Fraser Cain

https://m.universetoday.com/@fraser

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

Website: https://www.universetoday.com/authors/fraser-cain
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/universetoday

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fraser_at_m.universetoday.com@momostr.pink

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relay.damus.io

nos.lol

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Last Notes

2026-07-17 17:45:51 UTC

When interstellar object 3I/ATLAS was discovered in 2025, astronomers were genuinely excited to study a piece of another Solar System. Follow-on analysis from one of the biggest telescopes in the world has confirmed that it truly has a chemical fingerprint that's different from other objects in the Solar System. The Very Large Telescope measured higher rates of nitrogen and the ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-13 compared to Solar System comets. This suggests it formed in the outer regions around an old, low-metallicity star.
https://www.universetoday.com/articles/chemistry-reveals-the-origins-of-an-interstellar-comet
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/116/936/563/164/938/654/original/440d557ff653de2c.jpg

2026-07-10 17:24:57 UTC

NASA has been announcing new plans for lunar exploration in the last few months, with the goal of building an inhabited base on the Moon. But there are countless tasks, big and small, that will need to be carried out for the construction and maintenance of a lunar base. NASA recently sent out a solicitation for proposals to help fill the gaps, citing the need for vertical solar arrays, radioisotope thermal generators, in-situ resource utilization, in-space advanced manufacturing, and innovative nanomaterials.
https://www.universetoday.com/articles/nasa-is-calling-on-industry-to-build-its-lunar-infrastructure
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/116/896/844/845/875/298/original/10f9202dab851596.jpeg

2026-07-08 16:58:05 UTC

Quasars are actively feeding supermassive black holes, blasting so much radiation into space that they're visible billions of light years away. These are just some of the objects that ESA's Euclid mission is seeing as it completes its survey of the large scale structure of the Universe, measuring the influence of dark matter and dark energy over time. Recently, the mission turned up dozens of previously unseen quasars at high redshifts, including the farthest ever seen at z=7.7, seen at a time when the Universe was only 680 million years old.
https://www.universetoday.com/articles/the-euclid-space-telescope-has-found-31-new-ancient-quasars-including-the-most-ancient-one-ever-foun
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/116/885/414/564/316/313/original/7cb3e522f64a435c.jpg

2026-07-07 19:03:46 UTC

Okay, I'm ready to return to Mastodon. I was finally able to customize my server to let me post up to 2000 characters and not the default 500. That was a dealbreaker for me :-)

2025-06-13 19:10:04 UTC

Solar sails get their propulsion from the Sun, so they don't need to carry propellant, but they come with their own challenges. A sail has a large surface area but a low mass, which creates a huge moment of inertia and makes it difficult to control, especially with reaction wheels. A team of engineers has developed a reflectivity control device, where thin membranes on the sail change their reflectivity, producing less force and allowing the sail to change direction.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.19865
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/677/632/488/350/908/original/24a155b111a02ed8.webp

2025-06-10 19:48:03 UTC

Most exoplanets have been detected indirectly through the transit or radial velocity method. But here's an image of the exoplanet 14 Herculis c captured by Webb. It has about 7 Jupiter masses, but with a surface temperature of only -3°C. There's another planet in the system that's much closer and not directly observed. The two planets are inclined relative to each other at an angle of 40 degrees. 14 Herculis c would orbit between Saturn and Uranus in the Solar System.
https://science.nasa.gov/universe/exoplanets/frigid-exoplanet-in-strange-orbit-imaged-by-nasas-webb/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/660/794/910/102/769/original/45b446d4cb8a0a48.jpg

2025-06-10 17:08:04 UTC

NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey orbiter captured this incredible image of the giant shield volcano Arsia Mons, poking through the cloud tops at Martian dawn. Arsia and the other megavolcanoes on Mars are so tall they're often surrounded by water ice clouds in the early morning. Odyssey is normally staring straight down, so to capture this unique angle, it had to rotate 90 degrees while in orbit so that it could capture a side perspective view of the volcano.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-mars-orbiter-captures-volcano-peeking-above-morning-cloud-tops/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/660/165/823/996/447/original/d9d08770ee6c1f44.jpg

2025-05-21 16:50:05 UTC

Some galaxies are rapidly forming stars, while others are quieter. Of course, the amount of gas and dust in a galaxy matters, but according to a new paper, it's the location of the material that also plays a role. Astronomers mapped the gas distribution in about 1,000 galaxies as part of a huge survey and found that the ones with the most star formation have the gas in the areas with the highest concentration of stars.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1084316
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/546/848/926/580/831/original/ceb163423f64bbfa.jpg

2025-05-19 20:22:04 UTC

In May 2024, dozens of US departments and agencies ran a tabletop exercise to predict what would happen to the US if a powerful solar storm hit the Earth, disrupting the electrical grid, communications, and other infrastructure. They found that there was a need for better coordination during these events, from early space weather notifications to better communication with the public. Ironically, the exercise happened as the most powerful storm in decades struck Earth.
https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/nations-first-space-weather-simulation-exercise-examines-us-preparedness
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/536/357/860/473/089/original/ff46db3b653a74fc.webp

