When the new WEAVE spectrograph began science operations on the 4.2 meter William Herschel Telescope (WHT) in 2023, astronomers looked forward to its first five years. During this time, the telescope will be working on eight new simultaneous surveys of the sky. Before it could begin this work, the instrument went through a science verification phase. This important step demonstrates the instrument's capabilities and allows operators to refine its operations.
The US’s federally funded space program has been struggling of late. With the recent cancellation of the Mars Sample Return mission, and mass layoffs / resignations taking place at NASA, the general sense of a lack of morale at the agency is palpable, even from a distance. Jared Isaacman, the billionaire software entrepreneur and rocket enthusiast who was recently confirmed as NASA administrator during his second confirmation hearing, hopes to change that, and one of his priorities is pushing the Artemis missions for a permanent human presence on the Moon. However, at least one big technical hurdle remains before being able to do so - how to power a base during the two week long lunar night. A recent press release describes how NASA, and another branch of the federal government (the Department of Energy - DoE) hope to solve that problem - with a lunar-ready nuclear fission reactor.
We recently discussed the different types of worlds that the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is expected to find that might have noticeable biosignatures. However, no matter how good the instrumentation on board the observatory is, the data it collects will be useless if scientists don’t know how to interpret it. A paper explaining what data they need to collect before analyzing HWO data was authored by Niki Parenteau, a research biologist at NASA, and her co-authors, which is now available in pre-print on arXiv.
Supermassive Black Holes (SMBH), which reside at the center of many galaxies (ranging from dwarf to massive), are a true force of nature. Over time, dust and gas from their surroundings fall toward them, forming an accretion disk just outside the event horizon that is accelerated to near the speed of light (aka relativistic speed). This releases a tremendous amount of energy, temporarily making the core region outshine all the stars in the disk - what is known as an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN). Over time, this matter slowly accretes onto the black hole's face, also resulting in radiation across the spectrum.
The exact moment when life began on Earth may be forever hidden from us. But scientific research can explore the events leading up to that moment. Researchers have mad a lot of progress in finding the building blocks of life and in understanding how they formed.
Ever since humans learned that there are countless stars in the Universe with their own planetary systems, we have wondered if intelligent life exists beyond Earth. For more than 60 years, scientists have engaged in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), but all these attempts have yielded no definitive results. This has led scientists to question their methods and the possible indications of technological activity (aka. technosignatures) they should be looking for. In addition, they have come to consider expanding the search to include different forms of communication.
There are many reasons why Earth is habitable. One of them is that it's in a delicately balanced radiation struggle with the Sun and the larger cosmos. The Sun emits a powerful solar wind that would strip away the planet's atmosphere, except it's deflected by Earth's protective shield, the magnetosphere. Cosmic rays, dangerous high-energy particles that can damage living tissue, stream in from elsewhere in the cosmos, and they're likewise deflected by the magnetosphere.
The early stage of giant telescope development involves a lot of horse-trading to try to appease all the different stakeholders that are hoping to get what they want out of the project, but also to try to appease the financial managers that want to minimize its cost. Typically this horse-trading takes the form of a series of white papers that describe what would be needed to meet the stated objectives of the mission and suggest the type of instrumentation and systems that would be needed to achieve them. One such white paper was recently released by the Living Worlds Working Group, which is tasked with speccing out the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), one of the world’s premiere exoplanet hunting telescopes that is currently in the early development stage. Their argument in the paper, which is available in pre-print on arXiv, shows that, in order to meet the objectives laid out in the recent Decadal survey that called for the telescope, it must have extremely high signal-to-noise ratio, but also be able to capture a very wide spectrum of light.
Inside the cores of ice giant planets, the pressure and temperature are so extreme that the water residing there transitions into a phase completely unfamiliar under the normal conditions of Earth. Known as “superionic water”, this form of water is a type of ice. However, unlike regular ice it’s actually hot, and also black. For decades, scientists thought that the superionic water in the core of Neptune and Uranus is responsible for the wild, unaligned magnetic fields that the Voyager 2 spacecraft saw when passing them. A series of experiments described in a paper published in Nature Communications by Leon Andriambariarijaona and his co-authors at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and the Sorbonne provide experimental evidence of why exactly the ice causes these weird magnetic fields - because it is far messier than anyone expected.
They are known as Active Galactic Nuclei (aka. quasars), the core regions of galaxies that are so bright that they temporarily outshine all the stars in the galactic disk combined. This is the result of the Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs) at their centers, which accelerate infalling gas and dust in their accretion disks to near the speed of light. This produces intense radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, from visible light and infrared to microwaves and X-rays. For decades, astronomers have known that SMBHs reside at the centers of many massive galaxies, and the same was thought to be true of dwarf galaxies.
