists something they’ve never had before: a complete chemical map of the Moon. Researchers used detailed mission simulations to show that a compact telescope orbiting the Moon could ...

Scientists Discover Towering Red Auroras Reaching Deep Into Space Above Japan

May 21, 2026 Mysterious red auroras spotted over Japan were found reaching astonishingly high altitudes, even during space storms considered relatively mild. The discovery suggests hidden solar activity may be ...

James Webb Telescope Reveals the Clearest Map Ever of the Universe’s Cosmic Web

May 12, 2026 Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have created the clearest map yet of the universe’s “cosmic web” — the enormous hidden structure that connects galaxies across space. By ...

NASA’s Psyche Probe Is About to Slingshot Around Mars at 12,000 Mph

May 11, 2026 NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is about to pull off a dramatic close flyby of Mars, skimming just 2,800 miles above the planet to get a powerful gravitational boost on its journey to the mysterious metal-rich asteroid Psyche. The maneuver will save ...

NASA Shuts Down 49-year-old Voyager 1 Instrument to Keep It Alive

May 4, 2026 Voyager 1 just powered down a nearly 50-year-old instrument to stay alive in deep space. The spacecraft is running critically low on energy, forcing NASA to make careful sacrifices to keep its mission going. Despite the shutdown, it continues to ...

Latest Headlines

updated 8:09am EDT

Einstein Probe Reveals a Hidden Phase of Neutron Star Collisions

Oct. 8, 2026 Einstein Probe revealed nearly 10 minutes of soft X-ray activity following a short gamma-ray burst, exposing a phase of neutron star mergers that previous missions may have missed. The prolonged ...

Webb Finds a Surprising Atmosphere on a Scorching Lava World

Oct. 7, 2026 The James Webb Space Telescope has found strong evidence that the rocky lava world HD 3167 b has an atmosphere, despite circling its star every 24 hours under extreme heat. The surprising discovery ...

Physicists Just Saw Quarks Make Waves in the Big Bang’s Primordial Soup

Oct. 6, 2026 Physicists at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider have captured the clearest evidence yet that quark-gluon plasma, the scorching-hot matter that filled the newborn universe, behaves like a true liquid. By ...

Scientists Find a Surprising Clue to Why the Universe’s Expansion Doesn’t Add Up

Oct. 4, 2026 Tiny magnetic fields created shortly after the Big Bang may help explain the long-running disagreement over how fast the universe is expanding. ...

Chang’e-6 Lunar Soil Contains a Surprising Magnetic Time Capsule

Oct. 3, 2026 Scientists studying Chang’e-6 lunar soil have discovered a previously unknown magnetic mineral in natural Moon samples: a form of metallic iron called γ-Fe. Found inside tiny impact-glass ...

The Early Universe Wasn’t Nearly as Pristine as Scientists Thought

Oct. 2, 2026 JWST has revealed that galaxies were spreading carbon, oxygen, and other heavy elements through space just 500 million years after the Big Bang. The surprising discovery suggests the young universe ...

A Record-Breaking X-Ray Flash May Reveal the Birth of a Magnetar

Sep. 30, 2026 Astronomers have found strong evidence that some mysterious, minutes-long X-ray flashes are produced when two neutron stars collide and create a magnetar. One record-setting event glowed in X-rays ...

Black Hole Jets May Decide the Fate of Entire Galaxies

Sep. 30, 2026 Powerful jets from supermassive black holes can disturb star-forming gas far beyond a galaxy’s visible edge, leaving a glowing trail hundreds of thousands of light-years long. By keeping this gas ...

The Ice Blasting from Saturn's Moon Enceladus Is Stranger Than Scientists Realized

Sep. 29, 2026 Enceladus may naturally separate and concentrate chemicals from its hidden ocean as droplets slowly freeze and shatter on their way into space. The ...

James Webb Reveals Why Planet Formation Is a Race Against Time

Sep. 28, 2026 JWST has revealed that young planetary systems lose their planet-building gas through a changing mix of powerful jets, molecular winds, and radiation-driven outflows. As the disks age and their gas ...

The LHC Just Ruled out Another Hiding Place for Quantum Black Holes

Sep. 22, 2026 Physicists searching through Large Hadron Collider data found no evidence that the machine has been producing microscopic quantum black holes, but the result sharply narrows where such exotic physics ...

Scientists Are About to Test Einstein’s Gravity With Exotic Matter

Sep. 18, 2026 Scientists have found a new way to create a controlled beam of muonium, an exotic atom containing a heavier cousin of the electron. The advance could allow researchers to test for the first time ...

The Universe Has Plenty of Hydrogen. So Why Is Star Formation Collapsing?

Sep. 3, 2026 Star formation across the universe has fallen dramatically over the past 4.5 billion years, but astronomers have uncovered a surprising twist: the supply of neutral hydrogen, a key ingredient for ...