2025-05-16 00:06:03 UTC

NASA's Perseverance Rover turned its gaze to the Martian skies on March 1st and recorded an image of Deimos zipping past overhead shortly before dawn. The rover used its navigation camera with 3-second exposures, stacking up 16 individual photos to create this image. The picture was taken in very low light, so it's pretty grainy and noisy, but there are two additional stars in the sky, Regulus and Algieba, in the constellation Leo.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/deimos-before-dawn/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/514/589/320/455/044/original/a8424e7ce35daa8f.jpg

2025-05-12 17:49:06 UTC

When spacecraft are constructed, they're assembled in special cleanrooms that are engineered to have extremely low levels of dust and microbes. Now, researchers have found that specific types of extremophiles have evolved to thrive in environments designed to remove all their competitors. They examined space agency cleanrooms and found 26 novel bacterial species, with specific features that let them handle decontamination and radiation.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1083406
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/496/120/192/814/996/original/40a9a12bcc93c6ec.webp

2025-04-25 22:24:14 UTC

Here's an amazing new image of NASA's Curiosity Rover captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It shows the rover as a dark speck at the end of a long trail of tracks going across the surface of Mars. Curiosity was flooring it at a speed of 0.16 km/h across the Gediz Vallis channel headed towards a region that could have been formed by groundwater billions of years ago. The tracks will last for a few months until the wind scours them away.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-orbiter-spots-curiosity-rover-making-tracks-to-next-science-stop/?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1-nasajpl&utm_content=media-curiosity20250424
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/400/942/759/081/936/original/2f820b1d040de011.jpg

2025-04-24 15:43:04 UTC

The 4-meter Inouye Solar Telescope is the largest in the world, giving us an unprecedented view of the surface of the Sun. It has a suite of scientific instruments, and now another has come online: the spectro-polarimeter VTF. This instrument images the Sun at extremely narrow wavelengths, allowing astronomers to look for very specific features and events on the solar surface. The first light image they shared shows pixels that correspond to just 10 km on the Sun.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1081266
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/393/702/992/454/299/original/0c2fd25b1ff9234a.jpeg

2025-04-21 15:55:06 UTC

After completing 220 days on board the International Space Station, astronaut Don Pettit is back on Earth, landing on his 70th birthday on Sunday, April 20th. This was his 4th spaceflight, logging a total of 590 days in orbit. During his time on the station, he worked on a series of science experiments as well as doing astrophotography with a custom-built rig that counteracted the Earth's rotation and allowed him to take long-duration photos of space.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-astronaut-don-pettit-crewmates-complete-space-station-expedition/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/376/763/390/260/572/original/7a20b3d2ba6a2b3c.webp

2025-04-15 22:30:05 UTC

Astronomers are slowly learning about the atmosphere of Jupiter - that place is wild. The planet has storms, but they're made of rising plumes of ammonia gas, surrounded by hurricane-like vortices. Hailstones made of ammonia and water ice, dubbed "mushballs," rain down during thunderstorms, surrounded by intense flashes of lightning. And now, astronomers think this is common, not only with other giant planets in the Solar System but across the Universe.
https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/04/15/on-jupiter-its-mushballs-all-the-way-down/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/344/342/657/294/146/original/0c96bf1b87649d42.jpg

2025-04-07 14:35:05 UTC

Astronomers have measured a flicker of X-ray radiation coming from the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Andromeda Galaxy. Their observations were made with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, collated from 15 years of data, and highlighted two powerful flares in 2006 and 2013. These flashes matched a burst of neutrinos detected by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, giving new insights into conditions around the supermassive black hole.
https://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2025/when-a-black-hole-winks-at-you
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/297/176/418/805/116/original/110fe082139d1576.webp

2025-04-02 17:15:06 UTC

Tardigrades are some of the most durable animals ever found. They can handle temperature ranges from -271°C to over 150°C, pressures above 1,200 atmospheric levels, extreme drying, and intense ionizing radiation. Researchers have been studying some of the adaptations that can keep tardigrades alive in extreme environments and consider how they could apply to human space exploration, as well as insights into extraterrestrial life.
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2025/pdf/2477.pdf
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/269/494/068/118/796/original/e8d205ea1a29913f.webp

2025-03-31 20:30:05 UTC

Astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope to study the atmosphere of Uranus for 20 years now, watching how the planet is slowly changing from year to year. Uranus is tipped over on its side and takes 84 years to complete one orbit around the Sun. Hubble has now been watching it for almost a quarter of its year, which is now approaching summer in the Northern Hemisphere.
https://www.stsci.edu/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-011
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/258/936/154/771/329/original/8bdb064e691dadeb.jpg

2025-03-28 17:02:09 UTC

This looks like a bizarre irregular galaxy, but it's actually two galaxies separated by billions of light-years, imaged by JWST. The foreground elliptical galaxy is part of a closer galaxy cluster called SMACS J0028.2-7537. And then the orange galaxy wrapped around it is actually a spiral galaxy that has been lensed by the gravity of the galaxy cluster into an Einstein ring. This is just one example in a comprehensive Webb survey of 182 galaxy clusters.
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2025/03/Webb_spies_a_spiral_through_a_cosmic_lens
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/241/131/547/911/539/original/6555a7951c834567.jpg

