Fraser Cain

I'm the publisher of Universe Today and co-host of Astronomy Cast

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fraser_at_m.universetoday.com@mostr.pub

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Last Notes

2024-07-25 18:29:33

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@npub1e0s…n6zr That's why Europa Clipper and JUICE are headed to the moons of Jupiter.

2024-07-25 18:29:08

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@npub1llw…vkpl The flexible fabrics are actually better than aluminum for protection against micrometeorites. Even if they do penetrate multiple layers, it's a tiny hole and you can use duct tape to keep it sealed.

2024-07-19 18:16:37

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@npub17ej…f0ng I'll keep you posted.

2024-07-16 17:13:06

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@npub1p9v…zsjy I'm not sure. I should interview someone sometime. 🙂

2024-07-02 17:08:10

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@npub1dtg…a874 Imprisoned? Incarcerated?

2024-07-02 16:46:40

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@npub1yx9…w0df Of course, that's always the case with Earth life. But in theory you can thicken the atmosphere to the point that liquid water could form briefly in puddles on Mars.

2024-06-28 18:01:10

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@npub16ng…7jj7 Yes, of course. But this sets constraints on where to look.

2024-06-24 17:39:04

In February 2024, a Chinese observation balloon was detected in the skies above the US. Since then, other balloons have been discovered around the world. Their high speed makes them a difficult target for satellites to observe. Researchers have developed a new technique to detect and resolve moving objects in satellite images, such as weather balloons, reconnaissance airships, and unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs).
https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.13697
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/672/816/765/644/206/original/3af19847ec87e8c1.jpg

2024-06-17 19:15:58

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@npub14cw…hfwc We can multitask.

2024-06-13 04:55:00

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@npub1k2g…383k Good for Netflix, bad for multiplayer gaming.

2024-06-12 18:40:19

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@npub13qt…v8gs Yikes. Are you sure you're not a supervillian?

2024-06-12 18:39:57

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@npub1779…w35l Taht wasn't mine, it was NASA. 🙂

2024-06-11 22:08:36

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@npub10fr…spth Lunar night kills most robotic explorers.

2024-06-05 17:40:17

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@npub1ydd…dmzs Yes, cubesats use that for orientation, it's just slow.

2024-05-30 16:49:03

This week, South Korea opened up its new space agency, the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA). The new chief, Yoon Young-bin, a former aerospace engineering professor, highlighted the agency's priorities in a speech. Although they haven't provided detailed plans for technologies or missions, Young-bin said they hope to land a mission on the lunar surface by 2032, and a mission to Mars by 2045.
https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240527050597
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/531/062/321/180/655/original/875c3f803d8ab4e3.jpg

2024-05-23 17:05:36

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@npub13qt…v8gs It'll always turn out to be the maximum rate predicted by Einstein?

2024-05-23 17:04:59

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@npub1l6l…mvfw Yes, NASA is working on a coating that can be charged, repelling the dust.

2024-05-02 18:30:29

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@npub16ng…7jj7 I do wonder if it would work in orbit too. Could an astronaut get a hamster wheel going in weightlessness, and then do a high-g workout. Then slow it down again.

2024-04-24 18:30:11

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@npub1602…08fa We don't know how many stars could have rocky planets but it could be as high as 100%ish of star systems. In the bar, stars are about 1 ly apart, on average.

2024-04-18 23:02:04

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@npub1n4f…9ac9 You use the gravity of the Moons to find places where the forces balance out. Like Lagrange points.

2024-04-17 19:45:26

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@npub1hrm…q322 Eating nutrient sludge made by bacteria? It might be that or health problems from nutrient deficits.

2024-04-17 19:13:05

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@npub15gc…8l9a Yeah, I was trying to tie these together. I'll clarify that it's not the same people, just NASA.

2024-04-09 19:18:03

One intriguing explanation for dark matter is primordial black holes formed shortly after the Big Bang in varying masses, from a few grams to thousands of solar masses. Astronomers have searched for primordial black holes but haven't found any evidence, and they can't rule it out either. In a new paper, scientists propose "out-of-the-box" ideas to search for black holes using new techniques and observatories.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.05430
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/242/870/415/531/437/original/9863d11c3ccae42f.jpg

2024-04-05 19:28:59

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@npub1vzq…gn6z I cast a pretty wide net, from arxiv and the LPSC 2024 meeting.

2024-04-03 18:37:03

JWST has turned its sights on the relatively nearby starburst galaxy Messier 82 (M82). This small galaxy is awash in rapid star formation, which generates enormous amounts of gas and dust. This is the ideal target for Webb, which can peer through the dust to see exactly where the star formation is happening and how the combined stellar winds are affecting the evolution of the galaxy.
https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-109
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/208/735/326/674/394/original/759713d716c780d5.jpg

2024-03-29 21:36:03

Astronomers have discovered many free-floating rogue planets in the Milky Way, planets without a star. Did they form like mini-stellar systems, or were they kicked out? Researchers think they've got a way to find out where they're coming from. It all comes down to their velocity. If rogue planets are kicked out of star systems, they'll have higher velocities than those formed within a nebula.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.18481
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/181/127/604/416/432/original/2a026a983c67eb91.jpg

2024-03-22 21:48:50

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@npub1yya…0qa2 I think it's due to interactions in the cluster they formed tugging them away from each other.

