Category: Space

Chinese astronauts have baked food in space for the first time, using a new oven inside the Tiangong station. The test happened this month after a cargo ship delivered the kitchen-sized unit. The crew cooked chicken wings to check if the equipment is safe and reliable in orbit, and mission managers said the trial worked as planned.

The oven marks a new stage in China’s effort to make long stays on Tiangong more comfortable. Astronauts often remain there for six months, eating packed or reheated meals. Engineers say hot, freshly cooked food can improve mood and help crews handle long work schedules. The station will rely on these upgrades as China prepares for future visits and longer missions.

Cooking in orbit is not as simple as it sounds. Without gravity, liquids float and heat moves slowly. Flames take round shapes instead of rising. To manage this, the oven seals the food inside a grill cage and rotates it on its own. That keeps juices from drifting into the cabin. It took nearly half an hour to cook the wings, which is slower than on Earth.

Safety is a priority. Fire spreads fast in oxygen-rich air, and a small spark could damage the station. The oven runs without open flames and acts like an air fryer. Sensors track the temperature and send alerts to the cabin system if something changes. Officials say all parts passed tests on the ground before launch.

Both the Shenzhou 20 and Shenzhou 21 crews joined the first bake. They shared food before the Shenzhou 20 team returned to Earth this week. The remaining astronauts will stay in orbit for several more months to run science tests and station repairs.

The oven weighs under 10 kilograms and fits against a wall panel in one of the labs. It heats up to 200 degrees Celsius while using low power from the station’s solar arrays. Engineers say it can handle hundreds of cooking cycles, enough to last for years. The design is permanent, unlike NASA’s one-time cookie experiment on the International Space Station in 2019.

China believes better food could help with longer missions, including planned lunar bases in the 2030s. Astronauts on those trips will face even more isolation, and the ability to cook could help them stay focused. For now, China says the Tiangong oven will keep running as part of daily life in orbit, adding new meals to a menu once limited to packets and reheated trays.

Google is studying a plan to place future AI data centers in space. The idea, called Project Suncatcher, involves solar-powered computing satellites in low-Earth orbit. There is no launch date yet, but the company sees this as a way to handle the growing electricity use of artificial intelligence systems and the pressure that large server buildings put on land, cooling systems, and power grids on the ground.

Running AI models uses very large amounts of energy. A single data center can consume as much electricity as a small town. On Earth, these facilities need land, water for cooling, and steady power. In orbit, solar panels receive strong sunlight for most of each trip around Earth, without clouds or atmosphere blocking the light. That gives more power per square meter than panels on the ground.

Cooling would work differently. Since there is no air, heat cannot simply be blown away. Satellites use large radiator panels that release heat as infrared light. The method is common on weather satellites and the International Space Station. The challenge is scaling it up to handle the heat from powerful computer chips designed for machine learning.

Google wants to move data between space and Earth using laser links instead of radio. These optical beams can carry large amounts of information, but they need clear skies and precise pointing. Weather can interrupt the signal, so Google would need many ground stations in different countries. If one station is blocked by clouds, another can receive the data.

Maintenance is another challenge. If a server breaks on Earth, engineers can fix it quickly. In orbit, repairs are harder. Google would need robot missions or would replace damaged satellites with new ones. Launch costs will play a major role in deciding whether the idea becomes real, even as rockets become cheaper due to frequent commercial flights.

Astronomers are watching the plan closely. Large groups of satellites can interfere with telescopes, especially when they reflect sunlight. They appear as streaks on long-exposure images. If Project Suncatcher grows into a large network, the astronomy community will likely ask Google to reduce brightness or adjust orbits to protect sky observations.

Even if the plan changes, it shows how quickly AI is reshaping global computing. Companies already build data centers in cold regions to reduce cooling costs. Moving some of that computing power to space would be a new step in the search for energy and stability. It suggests that satellites may become more than communication tools; they could become major computing hubs.

The idea also raises a new debate about the future of the night sky. As AI grows, companies may look beyond Earth for the power and space needed to run it. Space, once used mainly for science and communication, could slowly become part of the world’s computing infrastructure.

Source: Exploring a space-based, scalable AI infrastructure system design

In a major astrophysical breakthrough, an international team from the University of Hong Kong, Nanjing University, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has detected the first-ever “heartbeat” of a newborn magnetar, a highly magnetized neutron star, inside a powerful gamma-ray burst known as GRB 230307A.