2025-03-25 15:43:05 UTC

Mercury is a surprisingly difficult planet to reach, requiring more delta-v than leaving the Solar System from Earth orbit. But it's close to the Sun, which means it's bathed in solar radiation, the perfect environment for a solar sail. Researchers are proposing the Mercury Scout, a mission to Mercury that would use a solar sail as its primary propulsion system. It would take about 7 years to get from Earth to Mercury and then orbit the world for 6 years.
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2025/pdf/2370.pdf
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/223/833/771/584/073/original/c991d78057fcadf6.jpg

2025-03-24 15:28:07 UTC

Telescope optics can be made of mirrors or lenses, but in both cases, they're bulky and need to follow a strict mathematical curve to focus light. Researchers have shown that it's possible to make a completely flat lens that focuses light. Traditionally, this has been done with Fresnel lenses, but they distort colors. Their new technique carves tiny concentric rings into a substrate that match the wavelengths of different colors, allowing a full-color, in-focus image.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1075092
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/218/112/570/456/928/original/8bead28f97e5aeed.jpg

2025-03-24 15:15:05 UTC

When JWST came online, it discovered an entirely new class of astronomical objects. Dubbed "little red dots," these are compact red galaxies with high redshifts, seen in the very early Universe. Astronomers continue to redirect Webb towards these fascinating objects, and in a new paper, astronomers reveal what they've learned from observing 12 galaxies. They're active galactic nuclei surrounded by a thick cocoon of dense, ionized gas, an early phase of black hole growth.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.16595
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/218/061/319/685/105/original/55a5f1f5e1b22cfa.jpg

2025-03-20 15:39:09 UTC

NASA's Psyche mission is on its way to Asteroid 16 Psyche, but that might not be the only metal asteroid that humanity visits. The European Space Agency is considering its own "Heavy Metal" mission, which could visit asteroid 216 Kleopatra, the second largest M-class asteroid in the main belt. Although it's similar to Psyche, Kleopatra has a small, unique shape with two small moons and comes from a different dynamical family. Heavy Metal could launch in 2036-2037.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.15217
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/195/506/753/019/405/original/023212d7bc5a2c53.jpg

2025-03-17 12:44:05 UTC

One classic explanation for the origin of life on Earth, abiogenesis, is that lightning struck a pond filled with organic elements, kickstarting the process of evolution. But lightning striking random puddles is rare. Instead, a new theory suggests that the more common "microlightning," caused by crashing waves and falling water, could have done the trick. These generate electrical discharges that could have created the organic compounds needed for life.
https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/03/microlightning-in-water-droplets-may-have-sparked-life-on-earth
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/177/831/446/360/764/original/245cbe0a627a44c2.jpg

2025-03-14 14:09:03 UTC

Missed Thursday's total lunar eclipse? No problem, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost mission has you covered. The lander took a quick break from its science operations on the Moon to capture this stunning image of a lunar eclipse. From our perspective, we see the Earth's shadow fall on the Moon, eventually turning it red when the light from the world's sunsets falls upon it simultaneously. But from the Moon, it's the Sun that disappears behind the Earth.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflyspace/54386246629/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/161/178/624/364/895/original/3bfcf3747e6fa832.jpg

2025-03-13 01:40:34 UTC

This week, I decided to remove all ads from everything on Universe Today. And I couldn't be happier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0uKlAHcUGk

2025-03-11 17:48:04 UTC

Barnard's Star is the closest single star to Earth, located just 6 light-years from Earth. Astronomers announced today that they've found four new mini-Earth planets in orbit around the red dwarf star. The planets were found with the MAROON-X instrument installed on the Gemini North telescope, which uses the radial velocity method to detect subtle shifts in starlight from the gravity of the planets. One planet was found in August 2024, and three more were added today.
https://noirlab.edu/public/news/noirlab2510/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/145/052/862/332/628/original/ed89527ba37ccf65.jpg

2025-03-05 19:53:03 UTC

Astronomers have used JWST to image a bizarre ultra-hot Neptune exoplanet, revealing a dramatic difference in its hemispheres. The planet orbits so close to its star that it is "tidally locked," always showing the same side to the star. Temperatures reach 2000°C on the dayside but are cooler and darker on the other side. According to their observations, astronomers say the dayside has bright reflective clouds on its cooler western hemisphere but not on its eastern side.
https://nouvelles.umontreal.ca/en/article/2025/02/25/today-s-forecast-partially-cloudy-skies-on-an-ultra-hot-neptune/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/111/570/481/388/973/original/96f94738a696e610.jpg

2025-03-05 19:06:17 UTC

NASA's New Horizons mission flew past Pluto and later the Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth. It still has enough propellant in the tanks to make more flybys, but it has no viable targets. Fortunately, the mighty Vera Rubin Observatory is online and can soon search the sky for targets. Researchers have proposed to use the observatory with 30 hours of telescope time to carefully examine New Horizons' location in the Kuiper Belt to find more flyby opportunities.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.02765
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/111/386/548/226/761/original/4e65bee858175b1a.jpg