2024-03-22 18:14:03

Astronomers are searching for the perfect biosignature, like an atmospheric chemical that indicates life on any specific world. However, this method will always be controversial and inconclusive. A new paper proposes that detecting life on any one planet might be impossible, but it should be obvious at a larger statistical level. Civilizations or life drifting from star to star will change nearby worlds to be more appropriate for their needs in a detectable way.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.14195
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/140/697/177/256/718/original/f828d6894f76b8b4.jpg

2024-03-22 18:02:03

Brown dwarfs are partway between the mass of the smallest star and the largest planet, unable to fuse anything but deuterium in their cores. As with stars, brown dwarfs have been found in binary pairs, but new research shows they drift apart as they age. The Hubble Space Telescope was used to survey brown dwarfs and found that the older a brown dwarf is, the less likely it will have a companion.
https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-005
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/140/649/955/931/900/original/9d6f91688a9db17f.jpg

2024-03-22 17:53:03

SETI has a problem: The universe is enormous, and we never know when and where to look. Astronomers have proposed that celestial events, like nearby supernovae, could act like a clock, allowing civilizations to time their communications with each other. A new paper proposes that a fast-moving star near the center of the Milky Way could serve the same role, allowing civilizations to coordinate their communications as it completes a 16-year orbit.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ad2a48
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/140/614/576/745/244/original/eaf647b0db92868d.jpg

2024-03-22 16:54:03

Astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole in a cluster of galaxies about 3.4 billion light-years from Earth. It contains about 3 billion solar masses and should be blasting out so much energy that it quenches star formation nearby. Using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, astronomers have measured very little heating around it, and gas has cooled down so much that active star formation is all around it. Could the black hole be cooling its surroundings?
https://chandra.harvard.edu/press/24_releases/press_032124.html/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/140/382/568/583/893/original/37b9b8c99280b451.jpg

2024-03-22 16:48:02

There are two gravitationally stable regions ahead and behind every planet in orbit. These are known as the Trojan regions, and they're known to collect asteroids. In fact, Jupiter's Trojans contain as many space rocks as the main asteroid belt. Astronomers have found the second Trojan asteroid in Mars's L4 region, designated 2023 FW14, which was once part of a larger asteroid that was smashed up billions of years ago.
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2024/03/aa49688-24/aa49688-24.html
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/140/358/931/796/926/original/a92b67bb5ea4508d.jpg

2024-03-20 18:41:01

Planetary scientists are sure there's an ocean of liquid water under the ice shell at Europa. But how thick is this shell? In a new study, researchers propose that the surface of the Jovian moon could give us clues to the thickness of the ice. They studied large Europa craters and suggested that the ice shell is at least 20 km thick. It is thick enough to provide convection in the ice layer itself, which wouldn't be possible with a thinner ice layer.
https://phys.org/news/2024-03-planetary-scientists-physics-images-impact.html
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/129/478/591/026/283/original/0f2e681c52d63cd7.jpg

2024-03-20 18:26:18

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@npub15ea…cxnl At the Earth-Moon L2 point.

2024-03-20 18:26:03

Cepheids are variable stars that change brightness in a well-established relationship between luminosity and pulsation period. They have been used to measure the Universe's expansion rate with increasing accuracy. A few Cepheids are in binary pairs with a companion star, providing a way to measure their mass. Only one double-Cepheid has ever been found in the Large Magellanic Cloud. In a new study, astronomers report finding nine new binary Cepheids.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.12390
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/129/419/711/466/390/original/f9f424221b5a2ce4.jpg

2024-03-20 18:15:03

Finding an Earth-like world in the habitable zone of a sunlike star is the dream but beyond the current telescopes. The next best thing will be to analyze the atmosphere of a terrestrial planet in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star. This is a task that JWST could accomplish, examining the atmospheres of several well-studied planets, like the TRAPPIST-1 worlds, LHS1140b, and K2-18b. However, the work could require 1000+ hours of JWST to get a solid result.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.12617
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/129/376/481/139/662/original/7c4dc0a6dd0df94d.jpg

2024-03-20 18:01:02

If dark matter is a particle, it's possible that it could self-annihilate, becoming normal matter and releasing gamma radiation. Dwarf galaxies are the best objects to search for this radiation because they're small, rich in dark matter, and don't have other phenomena that could contaminate the view. A new survey examined 50 dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way and saw a faint hint of gamma radiation that could be coming from dark matter annihilation.
https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.109.063024
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/129/321/394/386/322/original/148abfc94653336d.webp