The signal, identified as a rapid 909-hertz pulsation lasting just 160 milliseconds, reveals a magnetar spinning over 900 times per second and marks the first direct evidence that such objects can power some of the universe’s most extreme explosions. The findings were published in Nature Astronomy in September 2025.

GRB 230307A was first detected on March 7, 2023, when China’s GECAM satellites and NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor recorded one of the brightest bursts ever seen. It lasted nearly a full minute, far longer than typical short gamma-ray bursts linked to neutron star collisions.

Optical telescopes later confirmed that the source lay about 1.9 billion light-years away. The burst’s brightness and duration suggested an unusually energetic central engine, leading researchers to suspect the formation of a fast-spinning magnetar rather than an immediate black hole collapse.

Researchers analyzed more than 600,000 data points from GECAM’s detectors using advanced statistical tools to search for hidden periodic signals. In the burst’s early emission phase, they found a clear 909-hertz quasi-periodic oscillation, a repeating pulse equivalent to a spin period of roughly 1.1 milliseconds.

The team verified the signal across multiple instruments with independent Monte Carlo tests, establishing it at a 5-sigma confidence level, the gold standard for discovery in physics. The pulsation was strongest between 100 and 200 kilo-electron volts, suggesting it originated from the magnetar’s magnetic wind imprinting its rotation onto the gamma-ray jet.

“This is the first time scientists have directly observed a periodic signal from a newly born magnetar inside a gamma-ray burst,” said Run-Chao Chen, lead author and doctoral researcher at Nanjing University.

Professor Bing Zhang of the University of Hong Kong, co-author of the study, described it as “a long-sought confirmation that magnetars can survive neutron star mergers and act as central engines driving cosmic explosions.” Zhang first predicted this magnetar-powered model more than a decade ago, and the new detection provides the strongest evidence yet for it.

Unlike short, two-second bursts created when merging neutron stars form an instant black hole, the longer emission of GRB 230307A implies a neutron star survived temporarily. Data show that its extreme rotation and trillion-gauss magnetic fields funneled energy into two collimated, magnetized jets.

For about 160 milliseconds, slight asymmetries in one jet made the spin visible as a gamma-ray pulse before the emission smoothed out as the burst evolved. Spectral modeling indicates the jet’s power source was an electromagnetic outflow, known as a Poynting-flux jet, rather than a matter-dominated one.

The discovery reshapes how astronomers understand gamma-ray bursts. It confirms that magnetars can form and shine briefly after mergers, bridging observational gaps between gamma-ray emissions, gravitational waves, and the physics of dense nuclear matter.

It also provides new ways to probe the structure of neutron stars. Further analysis may help test whether magnetar interiors hold exotic quark matter, an idea long debated in nuclear physics. Future missions like Insight-HXMT and Einstein Probe are expected to capture more such gamma-ray pulses, improving chances of catching the magnetic spin signatures of newborn neutron stars.

Researchers suggest that combining gamma-ray and gravitational-wave data could eventually confirm magnetar births in real time, linking light and gravity across the cosmos. For now, the 909-hertz pulse from GRB 230307A stands as the first recorded rhythm of a star being born in fire and magnetism, echoing from nearly two billion light-years away.

Source: Evidence for a brief appearance of gamma-ray periodicity after a compact star merger

Starcloud, a company in Redmond, Washington, plans to launch a satellite carrying an NVIDIA H100 chip next month. The satellite, called Starcloud-1, will fly on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from California. The mission will test whether data centers can operate in orbit instead of on the ground. Starcloud says the goal is to cut pollution and energy waste tied to large computing centers.

Starcloud-1 is about the size of a household refrigerator and weighs about 130 pounds. It will enter low Earth orbit and run on solar power. Starcloud used to operate under the name Lumen Orbit. The company works with Crusoe, which provides cloud services for businesses.

Starcloud argues that data centers on Earth use huge amounts of electricity each year. Many countries rely on fossil fuels to feed their power grids. These centers also use water to cool server rooms and release heat into nearby areas. The company says Orbit removes those problems. The satellite will collect direct sunlight without clouds blocking the rays. Cooling will come from heat leaving into space.

At the center of the system is the NVIDIA H100. It is much faster than any chip that has run in orbit before. Starcloud says it can process satellite images for weather, farming, and disaster tracking. It will also run Google’s Gemma model. This will be the largest language model ever tested in space.