2025-02-26 19:32:03 UTC

About 14 million years ago, the Solar System flew through the Orion star-forming complex - home of the Orion Nebula - which might have compressed the heliosphere, allowing more interstellar dust to reach Earth. This transition seems to match the Middle Miocene Climate Transition, when a warm variable climate shifted to a cooler climate, creating an early version of the Antarctic ice sheet. This could mean that interstellar dust has influenced past Earth's climate.
https://medienportal.univie.ac.at/en/media/recent-press-releases/detailansicht-en/artikel/the-galactic-journey-of-our-solar-system/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/114/071/851/702/836/828/original/263100a6426d7b2b.jpg

2025-02-13 17:54:04 UTC

Astronauts spend hours every day working out to minimize muscle and bone loss from weightlessness. Researchers have discovered that knee cartilage in mice grows healthier after they complete jumping exercises. Cartilage damage is another major issue that space agencies are concerned about, and it's one of the less-studied health issues for space exploration. The scientists were surprised at the scale of the health effect. Could astronauts add jumping to their workouts?
https://hub.jhu.edu/2025/02/13/astronaut-jumping-workout/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/113/997/856/378/309/941/original/b06ca45e82b4eeb0.jpg

2025-02-13 17:48:05 UTC

As we've seen with the recent flurry of interest in asteroid 2024 YR4, we need better and faster ways to accurately determine the distance to asteroids. Astronomers have needed multiple observatories over multiple nights to pin down an asteroid's orbit, but a new technique can drop that down to a single night from a single telescope. It uses the Earth's rotation, taking multiple images from the same telescope to create a parallax effect that gives 1-3% precision.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.07881
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/113/997/832/850/875/136/original/2bb7a90c46bfbee3.webp

2025-02-13 17:27:04 UTC

The European Southern Observatory has released a new image of the RCW 38 stellar nursery, located about 5,500 light-years away in the constellation Vela and containing about 2,000 stars. The stars in this cluster are young, less than a million years old, and in various stages of formation. They're surrounded by dense gas clouds and clumps of dust, requiring an infrared telescope to see all these details.
https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2503/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/113/997/750/250/957/364/original/e330c6bbc97d1559.jpg

2025-02-13 00:53:03 UTC

Oumuamua was the first interstellar object discovered, and astronomers are still perplexed by its bizarre, skinny shape. How could it form? Astronomers believe that it was created when a larger object was torn apart by a star's gravitational forces when it got too close. But what kind of star? A new paper simulated the formation of Oumuamua and found that a single star with half the Sun's mass and a Jupiter-mass planet was the most effective configuration.
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/staf234/8006707
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/113/993/841/607/656/433/original/3c21545a738458e2.jpeg

2025-02-12 22:13:04 UTC

If there's life on other worlds in the Solar System, it's most likely to be tiny bacteria-like creatures. It's difficult to send powerful microscopes to other worlds, but chemistry can give us insights. Scientists have discovered that an amino acid called L-serine can induce movement in different bacteria and archaea. In lab testing, three different types of microbes all moved towards this chemical and could be a strong indicator of life.
https://www.frontiersin.org/news/2025/02/06/find-alien-life-simple-test-microbes
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/113/993/212/526/730/346/original/300a463424539a88.jpeg

2025-02-05 21:10:05 UTC

Astronomers have used JWST to scan the Main Asteroid Belt located between Mars and Jupiter, finding the smallest ever seen in that region. During their short time with JWST, they turned up 139 new asteroids, which range in size from 10 to 500 meters across. The size of asteroids showed an interesting pattern, with a break in size at around the 100-meter mark. This suggests that small asteroids are constantly smashing, creating smaller rubble.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.01744
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/113/953/328/686/644/220/original/d74344b031bf4914.jpg

2025-02-04 22:31:04 UTC

It's been decades since Voyager 2 made humanity's one and only flyby of Uranus, imaging the ice giant planet and its moons. Planetary scientists continue to pore over the images and data, searching for insights. One interesting new discovery comes from further analysis of the deep trenches that cut through the bottom of Ariel's canyons. They appear to contain upwelling material, like the ridges deep in Earth's oceans, and could give us a hint at the moon's interior.
https://www.jhuapl.edu/news/news-releases/250203-uranus-moon-ariel-medial-grooves-window-to-interior-subsurface-ocean
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/113/947/984/806/974/589/original/bd0eef3dc0676ffc.jpg

2025-02-03 22:59:07 UTC

Humanity has been leaking electromagnetic radiation into space for over a century, from our radio and television to our air traffic control system and even city lights. If we were looking at Earth with our best telescopes, how far away could we detect ourselves? According to a new study, most of our emissions wouldn't make it past the Oort Cloud, but planetary radar emissions from radio telescopes could be seen up to 12,000 light-years away.
https://www.seti.org/press-release/earth-detecting-earth
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/113/942/432/795/092/539/original/f582d214c120c092.jpg