2024-03-20 17:47:03

It's impossible to communicate with missions exploring the far side of the Moon, so the Chinese Space Agency launches communication relay satellites to the area. The first, Queqiao-1, coordinated communications with the Chang'e-4 landers, and now they've launched Queqiao-2 to support future far-side exploration by Chang'e-6, which is due for launch in May. This satellite will also be used for the upcoming Chang'e-7 and 8 missions due for launch in 2027 and 2028.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/space/china-launches-satellite-queqiao-2-upcoming-lunar-missions-2024-03-20/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/129/266/370/343/305/original/84d2e2344bdc47be.jpg

2024-03-20 17:35:02

Astronomers calculated that it had shortened the space rock's orbital period after the dust cleared from NASA's DART mission impacting asteroid Dimorphos. But the effects on Dimorphos were even more profound. According to a new study, the spacecraft's impact changed the shape of its target. Before the impact, Dimorphos was an oblate spheroid - a squashed ball. After the impact, it became a triaxial ellipsoid, an "oblong watermelon."
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-study-asteroids-orbit-shape-changed-after-dart-impact
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/129/219/106/469/988/original/fc0f475919a9176d.jpg

2024-03-20 17:24:04

In March, we learned that NASA was getting about two billion dollars less than it had requested, forcing difficult cuts across the agency. We will see agency-wide trimming and mission pushback, but one surprising outcome was the announcement that NASA will no longer support the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. This hard-working X-ray mission has been operational since 1999 and used to make countless discoveries about the high-energy Universe. No replacement is planned.
https://cxc.cfa.harvard.edu/cdo/announcement.html
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/129/175/985/333/366/original/5431281368ec5069.webp

2024-03-20 17:12:02

Researchers do twin studies on humans to track nature versus nurture. This also works in astronomy, with twin stars in main sequence binary systems formed from identical raw materials. They should have the same composition, but astronomers recently discovered that about one in twelve stars have different compositions in their atmospheres. Since these are mature stars, and their protoplanetary disk is long gone, the most likely explanation is that they consumed a planet.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1037995
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/129/128/717/637/422/original/7c88f294165b3e00.webp

2024-03-19 18:53:03

You might be surprised to learn that solar sails work especially well when you need to get closer to the Sun. A new mission proposal called Mercury Scout hopes to take advantage of this and send a solar sail to the Solar System's innermost planet. In addition to scanning the surface of Mercury to a resolution of 1 meter, the spacecraft's mirror-like sail could reflect sunlight into permanently shadowed craters, revealing deposits of water ice.
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2024/pdf/2314.pdf
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/123/863/572/736/347/original/29d5c05de4448f41.jpg

2024-03-19 18:02:02

Lava tubes are some of the most interesting places to explore on the Moon, and they're accessible from the surface through collapsed roofs called skylights. Engineers have proposed a new mission called LunarLeaper. It's a 10-kg, three-legged robot that would land near a skylight called Marius Pit. It would then approach the skylight, walk around the edge twice, and map the subsurface from above, paving the way for future exploration.
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2024/pdf/1820.pdf
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/123/662/971/964/624/original/c782a942a194e02d.jpeg

2024-03-19 17:46:04

ESA's Euclid spacecraft started its primary mission of mapping the dark Universe a few months ago, but ice is starting to build up in a thin layer on its optical system. The water is gradually released from components inside the telescope, pulled out by the vacuum of space. This is expected and has been a problem for other missions, but the mission team has been planning for this. They're going to heat individual components, de-icing them piece by piece.
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid/Operations_begin_to_de-ice_Euclid_s_vision
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/123/600/189/704/644/original/24062b01299b025f.jpg

2024-03-19 17:36:04

As part of its 10-year Lunar Architecture Capability Study, USA's DARPA has awarded a contract to Northrop Grumman to plan a lunar railway. This Moon-based railroad network could transport humans, supplies, and raw materials back and forth across the lunar surface. Their proposal will define the resources to build the rail system using robots to construct and operate it, as well as maintenance and repair.
https://news.northropgrumman.com/news/releases/northrop-grumman-to-develop-concept-for-lunar-railroad
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/123/560/884/765/048/original/68f7c5cb0a226cea.webp

2024-03-18 22:57:03

After over 70 successful flights, a broken rotor ended NASA's Ingenuity helicopter mission. Now, NASA is considering how a larger, more capable helicopter could be an airborne geologist. Scientists are working on the concept of the Mars Science Helicopter, which would have six rotors and be able to carry up to 5 kg of science instruments aloft in the thin Martian atmosphere. A new paper outlines the geology work that the helicopter could accomplish.
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2024/pdf/1215.pdf
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/119/160/736/899/322/original/f2c949c18c1d227d.jpg

2024-03-18 22:37:02

If all goes well, NASA's Artemis III mission will bring humans back to the Moon as early as 2026, the first time since the Apollo 17 crew departed in 1972. It won't be a vacation, though, as astronauts have an enormous amount of science to do, especially in lunar geology. A team from NASA recently presented their planetary science goals and objectives for Artemis III surface activities, which will guide the fieldwork the astronauts will carry out on the lunar surface.
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2024/pdf/1980.pdf
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/119/082/047/304/250/original/b9ef67da4f91cae2.jpg