Venus’s Pale Yellow Clouds May Hide Something Surprisingly Dark

Sep. 12, 2026 A century-old mystery in Venus’s clouds just became more intriguing, as scientists calculated how strongly the unidentified material behind its dark ultraviolet patterns must absorb light. The ...

Earth May Have Lost the Sun’s Protective Shield Millions of Years Ago

Sep. 2, 2026 NASA-funded studies suggest Earth’s climate has been influenced by both the Sun’s travels through dense regions of the Milky Way and the violent superflares of its youth. Those events may help ...

Scientists May Have Finally Caught “empty” Space Changing Light

Aug. 26, 2026 A magnetar with an astonishingly powerful magnetic field may have revealed a quantum effect predicted by Werner Heisenberg nearly 90 years ago. Its light shows signs that supposedly empty space is ...

Physicists Create a Tiny “Big Bang” With Surprisingly Small Atomic Nuclei

Aug. 23, 2026 Researchers at CERN have created microscopic versions of the early Universe by colliding surprisingly small atomic nuclei at nearly the speed of light. The collisions produced quark-gluon plasma, the ...

A Mysterious Cosmic Hum May Come from 13-Billion-Year-Old Dark Stars

Aug. 27, 2026 Today’s mysterious gravitational-wave background may preserve clues about how the Universe’s first supermassive black holes formed. Descendants of hypothetical Dark Stars could be responsible for ...

Dying Radio Galaxies Fade Faster Than Scientists Expected

Sep. 4, 2026 Astronomers have identified a surprisingly young population of fading radio galaxies whose supermassive black holes have already switched off their powerful jets. The confirmed remnants range from ...

Hidden Magnetism Inside Atoms May Explain Mysterious Gamma Rays

Aug. 21, 2026 For decades, scientists have puzzled over why certain atomic nuclei unexpectedly produce large numbers of low-energy gamma rays. A new experiment traced the effect to magnetic changes inside the ...

This Total Solar Eclipse Looked Strangely Golden — Here’s Why

Aug. 20, 2026 Spain’s total solar eclipse delivered an unexpected sight: a corona glowing gold instead of its usual pearly white. Because the Sun was setting, its light passed through more atmosphere, while ...

Scientists May Have Finally Proved That “empty” Space Isn’t Really Empty

Aug. 18, 2026 A magnetar’s colossal magnetic field may have revealed a quantum effect predicted by Werner Heisenberg nearly 90 years ago, in which seemingly empty space alters the behavior of light. If ...

A Massive New Cosmic Map Is Revealing Black Holes, Rare Stars, and Hidden Gas

Aug. 14, 2026 Astronomers have released more than three million new spectra in a sweeping expansion that, for the first time, brings SDSS-V optical observations to the Southern Hemisphere. The data reveal ...

Giant Waves Are Sweeping Mars’ Atmosphere Into Space

Aug. 3, 2026 The solar wind may be stripping away Mars’ atmosphere by creating giant rolling waves along its outer edge. Data from MAVEN and Tianwen-1 show that these waves form plasma clouds that carry ...

Webb’s Mysterious Little Red Dots May Be Hiding Entire Galaxies

Aug. 17, 2026 Astronomers may finally have a clue to what happens to the mysterious “little red dots” that crowded the early universe. By studying a spiral galaxy nicknamed the “Saguaro,” researchers found ...

Strange Gamma Rays Could Reveal How Stars Forge Heavy Elements

July 31, 2026 Scientists traced a mysterious surge of low-energy gamma rays from zinc-70 to magnetic changes occurring inside its nucleus. The breakthrough could improve models of how stars, supernovae, and ...

Is the Universe Infinite? The Answer Gets Weird Fast

Sep. 27, 2026 Measurements of ancient light from the cosmic microwave background suggest that the universe is remarkably flat. But that does not prove it is infinite, because the observable cosmos could be only a ...

Mysterious Milky Way Object Accelerates Protons Beyond One Quadrillion Electron Volts

Aug. 1, 2026 Scientists have identified LHAASO J1912+1014u as a cosmic accelerator that can push protons beyond one quadrillion electron volts. The finding may help reveal where the Milky Way’s most energetic ...

Scientists Discover the Sun Contains 55% More Silver Than Expected

July 24, 2026 A new analysis suggests the Sun holds far more silver than earlier estimates indicated. More advanced models of the solar atmosphere raised the calculated amount by 55 percent, bringing it into much ...

Astronomers Find the First Atmosphere on a Rocky World in the Habitable Zone

July 21, 2026 Astronomers have found the first confirmed atmosphere around a rocky planet in another star’s habitable zone. The planet, LHS 1140 b, revealed its atmosphere through helium slowly leaking into ...