2025-01-29 20:05:04 UTC

Japanese scientists have found that asteroid samples returned from NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission contain the building blocks of DNA and RNA. The researchers have detected all five nitrogenous bases, which serve as the raw materials for the molecules needed for life. They had already discovered two of these bases in Hayabusa 2 samples from asteroid Ryugu, but Bennu had all five. This shows that the raw materials for life could have been delivered by asteroids.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1071865
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/113/913/436/860/173/942/original/2a58cdf26bd5af32.jpeg

2025-01-27 21:31:04 UTC

Although balloon missions have been tested on Venus briefly by the Soviets, they didn't last long - the helium escaped and they sunk down. But a new NASA-funded NIAC proposal hopes to build on the success of the MOXIE experiment that made oxygen on the Perseverance Rover. This would be a larger version that would extract CO2 from the atmosphere of Venus, break it into O2 and CO, which are both lifting gases on Venus, and allow it to float indefinitely.
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/niac/exploring-venus-with-electrolysis-eve/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/113/902/450/376/710/349/original/5abd9a352276124d.jpg

2025-01-23 00:35:04 UTC

It's amazing what we can observe in other star systems. Astronomers recently reported that they've examined belts of icy pebbles surrounding dozens of stars. They used radio telescopes to see the wavelengths of radiation emitted by millimeter-sized pebbles created by much larger exocomets smashing together. Based on this survey, they've found that about 20% of planetary systems contain these exocometary belts, in shapes that can be very different from the Solar System.
https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/2025/astrophysicists-reveal-structure-of-74-exocomet-belts-orbiting-nearby-stars-in-landmark-survey/
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/113/874/862/385/067/662/original/169537d59ed12764.jpg

2025-01-22 20:38:03 UTC

When NASA's InSight mission was operating on Mars, it detected hundreds of marsquakes. And these might have helped solve a longstanding mystery about the interior of Mars. The southern hemisphere has a thicker crust and is up to 6 km higher than the north. Researchers analyzed 6 quakes from the southern hemisphere and discovered that the region is hotter than the north and could hint at convection processes that led to the hemispherical differences.
https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/new-marsquake-data-could-help-solve-one-of-our-solar-systems-biggest-mysteries
https://m.universetoday.com/system/media_attachments/files/113/873/930/366/470/078/original/0ffd9d3272912a61.jpg

2025-01-15 21:49:04 UTC

NASA has released new images of Los Angeles, taken by the AVIRIS-3 instrument on a B200 aircraft, showing the devastation of the Eaton fire. Within a day, the fire had consumed 10,000 acres, ravaging the Altadena suburb of Pasadena. NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab is in Pasadena, and from the aerial images, you can see just how close the fires got to the facility before they were (somewhat) contained, yet thousands of buildings were destroyed.
https://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153821/eaton-fire-leaves-california-landscape-charred
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2025-01-15 21:31:47 UTC

NASA's Curiosity Rover has found evidence of ice-free ancient ponds and lakes on the surface of Mars. In two different spots, the rover found the signature of small undulations in the sandy shores of lakebeds, which would have been created by wind-driven water lapping back and forth. This means that the water would have been open to the Martian air and not covered by ice, which some models predict. Scientists estimate the ripples were formed 3.7 billion years ago.
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/signatures-of-ice-free-ancient-ponds-and-lakes-found-on-mars
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2024-12-18 18:23:03 UTC

Astronomers have discovered a supermassive black hole, seen at a time when the Universe was only 800 million years old. This monster contains 400 million times the mass of the Sun and consists of 40% of the mass of its local gravity (compared to 0.1% on average now). Yet, observations show the black hole is only slowly accumulating material right now, a fraction of the pace that got it to its current heft. Astronomers think it's on a break, napping after a huge feast.
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/massive-black-hole-in-the-early-universe-spotted-taking-a-nap-after-overeating
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2024-12-11 20:41:04 UTC

Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays are streaming through space, containing 10 million times as much energy as the Large Hadron Collider can produce. Astronomers still aren't entirely sure what can create such high-energy particles, but they must be coming from some of the most extreme events in the universe. In a new paper, researchers explain evidence that shows that cosmic rays are linked to magnetic turbulence, coming from a region where magnetic fields tangle and twist.
https://news.columbia.edu/news/new-discovery-about-source-vast-energy-cosmic-rays
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2024-12-05 18:23:05 UTC

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced today that he has decided to reschedule the Artemis III mission until mid-2027. Nelson focused on the safety of the mission, describing changes to the re-entry to prevent damage to the Orion capsule's heat shield, which wore away differently than what they were expecting after test flights. He emphasized that Artemis III would still beat the Chinese, who are planning to land humans on the Moon by 2030.
https://plus.nasa.gov/scheduled-video/nasa-artemis-campaign-leadership-news-conference/#fullscreen-player
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2024-12-05 00:23:06 UTC