2024-03-18 22:25:03

When meteors strike the Moon or Mars, debris flies in all directions, producing secondary craters. NASA scientists have studied the area around the 2.3 million-year-old Corinto crater on Mars and calculated that it generated at least two billion secondary craters in the vicinity, larger than 10 meters across. Then, those rocks created even more craters as they splashed debris into their surroundings. This is ten times higher than previous estimates from other impacts.
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2024/pdf/2577.pdf
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/119/034/906/128/178/original/9d7d32c4a852d0ca.jpg

2024-03-18 22:10:02

Even though it's always more than 55 million kilometers away, Mars can subtly affect Earth's oceans. Researchers have found a 2.4-million-year cycle in the geologic record showing how the Earth's oceans warmed and cooled. This cycle matches interactions between the orbits of Earth and Mars over the longest scales. These are called the "astronomical grand cycles," but researchers haven't found much evidence in geologic records.
https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2024/03/12/mars-attracts-earth-interaction-red-planet-drives-deep-sea-circulation.html#:~:text=These%20cycles%20are%20called%20%E2%80%9Castronomical,our%20deep%2Dsea%20sedimentary%20data.
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/118/975/876/826/403/original/f50c8ea18222e92f.jpeg

2024-03-18 21:58:03

Saturn's moon Titan has familiar-looking dunes covering 13% of its surface, but unlike Earth, these are made of organic-rich ice, not rock. Scientists have wondered how these millimeter-sized grains could precipitate out of hydrocarbons in the atmosphere. A new paper suggests that they didn't come from Titan's atmosphere but were delivered over eons by comet impacts and debris from Saturn's irregular moons.
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2024/pdf/1550.pdf
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/118/928/754/808/651/original/3ae1f6cd7858f172.jpg

2024-03-18 21:47:02

New observations from JWST have found several key ingredients for life in early-stage protostars, where planets are about to form. These are chemicals like methane, acetic acid, and ethanol, which other telescopes have tentatively found. Webb has taken these observations to the next level, detecting strong signals from various complex organic molecules in interstellar ice. They were previously seen in the warm gas phase, but the solid ice phase is even earlier.
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/03/Cheers!_Webb_finds_ethanol_and_other_icy_ingredients_for_worlds
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/118/885/403/763/269/original/75ec6e54371d2c32.jpg

2024-03-18 21:32:02

Jupiter's moon, Europa, is thought to contain a deep ocean of liquid water surrounded by a thick shell of ice. Since nearby Io is the most volcanically active place in the Solar System, it's hoped that Europa will have active volcanism at the bottom of the ocean, with molten rock supporting a nutrient-rich ecosystem like Earth's deep-sea vents. A new study calculated that Europa probably has no faults and cracks at its seafloor, making the ocean uninhabitable.
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2024/pdf/2780.pdf
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/118/826/459/999/502/original/3f56ef2e58c0afde.jpg

2024-03-18 21:18:03

Many of the building blocks of life can form naturally in the extreme vacuum and cold of deep space. An example is glyceric acid, one of the simplest sugar acids observed in carbon dioxide-rich environments in outer space. Glyceric acid is a simple sugar acid that our bodies use to break down food into usable energy. Researchers have mimicked space conditions, getting glyceric acid to form on ice-coated nanoparticles at just a few degrees above absolute zero.
https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2024/03/13/cool-sugar-acid-formation-space/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/118/771/420/704/096/original/68df1746e29e6ecb.jpg

2024-03-18 21:03:05

Comets have tails, and asteroids don't, right? The line between comet and asteroid might be blurrier than you think with a rare variety of asteroids that can have comet-like tails. NASA recently recruited 8,000 volunteer citizen scientists to scan through over 430,000 images from the Dark Energy Gamer, searching for examples of "active asteroids." The volunteers identified 15 unknown asteroids with tails, some were even in the main asteroid belt.
https://science.nasa.gov/get-involved/citizen-science/nasa-volunteers-find-fifteen-rare-active-asteroids/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/118/712/584/826/791/original/e2e18d149ce3c8d8.png

2024-03-18 20:50:05

Astronomers are constantly searching for new ways to measure distance in the Universe via parallax, Cepheid variables, Type 1a supernovae, and the cosmic microwave background radiation. Astronomers have developed a new method of measuring distance using red giant stars. As main-sequence stars reach the red giant phase of evolution, they have acoustic oscillations in their atmosphere, which can be matched to their age. This enables a new way of measuring their distance.
https://actu.epfl.ch/news/the-baritone-of-red-giants-refines-cosmic-distance/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/118/661/491/864/432/original/9894423228f881a4.jpg