By processing data in orbit, Starcloud hopes to shorten the time needed for analysts to make decisions. Most satellites send raw images to Earth first. Engineers then wait for computers on the ground to study the data. Starcloud-1 aims to do that work without the delay.

The satellite will follow the line where daytime meets night to keep its solar panels in nearly constant sunlight. Engineers tested the hardware to survive strong vibrations during liftoff. They also added shields to protect the chip from high-energy particles, which can damage electronics.

Starcloud says earlier experiments used small computers on the International Space Station. Those systems handled limited processing. Starcloud-1 will provide far more power.

If the flight succeeds, Starcloud plans a second satellite with more processing units. The company also has a long-term plan for a larger station that could support NVIDIA’s next generation of Blackwell chips. CEO Philip Johnston says lower launch prices make those plans more realistic.

Starcloud believes faster processing in orbit could improve weather warnings, farming tools, and climate research. It also argues that space-based computing could lower stress on power grids. The company sees the launch as a step toward moving some digital services off the planet.

Source: A supercomputer chip going to space could change life on Earth

Astronomers have found new evidence that a nearby dwarf galaxy may have recently collided with a neighbor, altering its shape and motion. The study, led by Adebusola Alabi of North-West University in South Africa, reveals that UGCA 320, located about 6 million light-years away, shows clear signs of gravitational disruption likely caused by an encounter with the nearby dwarf galaxy UGCA 319.

Researchers built a detailed picture of UGCA 320 using data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Southern African Large Telescope, and the Very Large Telescope. The findings, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, suggest that the galaxy’s uneven structure and motion are the result of a slow-moving galactic interaction.

UGCA 320 is a dwarf irregular galaxy rich in gas and stars of different ages. Its strikingly blue color, measured at a V-I value of 0.1 magnitudes, points to a young population of stars no older than 120 million years, mixed with ancient stars over 10 billion years old.

The galaxy spans about 2,000 light-years across, and its stars rotate at speeds up to 40 kilometers per second (double the speed of its ionized gas). Both move in the same direction but are slightly misaligned, suggesting the stars and gas no longer share the same plane.

Velocity maps reveal an unusual distortion roughly 1,000 light-years from the center, where stellar rotation slows and becomes irregular. Using a technique known as kinemetry, Alabi’s team found that stars in the galaxy’s core rotate at a 250-degree angle offset from the outer disk.

UGCA 319, located about 100,000 light-years from UGCA 320, appears to be the likely partner in this interaction. The two galaxies move at a relative speed of about 12 km/s. Observations from the MHONGOOSE survey show that UGCA 320’s neutral hydrogen gas extends unevenly, hinting at a tidal pull from its neighbor. However, no gas bridge connects them yet, suggesting the encounter is still in its early phase.

Despite its large gas reserves, UGCA 320 is forming new stars very slowly. Its star formation rate is about 0.025 solar masses per year, enough to sustain growth over billions of years but far below that of more active galaxies. Researchers say the gas remains too cool and diffuse to collapse efficiently into stars, a common trait among dwarf galaxies.

Chemical studies show that both stars and gas in UGCA 320 contain low amounts of heavy elements, between 15% and 30% of the Sun’s levels. The uniform metallicity across the disk suggests that the galaxy has evolved slowly without strong bursts of star formation to enrich its material.

Scientists study galaxies like UGCA 320 because dwarf galaxies played a major role in shaping the early universe. About 13 billion years ago, small, star-forming galaxies emitted intense ultraviolet radiation that helped clear hydrogen gas left over from the Big Bang. Systems like UGCA 320 and UGCA 319 serve as modern analogues, showing how smaller galaxies interact and evolve over time.

The pair, along with a third dwarf named LEDA 886203, forms an isolated group free from the influence of larger galaxies like the Milky Way. This isolation makes them a rare opportunity to study dwarf-galaxy interactions without external interference.

Alabi’s team plans to conduct follow-up observations of UGCA 319 to look for matching signs of disruption and to study a faint tail extending from UGCA 320’s northwest edge. These studies could confirm whether the galaxies are actively exchanging material.

Researchers say UGCA 320’s quiet collision helps explain why some dwarf galaxies stay faint while others grow brighter after encounters. In a universe shaped by mergers, even the smallest interactions can leave lasting marks on the galaxies we see today.

Source: Stars and ionized gas in UGCA 320: a nearby gas-rich, dwarf Irregular galaxy