Today we learned that Trump has chosen Jared Isaacman as the new NASA administrator. Jared Isaacman is a billionaire entrepreneur, an experienced jet pilot, and has completed two private flights to space, including the first private spacewalk during the Polaris Dawn mission. He will succeed outgoing NASA administrator Bill Nelson, a former space shuttle astronaut and senator.
https://x.com/rookisaacman/status/1864346915183157636
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2024-11-27 20:41:04 UTC

ESA's Euclid mission is mapping out the large-scale structure of the Universe, observing weak gravitational lensing that helps chart the concentrations of dark matter and the influence of dark energy. But Euclid is also expected to turn up about 170,000 strong gravitational lenses throughout its mission. Although machine learning plays its part, the false positive rate is pretty high, so each and every lens candidate will need to be confirmed by a human.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.16808
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2024-11-26 00:19:43 UTC

ESA's Solar Orbiter spacecraft has been getting closer and closer to the Sun, capturing images of its surface in unprecedented detail. In March 2023, the spacecraft was half the distance from the Earth to the Sun and captured a series of 25 images that have been stitched together by scientists. Although it looks familiar, the resolution of this image takes it to the next level. You can zoom in to see individual granules on the surface of the Sun.
https://www.mpg.de/23749011/zooming-in-on-the-sun?c=2249
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2024-11-25 22:43:04 UTC

You're looking at a fantastic new image of the Sombrero Galaxy captured by JWST. If you look carefully, you can see the clumpy, cloud-like outer ring made of gas and dust. At the center is an actively feeding supermassive black hole. Thousands of globular star clusters surround the galaxy. In Webb's infrared view, the thick outer ring seen by Hubble disappears, revealing the complex structure underneath that produces surprisingly few stars.
https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-137
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2024-11-15 18:52:06 UTC

Although the outer Solar System is mostly empty, there are icy objects drifting within the very limits of detection by our largest telescopes. But maybe small telescopes can be more successful. A new paper suggests that an array of 200 automated 40-cm telescopes spread across 1,000 km could be the best way to find them. They would watch for changes in brightness as objects pass in front of stars and could even find the hypothetical Planet Nine.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.16348
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2024-11-13 19:46:04 UTC

Astronomers are continuing to find ultra-massive galaxies in the early history of the Universe. The three galaxies have a similar mass to the Milky Way, despite being within the first billion years after the Big Bang. These galaxies are forming stars nearly twice as efficiently as lower-mass galaxies or galaxies later on in the Universe. Although they're still within standard theories of cosmology, they demonstrate how much needs to be learned about the early Universe.
https://www.unige.ch/medias/en/2024/trois-monstres-rouges-galactiques-dans-lunivers-primitif
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2024-11-08 18:22:05 UTC

JWST's primary mirror consists of 18 individual segments, each of which can be moved on 6 different axes of freedom. This allows the telescope to maintain perfect focus, despite changing temperatures and micrometeorite strikes on its optics. The objective was 150 nanometers of wavefront error, but the current error is down to just 65 nanometers. In early October, engineers measured the telescope's jitter and refocused it again, bringing it to its perfect alignment.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2024/11/08/monitoring-webbs-mirrors-for-optimal-optics/
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2024-10-31 19:58:04 UTC

Another week, another reminder that the twin Voyager spacecraft is getting old. Earlier this week, NASA explained that Voyager 1 had turned off one of its radio transmitters. This forced the agency to turn on Voyager's low-power radio to maintain communications with the spacecraft. The glitch happened when NASA instructed it to turn on a heater. Instead of acknowledging the command, it triggered the fault protection system, switching its communications mode.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/voyager/2024/10/28/after-pause-nasas-voyager-1-communicating-with-mission-team/
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2024-10-30 15:59:04 UTC

Astronomers have analyzed a fascinating super-Earth planet orbiting a red dwarf star using JWST. Designated GJ 9827 d, the planet is twice the size of Earth and has an atmosphere made almost entirely of water vapor. This is not a habitable exoplanet, more like a steam world, but it's the first time anything like this has been observed. Most planetary atmospheres contain lighter elements, like hydrogen and helium, so seeing water vapor is an exciting development.
https://news.umich.edu/jwst-finds-first-exotic-steam-world-shrouded-in-water-vapor/
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2024-10-30 15:25:08 UTC

When ESA's Mars Express mission launched to Mars, it was carrying an instrument called the Visual Monitoring Camera. It was essentially a webcam with a 40x30-degree field of view, designed to monitor the separation of the Beagle 2 lander when the spacecraft arrived at Mars. Years later, it was turned on again, providing full-disk images of Mars. In 2018, scientists were regularly using it to track Martian weather, turning it into a productive scientific instrument.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.02999
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2024-10-28 22:46:04 UTC

Last year, an intriguing theory was put forward: black holes could be causing dark energy. As more black holes formed in the Universe, the stronger the pressure from dark energy. Now, a survey from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) is strengthening the case for this theory. The first year's data from the survey show that the density of dark energy increases over time in a way that seems to correlate with the number and mass of black holes.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1062904
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2024-10-25 16:38:05 UTC