2024-03-18 20:40:02

The Milky Way is part of a larger cosmic structure called the Laniakea Supercluster, measuring 250 million light-years across with at least 100,000 galaxies. But superclusters get bigger, and astronomers think they've found one of the most massive. The Einasto Supercluster measures at least 360 million light-years across and contains the mass of 26 quadrillion suns (2.6 x 10^16). This monstrous structure was just one out of a survey of 662 superclusters.
https://ut.ee/en/content/einasto-supercluster-new-heavyweight-contender-universe
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/118/621/975/040/148/original/bd8aab670ed5ec44.jpg

2024-03-14 20:16:03

Astronomers have been watching supernova 1987A, which exploded in the Large Magellanic Cloud over 35 years ago. An interesting feature is these bright blobs of plasma embedded in the ring. In a new study, researchers explain that two stars collided in the region, merging into a blue star, heaving its outer layers into space. Powerful stellar winds buffeted the material, curling it up into balls. The supernova just illuminated what was already there.
https://news.umich.edu/explaining-a-supernovas-string-of-pearls/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/095/878/388/764/217/original/baf35d7074d6dadd.jpg

2024-03-14 19:31:03

When space missions launch from Earth, they carry all the fuel they can for their entire missions. Once they run out of fuel, the mission is over. But a longstanding dream is to refuel spacecraft in space so they can keep working and even reach difficult destinations. The cryogenic propellants used by NASA have a habit of leaking into the vacuum of space. Still, the agency is working on new technology to stop the boil-off, allowing spacecraft to be refueled.
https://science.nasa.gov/science-research/science-enabling-technology/zero-boil-off-tank-experiments-to-enable-long-duration-space-exploration/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/095/701/453/236/174/original/4bde4be622075e31.jpg

2024-03-14 19:22:03

The Hubble Space Telescope focuses on each giant planet when they're the largest and brightest in the sky. Jupiter had its photos taken on January 5-6th, 2024, showing off both sides of the planet. In the left image, you can see the Great Red Spot and a smaller spot to its lower right known as Red Spot Jr. The two spots pass each other every two years on average. In the right image, several smaller storms are rotating in alternating atmospheric bands.
https://hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-009
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/095/666/037/668/914/original/bdc86ed49381e296.jpg

2024-03-14 19:12:06

You're probably familiar with Mars's four giant shield volcanoes: Ascraeus, Pavonis, Arsia, and Olympus Mons. Now, planetary scientists have discovered that the planet hid another giant volcano in plain sight. The provisionally designed "Noctis volcano" reaches 9,022 meters and measures 450 kilometers across. It escaped discovery until now because it was heavily eroded and right at the boundary of the fractured maze-like terrain of Noctis Labyrinthus.
https://www.seti.org/press-release/giant-volcano-discovered-mars
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2024-03-14 19:04:01

In the 1960s, NASA engineers developed a series of lifting-body aircraft that could be dropped into the atmosphere of a giant planet, measuring the environment as they fell. Although it's a one-way trip to destruction, the form factor would allow a probe to glide around in different atmospheric layers, delivering data home. An updated version of the 1960s design is being tested at NASA now, and larger versions will be drop-tested from a helicopter later this month.
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/armstrong/nasa-armstrong-updates-1960s-concept-to-study-giant-planets/
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2024-03-14 18:52:03

Astronomers using JWST have found a pair of massive galaxies merging when the Universe was only 510 million years old. This object is enormous, ten times more massive than any other galaxy found that early in the Universe and seen earlier than any other merger so far. The images from Webb show two components, a massive galaxy, and a long tidal tail, indicating the merger in process. The galactic light shines with new star formation thanks to the merger.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1037351
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2024-03-14 18:42:04

Very little is known about the far side of the Milky Way because of the gas and dust embedded in the plane, especially near the galactic core. Thanks to its infrared instruments, the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman telescope can peer through this veil, seeing whatever's on the other side. Astronomers are planning a systematic survey of the far side of the Milky Way and could discover over 100 billion objects (mostly stars) in only a month.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/roman-space-telescope/nasas-roman-team-selects-survey-to-map-our-galaxys-far-side/
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2024-03-14 18:35:04

Nearly 11,000 years ago, a supernova detonated relatively nearby (galactically speaking), creating the Vela Supernova Remnant. The expanding shockwaves of gas and dust cover almost 100 light-years across and would be twenty times the diameter of the full Moon if we could see it with our eyes. The 570-megapixel Dark Energy Camera (DECam) created this gigantic 1.3-gigapixel mosaic image, the largest ever released from this instrument. It's your new desktop wallpaper.
https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2406/
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2024-03-14 18:26:03

In November 2023, NASA's Voyager 1 mission sent home garbled data, effectively stopping useful communication with the spacecraft. NASA engineers narrowed the problem to one of its onboard computers, the flight data system (FDS). A new signal from Voyager 1 contained a memory dump of the entire FDS system, which engineers are using to troubleshoot the system and develop a fix. They can still send commands to Voyager 1 and hope to get it back online.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/sunspot/2024/03/13/nasa-engineers-make-progress-toward-understanding-voyager-1-issue/
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2024-03-14 14:43:03