China made history in June 2024 when the Chang'e-6 mission made the first lunar sample-return in history, sending 1,935.3 grams (roughly 4.25 pounds) of lunar regolith and rock to Earth. Analysis of these samples has revealed a great deal of information about the Moon's composition and geological history, as well as notable differences between the two hemispheres. This data is crucial as China, NASA, the ESA, and other space agencies, along with commercial partners, plan to build lunar bases on the far side of the Moon in the near future.
Around the sun, there are countless small bodies whose orbits occasionally bring them in close proximity to Earth, known as Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). There are currently 37,000 known Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) and 120 known short-period near-Earth comets (NECs), though astronomers estimate that these objects number in the millions. Of particular concern are asteroids and comets that pose a potential impact risk to Earth, known as Potentially Hazardous Objects (PHOs). While scientists are confident that none of the known PHOs will pose a risk to Earth within the next century, planetary defense measures will be needed sooner or later.
When the Hubble Space Telescope began operations 35 years ago, it was motivated by some ambitious science goals. From its position in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO), the Hubble was poised to address fundamental questions in astronomy. It was tasked with determining the size and the age of the Universe, studying the formation and evolution of galaxies, and investigating quasars and black holes, among other things.
Chemistry on other worlds varies widely from that on Earth. Much of Earth’s chemistry is driven by well-understood processes, which typically involve water and heat in some form. Mars lacks both of those features, which makes how some of its chemicals formed a point of ongoing debate in the scientific community. A new paper led by Alian Wang and Neil Sturchio of Washington University of St. Louis and the University of Delaware, respectively, and published recently in Earth and Planetary Science Letters offers a new framework for understanding chemical reaction processes on Mars. Despite the differences, Earthlings will still be familiar with the driving force behind Martian chemistry - electricity.
Young stars need time to grow into their final masses before they begin fusing lighter elements into heavier elements as main-sequence stars. They can spend hundreds of thousands of years as protostars, when they're still accreting mass from the molecular clouds they form in. But even though they haven't begun fusion, they still inject energy into their surroundings.
Additive Manufacturing, more commonly known as 3D printing, will be an absolutely critical technology for any long-term settlement on another world. Its ability to take a generic input, such as plastic strips or metal powder, and turn it into any shape of tool an astronaut will need is an absolute game changer. But the chemistry behind these technologies is complicated, and their applications are extremely varied, ranging from creating bricks for settlements to plastics for everything from cups to toothbrush holders. A new paper available in pre-print on arXiv from Zane Mebruer and Wan Shou of the University of Arkansas, explores one specific aspect of a particularly important type of 3D printing, and realized that they could save millions of dollars on Mars missions by simply using the planet’s atmosphere to help print metal parts.
Between February and April of this year, NASA will conduct its first crewed mission beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in over fifty years. At 09:41 p.m. EDT (06:41 p.m. PDT), the Artemis II crew will launch aboard their Orion spacecraft atop the Space Launch System (SLS) from Launch Pad-39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With the launch date rapidly approaching, NASA is entering the final stages of preparation, including the rollout of the SLS and Orion to the launch pad for the first time. This will be followed by the final integration and testing of the rocket and spacecraft, then launch rehearsals.
One of the most consequential events—maybe the most consequential one throughout all of Earth's long, 4.5 billion year history—was the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE). When photosynthetic cyanobacteria arose on Earth, they released oxygen as a metabolic byproduct. During the GOE, which began around 2.3 billion years ago, free oxygen began to slowly accumulate in the atmosphere.
One of the most stubborn issues in cosmology today concerns the Universe's rate of expansion. Scientists know it's expanding, but defining the rate of that expansion is challenging. The rate of expansion is called the Hubble Constant, after American astronomer Edwin Hubble, who discovered that the Universe is expanding in the 1920s.
Back in the earlier days of the internet, there was a viral video from a creator called Bill Wurtz called “the history of the entire world, i guess” which spawned a number of memorable memes, some of which are still in use to this day. One of those was a clip from the video where Wurtz states “The Sun is a deadly laser.” Apparently, that was more true than even he knew, as a new paper from Georgios Tsirvouils of the Luleå University of Technology in Sweden and his co-authors have shown experimental evidence that the Sun’s laser-like radiation is likely responsible for the death of a vast majority of closely-orbiting asteroids.
When the Sun erupts in its most violent flares, it doesn’t just hurl plasma and particles into space. These explosions also generate intense bursts of gamma radiation, the most energetic form of light in the universe. Solar physicists have detected these gamma ray signals for decades, yet the precise mechanism producing them remained frustratingly elusive. Now researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology have pinpointed the source.
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