Space & Exploration

Mysterious rhythmic fast radio burst not caused by the strong stellar wind from a companion star as suspected

A Dutch team of astronomers has found that the repeating pattern in the cosmic radio flash FRB20180916B is not caused by the strong stellar wind from a companion star, as previously suspected. Instead, the flashes may come from a highly magnetized but solitary neutron star called a magnetar. The astronomers made this discovery within a unique combination of observations with two of the largest radio telescopes in the world: LOFAR and Westerbork.

When will the first baby be born in space?

There are a bunch of big preliminary plans to colonize several celestial bodies within our solar system. Over the past few years, we've talked and hypothesized a lot about the material logistics of such operations.

But how far along are we with our journey to the stars? Also, a relatively underexposed topic on our website has been off-world human reproduction. Can anything be said about our prospects there?