SpaceX completed Thursday's third test of the Starship/Superheavy launch system. The full stack blasted off from Boca Chica, Texas, at 9:25 a.m. ET separated successfully a few minutes into the flight. Superheavy crashlanded in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Texas while Starship proceeded to orbit. Once in orbit, it tested its payload doors and reoriented for re-entry. The video cut off as Starship was plunging into the atmosphere, so we don't know when it was lost.
https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/spacex-starship-launch-scn-03-14-24/index.html
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2024-03-13 17:10:59

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@npub1tsu…6p4s Sure, liquid water on its surface surrounded by a thick protective atmosphere. Life could inhabit a world like that.

2024-03-13 15:54:02

https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2024/pdf/1282.pdf

2024-03-12 18:24:03

The more we learn about red dwarfs and their planets, the more it seems that life will have difficulty surviving in such extreme environments. The planets are huddled up close to the star but endure devastating solar flares that should strip away their atmospheres. Researchers wanted to know if any life on Earth could survive in these environments and were surprised to discover that some varieties of fungus spores can survive red dwarf superflares.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.03403
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2024-03-12 18:09:03

Hycean worlds are exoplanets with liquid water oceans surrounded by thick hydrogen atmospheres. This could keep them habitable beyond the traditional habitable zone where liquid water could exist on the surface of a terrestrial planet. A couple of candidate hycean worlds have been found already, and now astronomers think they've found a new one: TOI-270 d, a Neptune-sized planet orbiting a star 73 light-years away. JWST found methane and carbon dioxide in its atmosphere.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.03244
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2024-03-12 17:52:03

Although telescopes are designed to reflect and refract light, astronomers want to minimize stray light sneaking into their instruments. They spray devices and components with black paint to cut down on that stray light, but the darkest paints are fragile and can't withstand the harshest conditions. Researchers have developed an atomic layer deposition method, which adheres paint in extremely thin layers, absorbing 99.3% of light while being durable to wear and tear.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1036943
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2024-03-11 22:30:02

New observations from JWST show the star-forming region NGC 604, located in the Triangulum galaxy (M33), located 2.73 million light-years away. This vast region is like the Orion Nebula but much bigger, measuring 1,300 light-years across and containing stars formed within the last 3.5 million years. The powerful stellar winds from the stars are carving out enormous cavities in the region, which Webb can peer through with its infrared instruments.
https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-110
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2024-03-11 22:08:03

Researchers recently collected 850 millimeter-sized spherules from the seafloor near Papua New Guinea. They believed they were caused by an interstellar bolide that struck the atmosphere in 2014. Most were terrestrial in origin or resembled typical iron or chondritic meteoroids, but a small ratio was unusual. In a new paper, scientists propose that these spherules are similar to debris found in a vast region caused by an impactor that hit Earth 788,000 years ago.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.05161
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2024-03-11 21:54:02

When Europa Clipper mission launches in October, it will carry a special commemorative plate with several images, illustrations, messages, and more than 2.6 million names. The plate is about 18x28 cm across and has illustrated features on both sides. On one side is artwork highlighting Europa, such as the word "water," spoken in 103 languages and converted into waveforms. It also has various equations and an illustration of Ron Greely, who pushed for a Europa mission.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/europa-clipper/nasa-unveils-design-for-message-heading-to-jupiters-moon-europa/
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2024-03-11 21:53:02

PDS 70 is a young star 370 light-years away that's estimated to be only 5.4 million years old. It's surrounded by a protoplanetary disk that contains two newly forming exoplanets and is the perfect example of a young planetary system. JWST is the perfect instrument to observe an object like PDS 70, and recently, water vapor was discovered in the inner disk where the planets form. Astronomers think they've detected a third protoplanet in the PDS 70 system with JWST.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.04855
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2024-03-11 21:38:03

The White House released the budget for fiscal year 2025, including a request for $25.4 for NASA. This number is the same as it received in fiscal year 2023, but almost two billion less than it requested for 2025. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the budget constraints are coming from a debt ceiling agreement that limits non-defense spending. Because it has received less than requested, NASA will need to cut costs from various missions.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/presidents-nasa-fy-2025-funding-supports-us-space-climate-leadership/
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2024-03-11 21:24:03

Astronomers have measured different expansion rates in the nearby Universe compared to observations of the cosmic microwave background. This is known as the Hubble tension, and it was hoped that JWST would provide some kind of resolution. Over the last two years, the telescope has confirmed the accuracy of Hubble telescope observations, seeing even more objects that allow astronomers to build a highly accurate distance measurement ladder out to 130 million light-years.
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/Webb_Hubble_confirm_Universe_s_expansion_rate
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2024-03-11 21:10:04