In 2022, astronomers released an image of the event horizon for the Milky Way's supermassive black hole Sgr A*. New observations of the region taken by a Japanese observatory suggest that the image might not have been fully accurate. According to their data, Sgr A* has an elongated accretion disk and not the ring-like donut image taken in 2022. The eastern half looks brighter than the western half, indicating that the black hole is spinning at 60% of the speed of light.
https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/news/first-picture-milky-way-black-hole-may-not-be-accurate
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2024-10-23 20:03:05 UTC

NASA has identified 13 regions near the south pole of the Moon where the Artemis III mission could land. The final landing spot is still being decided, based on illumination, visibility, communication with Earth, and more. Researchers have identified 1,247 potential landing sites in the zones and rated each one based on NASA criteria. They believe they've found the perfect spot, which meets NASA's requirements and can maximize the science return.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.19863
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2024-10-23 18:50:05 UTC

There are a few telescopes under development that could reveal evidence of life on exoplanets. One is the Large Interferometer for Exoplanets, under consideration by the European Space Agency. This constellation of telescopes should be able to detect atmospheric biosignatures on nearby terrestrial planets. Recently, mission planners developed a preliminary database of targets that LIFE could point to, with the best chances of finding inhabited worlds.
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/ad887e
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2024-10-22 18:00:04 UTC

Astronomers have detected ultra-high-energy gamma rays coming from the center of the Milky Way, with nearly 100 events of more than 100 teraelectron volts of energy. Researchers aren't sure what's generating so many of these extreme events, but it's where the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, which is surrounded by neutron stars and white dwarfs that strip material from nearby stars, is located. And all of this is surrounded by dense gas reaching millions of degrees.
https://discover.lanl.gov/news/1022-hawc-gamma-rays
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2024-10-22 16:51:10 UTC

ESA's upcoming LISA gravitational wave mission will consist of three spacecraft flying in a perfect triangle 2.5 million km apart. They will fire lasers at each other, maintaining a perfect distance, which will be distorted as gravitational waves wash past them from merging supermassive black holes. NASA is building the telescopes that send and receive infrared beams from spacecraft to spacecraft, and this week they completed a full-scale engineering prototype.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/lisa/nasa-reveals-prototype-telescope-for-gravitational-wave-observatory/
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2024-09-25 18:46:05 UTC

The European Space Agency has opened a new mock-up of the Moon in Cologne, Germany. This simulated lunar surface measures 700 square meters (about a sixth of an acre) and contains 900 tonnes of simulated lunar regolith, as well as boulders, craters, and other lunar hazards. Cables can be attached overhead to artificially reduce the weight that astronauts and vehicles experience to match 1/6th lunar gravity. This will provide a test bed to learn about lunar exploration.
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Human_and_Robotic_Exploration
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2024-09-20 16:24:06 UTC

The Earth is located inside a 1,000 light-year void called the Local Bubble, which was created by a series of supernovae over the eons. Deposits of iron-60 in deep-sea crust samples tell us that one happened about 5 million years ago, and then another went off 2 million years ago. In a new study, researchers calculate that cosmic radiation levels increased by up to a factor of 30 for about 100,000 years after the explosion, increasing mutation rates in organisms.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.12307
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2024-09-19 20:48:05 UTC

Astronomers have found a supermassive black hole with twin jets blasting out 23 million light-years in length, the greatest distance ever seen. To put this distance in context, imagine lining up 140 Milky Way galaxies side by side. The galaxy, nicknamed Porphyrion, is seen at a time when the Universe was 6.3 billion years old, half our current age. These jets put out the equivalent energy of a trillion suns, traveling in opposite directions from the central black hole.
https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/gargantuan-black-hole-jets-are-biggest-seen-yet
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2024-09-18 17:48:29 UTC

On September 16, 2024, the near-Earth asteroid 2024 ON came within 1 million kilometers of Earth (2.6 times the Earth-Moon distance). The radar system on the Goldstone Solar System Radar Group was directed onto the object, revealing that it is a peanut-shaped contact binary measuring about 350 meters long. The radar could resolve features down to about 3.75 meters across on the surface, including brighter boulders. About 14% of asteroids like this are contact binaries.
https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA26451
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2024-09-18 17:15:08 UTC

Long thought to be bone dry, scientists are finding more and more water on the Moon, and not just at the poles, but mixed in with the regolith at all latitudes, even near the equator. Researchers have developed new maps that show the distribution of water and hydroxyl across the lunar surface. They used data from the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, which measured reflected infrared light bouncing off the lunar surface, revealing areas with higher water concentrations.
https://www.psi.edu/blog/sources-of-water-and-hydroxyl-are-widespread-on-the-moon/
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2024-09-18 16:46:03 UTC

As black holes spin, they drag space-time along with them, and scientists have proposed that this could be a source of energy for an advanced civilization, harvesting momentum from material ejected from this twisting spacetime. The concept has been generalized, and it's theoretically possible to extract energy from anything spinning. Now, researchers have mimicked the process in the lab, beaming electromagnetic waves at a spinning object and extracting energy.
https://theconversation.com/could-rotating-black-holes-be-the-wind-turbines-powering-the-distant-future-we-tested-the-physics-238903
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2024-09-17 16:45:06 UTC