When stars with much more mass than the Sun run out of fuel in their cores, they collapse suddenly and then explode as supernovae. This leaves behind either a neutron star or a black hole, but astronomers have argued about where you draw the line between them. A new study has shown that the maximum mass of a non-rotating neutron star is 2.25 solar masses (+- 0.07). Above this point, known as the Oppenheimer limit, the neutron star will collapse into a black hole.
https://phys.org/news/2024-03-maximum-mass-rotating-neutron-star.html
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2024-03-11 20:51:05

Have you ever wanted to go to space? Maybe be one of the people who return to the Moon with the Artemis program or even be the first person to set foot on Mars? NASA has opened its astronaut application process, recruiting a new class of spacefarers. Their minimum requirements are for US citizens with a master's degree in a STEM field and at least three years of professional experience (or 1,000 hours of flight time as a pilot.) Good luck!
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/astronauts/become-an-astronaut/
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2024-03-11 20:43:02

Astronomers using JWST found surprising "little red dots" in their images. Of course, at those distances, even tiny dots are probably gigantic objects. After further research, these turned out to be supermassive black holes with millions of times the mass of the Sun, seen at a time when the Universe was only a few hundred million years old. They're red because they're surrounded by dust, which obscures the central black hole and reddens the radiation colors.
https://ista.ac.at/en/news/baby-quasars-growing-supermassive-black-holes/
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2024-03-11 20:17:03

Astronomers have been using JWST to observe a range of objects in the Kuiper Belt, including a pair of icy asteroids called Mors-Somnus. The space telescope is so powerful it can study the surface composition of objects like this for the first time and work out that they've been largely undisturbed in the history of the Solar System. These observations allow astronomers to track the history of Neptune's migration, finding regions that weren't disturbed by its gravity.
https://www.ucf.edu/news/ucf-scientists-use-james-webb-space-telescope-to-uncover-clues-about-neptunes-evolution/
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2024-03-11 20:04:03

In 2014, a seismometer detected the sound waves from a meteor fireball crashing into the atmosphere north of Papua New Guinea. According to a new paper, this seismic signal perfectly matches the ground vibrations caused by a truck rumbling past the station on a nearby road. It was believed this meteor was interstellar in origin, which led a team of scientists to search the seafloor for fragments that might have come from outside the Solar System.
https://hub.jhu.edu/2024/03/07/alien-meteor-truck/
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2024-03-11 19:46:04

The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are on a collision course with one another and are expected to merge into a single elliptical galaxy in a few billion years. But astronomers have detected hypervelocity stars on escape trajectories within the Milky Way, and you have to assume they're being thrown out of Andromeda, some in our direction. Have the two galaxies already started exchanging stars billions of years before they're due to merge?
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08143
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/078/773/550/024/934/original/b2b1e5c374c0fc2c.webp

2024-03-06 20:14:12

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@npub1h55…jfjp It's amazing how different they all look.

2024-03-06 20:13:32

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@npub1jsk…d3kk Hah, okay, edited.

2024-03-06 18:08:05

Europe's new heavy-lift rocket, the Ariane 6, is starting to come together at Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana. The two central stages of the rocket were shipped from Europe to the spaceport during a two-week transatlantic journey on a hybrid sail ship in February. With all the components together, If the assembly goes smoothly, we should see the rocket moved to the launchpad in Summer 2024 for a test launch.
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2024/03/Ariane_6_stages_having_a_BAL
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2024-03-06 17:57:02

Transits are a rare occurrence when objects line up perfectly in the sky. NASA's Perseverance rover was fortunate to see three solar transits recently: Mars's moons, Phobos, Deimos, and Planet Mercury. These transits allow astronomers to refine their understanding of the shapes of the moons and planets and continue to confirm Einstein's gravity predictions. Phobos is slowly drifting toward Mars and will crash into the planet millions of years from now.
https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA26248
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2024-03-05 18:01:02

Science fiction stories have included alien worlds for decades, long before astronomers discovered the first exoplanets. A team of researchers wanted to learn how exoplanetary science's reality informs science fiction's ideas. They tracked 142 science fiction works, from novels to films to video games, focusing on their depiction of exoplanets. A big shift started in 1995 after the first exoplanet was found orbiting a sunlike star.
https://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Bayesian_network_analysis_sheds_light_on_sci_fi_and_real_world_exoplanet_representation_999.html
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2024-03-05 17:36:11

NASA's Lunar Gateway will have modules that serve different purposes. One of these will be the logistics module, containing all the supplies astronauts need to live and work near the Moon. NASA wanted help to design the interior of the module, so they set up a challenge open to anyone on Earth to provide a solution. The winning solution, QASIS-Quick Access Storage in Space, received a prize of $3000 for a solution that maximizes internal stowage with minimal mass.
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/stmd-prizes-challenges-crowdsourcing-program/center-of-excellence-for-collaborative-innovation-coeci/coeci-news/winners-lunar-gateway-packing-storing-challenge/
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2024-03-05 17:25:02