There are several 3D printers on board the International Space Station, which have been used to print a variety of plastic parts and tools. Now, the newly installed ESA Metal 3D Printer has fashioned a part out of medical-grade stainless steel using lasers. The printer will ultimately complete four different parts with varying shapes to test how microgravity printing compares to Earth-based prints. They'll be returned to Earth for testing.
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/09/First_metal_part_3D_printed_in_space
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2024-09-17 16:35:06 UTC

Mars has two small moons: Phobos and Deimos. But did it have a larger third moon in the past? In a new paper, a researcher proposes that a massive moon could help explain an outstanding puzzle about the shape of Mars. The planet has a "triaxial" shape, which means it doesn't just share the oblate spheroid shape of Earth and other rotating planets; it bulges out in a third axis. A massive moon could have distorted Mars into this shape, and then the moon was lost.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.14725
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2024-09-17 15:46:06 UTC

60% of the world's population has already lost access to the night sky thanks to light pollution, and it's more like 80% for Europe and the US. Researchers are working to track the growth of light pollution and have developed an inexpensive sensor made from "off-the-shelf" parts. People around the world can install these sensors and share their data, tracking the increase of light pollution from year to year. If you've got technical skills, this could be a fun project.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.10298
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2024-09-11 18:51:04 UTC

The solar corona is heated to millions of degrees, vastly hotter than the surface of the Sun. Astronomers suspect the magnetic fields that pierce the surface somehow trap energy and drive the increasing temperatures. Astronomers have observed the magnetic fields on the surface of the Sun for decades, and now, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Maui has mapped out the coronal magnetic fields for the corona in unprecedented detail.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1057450
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2024-09-05 20:54:04 UTC

Now that the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System has deployed its booms and sail, the spacecraft is receiving light pressure from the Sun. Now NASA is testing out how it handles. The spacecraft was slowly tumbling before it deployed its booms, and now controllers will see how well they can get its motions under control under sail power. You can spot the mission with your eyes if you know when and where to look. NASA's app can give you alerts.
https://blogs.nasa.gov/smallsatellites/2024/09/05/nasa-evaluates-deployed-advanced-composite-solar-sail-system/
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2024-09-02 18:48:06 UTC

Black holes absorb everything that falls into them, even radiation. And yet, astronomers have detected X-ray radiation coming from black holes, and this has been an unsolved mystery since the 1970s. Researchers have built a detailed simulation of the environment around a black hole, modeling the interactions between radiation, plasma, and magnetic fields. They found that the turbulence of the magnetic fields heats the local plasma and makes it radiate in X-rays.
https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/space/explanation-found-x-ray-radiation-black-holes
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2024-09-02 18:11:03 UTC

The Hubble Space Telescope is in low-Earth orbit and has been repaired multiple times. But spacecraft sent to the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange Point are beyond the reach of service, whether by robots or astronauts. A new paper proposes trajectories that servicing spacecraft could fly to rendezvous with L2 missions to bring them fresh parts and more propellant to extend their missions indefinitely. They specifically proposed flights to repair Gaia and JWST.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094576524004715?dgcid=rss_sd_all
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2024-08-29 21:14:04 UTC

Gravitational wave observatories like LIGO/Virgo and KAGRA have detected the cataclysmic merger of black holes and neutron stars. But it's believed that the current crop of observatories should be able to detect another dramatic event in the cosmos: the collapse of massive, rapidly spinning stars, becoming black holes. Researchers simulated collapsing stars and predicted that any within 50 million light-years should be detectable by LIGO.
https://www.simonsfoundation.org/2024/08/22/new-detectable-gravitational-wave-source-from-collapsing-stars-predicted-from-simulations/
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2024-08-19 19:59:07 UTC

We've learned a tremendous amount about Mars because samples from the Red Planet have already been delivered to Earth: meteorites. Scientists have studied the composition of Martian meteorites and tracked down the specific craters on Mars where many of them came from. It's believed that Mars has been struck hard enough to produce meteorites about ten times in recent history. Some of these craters have yet to be matched with meteorites, but the rocks could be out there.
https://news.westernu.ca/2024/08/mars-meteorite-origin/
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2024-08-12 21:21:05 UTC

NASA has committed to returning humans to the Moon within a few years. This time, they aim to establish a permanent presence. A new heavy-lift rocket and a commitment to lunar exploration create an opportunity: building a mind-bogglingly powerful telescope on the Moon. A recent NIAC grant proposes constructing a multi-telescope interferometer on the lunar surface, spanning 500 meters. This would provide 100 times the resolution of Hubble or JWST.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.04699
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2024-07-31 18:15:05 UTC

In 2017, astronomers detected the first confirmed interstellar object in the Solar System: 'Oumuamua. Could life spread between stars in the Milky Way? In a new paper, researchers calculated that over 190,000 interstellar objects large enough to harbor life could have collided with the early Earth before life appeared. While panspermia might be unlikely for Earth specifically, the model suggests that 100,000 worlds could have life seeded by interstellar objects.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.02390
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