How were supermassive black holes able to grow so rapidly in the early Universe? Galactic mergers were believed to be the answer, providing fresh material to feed black hole growth. According to researchers, that's not enough; the process also requires reservoirs of cold gas at the center of the host galaxy. Actively feeding black holes blast radiation, heating gas so it won't collapse. Cold gas can be pulled into accretion disks and fuel black hole growth.
https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/what-makes-black-holes-grow-and-new-stars-form-machine-learning-helps-solve-the-mystery/
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2024-03-05 17:17:02

According to satellite measurements, worldwide fossil fuel emissions are continuing to rise. Carbon dioxide emissions reached record levels in 2023, rising 1.1% above 2022, adding 36.8 billion metric tons. This doesn't account for deforestation and the wildfire season in Canada, which brings the total to 40.9 billion metric tons. The average concentration in 1750 was 278 parts per million and now stands at 420 ppm.
https://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/152519/emissions-from-fossil-fuels-continue-to-rise
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2024-03-05 17:05:02

This week, another crew of astronauts arrived at the International Space Station on board a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps flew on the mission, as did Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin. There were already seven people on board, bringing the total to eleven. This was the fifth flight for the Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour, which had developed a small crack, which NASA wasn't concerned about.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2024/03/05/four-crew-8-members-enter-station-for-six-month-mission/
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2024-03-05 16:54:03

When a young star begins forming, it's spinning rapidly, surrounded by a flattened disk that grows its future planets. Once the star can ignite fusion in its core, its stellar winds kick in, clearing out the remaining gas and dust, starving its planets for material. Now, JWST has found an older star in this exact phase of the cycle, dispersing its gas into interstellar space. This limits how much larger the planets can become until no material remains.
https://www.seti.org/press-release/jwst-captures-end-planet-formation
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2024-03-05 16:45:03

In addition to exoplanets, astronomers find dozens of newly forming planets around young stars, directly imaging the swirling gas and dust, hinting at the locations of these new worlds. These new images from the Very Large Telescope show how protoplanetary systems are surprisingly diverse, with different sizes and shapes of disks. In a new study, researchers imaged 80 young stars that might have planets forming around them in different star-forming regions.
https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2405/
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2024-03-05 16:35:02

JWST continues to gaze into the farthest reaches of the Universe, looking at galaxies as they appeared just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. One example is the galaxy GN-z11, which is surprisingly luminous even though it's only 430 million years old. The team studying this galaxy discovered that it hosts a central supermassive black hole with two million solar masses rapidly accreting matter from its surroundings, the most distant active galaxy ever seen.
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/Webb_unlocks_secrets_of_primeval_galaxy
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2024-03-05 16:29:03

Scientists know how much oxygen is bubbling off Europa into space thanks to NASA's Juno spacecraft. In a new paper, researchers estimate 12 kilograms of oxygen per second coming from Jupiter's moon, driven by ionized particles trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field impacting the surface, breaking up its water molecule by molecule. This is dramatically less than previous estimates of up to 1,000 kilograms per second.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/juno/nasas-juno-mission-measures-oxygen-production-at-europa/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/044/025/010/026/315/original/f67dd282b023ad17.jpg

2024-03-02 01:10:16

Although the status of the Mars Sample Return Mission is still uncertain, engineers are working on technology to retrieve dozens of samples collected by Perseverance. Engineers at ESA are working on a robotic gripper arm that can retrieve the sample tubes from the rover or the ground. It's being tested with replica sample tubes that are exactly like the ones being deposited by Perseverance, testing different grippers that hold tightly without damaging the samples.
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/02/Grip_on_Mars
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2024-03-02 00:57:03

One of the puzzling mysteries of Betelgeuse is the observation that it's rotating surprisingly fast for a supergiant star. Even though it stretches out to the orbit of Jupiter, its surface appears to be rotating at five km/s - that's fast. A new simulation shows that the star might have a surface boiling so furiously that it mimics rapid rotation. Convective bubbles as large as Earth's orbit can rise and fall on its surface at 30 km/s.
https://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/1094283/hl202403
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2024-03-02 00:46:03

Astronomers have found supermassive black holes at the hearts of most galaxies, but how did they form? It was assumed that black holes merged time and time again into larger and larger objects. Now astronomers have found a pair of supermassive black holes orbiting one another at just 24 light-years, the closest ever seen. The two measure 28 billion solar masses, the heaviest ever seen. Will they eventually merge or stall out within a few light years?
https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2405/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/023/330/038/221/950/original/837d9ab4ff600a66.jpg

2024-03-02 00:22:01

If you look carefully at this image of Mars, you'll notice a black dot. That's NASA's Curiosity Rover climbing its way up the side of Mount Sharp in a region called Gediz Vallis. This region was one of the last to form on the side of Mount Sharp and provides a historical record of one of the last wet periods of Mars. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured this image on the 4,051st day of Curiosity's mission.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia26245-hirise-spots-curiosity-driving-toward-upper-gediz-vallis
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/112/023/235/577/364/955/original/138d71203ccffe4c.jpg