Andy Tomaswick

The Sun’s Long-Lived Active Regions Are Massive Flare Factories—But We Don’t Know Why

March 20, 2026

Space weather is a fascinating subject, but one we still have a lot to learn about. One of the main components of it is the active regions (ARs) of the Sun. These huge concentrations of magnetic fields show up throughout the Sun’s photosphere and are the primary source of solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). They can be simple pairings of magnetic flux or huge, magnetically complex tangles that spend weeks creating massive solar storms before dissipating. But tracking the longest lived of these ARs has been a headache for solar physicists, and a recent paper by Emily Mason and Kara Kniezewski, published in The Astrophysical Journal, both dives into this tracking problem and uncovers some interesting features of the Sun’s most persistent ARs.

The Moon's Going To Get Crowded - We Should Protect Our Heritage On It While We Still Can

March 19, 2026

In 1959, the Luna 2 probe from the Soviet Union became the very first human-made object to reach our closest celestial neighbor. In the decades since, we have been leaving footprints - both literally and figuratively - all over the Moon. Today, there are over 100 metric tons of human-made material resting on the Moon’s surface - everything from advanced cameras and sensors to literal human waste. But that’s nothing compared to what’s to come. NASA predicts the next decade will see over 100 new lunar missions, equaling or exceeding all the missions previously flown. Which brings up a pressing question about all the stuff that’s already there - how do we protect that history? A new paper by Teasel Muir-Harmony, the Curator of the Space History Department of the Smithsonian and Todd Mosher, a Scholar in Residence at University of Colorado, Boulder, reports on a Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Summit on Outer Space Heritage that dives into the legal, scientific, and engineering hurdles of preserving these historic sites.

JUICE is Planning To Do Science On Jupiter's "Minor" Moons Too

March 19, 2026

The European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) probe is on its (very long) way to Jupiter, and will finally arrive at the King of Planets in 2031. Its primary mission is to focus on the “big three” icy moons - Ganymede, Europa, and Callisto. But while JUICE is busy mapping Ganymede’s magnetic field, it will also be keeping a sharp eye on the other 94 moons in the Jupiter system. A recent paper published in Space Science Reviews by Tilmann Denk of DLR, Germany’s space research association, and his co-authors showcases just how much “bonus science” JUICE is expected to squeeze out of these other targets.

Astronomers Search for "Exotrojans" Hiding in Extreme Pulsar Systems

March 18, 2026

Greek mythology has given a name to a great many objects in our solar system. But perhaps one of the least well understood are the Trojans, named after the people of Troy featured in The Iliad. When astronomers refer to them, they are normally talking about a group of over 10,000 confirmed asteroids orbiting at the Lagrange points both in front of and behind Jupiter on its orbit around the Sun. But, more generally, astronomers can now use the term to refer to any co-orbital setup - indeed almost every planet in our solar system has Trojans, though not as many as Jupiter. Which also leads to the belief that “exotrojans” must exist around other stars. Despite our best efforts with initiatives like the TROY project, so far we have yet to find one. But a new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal by Jackson Taylor of West Virginia University and an abundance of co-authors took the hunt to one of the most extreme environments in the universe: pulsar binary systems.

New Study Complicates the Search for Alien Oxygen

March 17, 2026

Oxygen has been the most important gas in our search for life among the cosmos thus far. On Earth, we have it in abundance because it is produced by biological synthesis. But that might not be the case on other planets, so even if we do find a very clear high oxygen signal in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, it might not be a clear indication that life exists there. A new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv, from Margaret Turcotte Seavey and a team of researchers from institutions like the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Johns Hopkins University, adds some additional context to what else might be going on in those atmospheres. In particular, they note that if there’s even a little bit of water vapor, it can make a big difference in whether a lifeless rock looks like a living, thriving world.

Microscopic "Ski-Jumps" Could Shrink Spacecraft LiDAR to the Size of a Microchip

March 16, 2026

Every ounce counts when launching a rocket, which is why considerations for the Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) of every component matters so much. For decades, one of the heaviest and most power-hungry components on a spacecraft has been its optical and communications hardware - specifically the bulky mechanical mirror used for LiDAR and free-space laser communications. But a new paper, published in Nature by researchers at MIT, MITRE, and Sandia National Laboratories, might have just fundamentally changed the SWaP considerations of LiDAR systems. Their technology, which they’re called a “photonic ski-jump” could one day revolutionize how spacecraft communicate.

A 60-Year Old Mystery About the Moon's Magnetosphere Is Finally Solved

March 16, 2026

One particularly well known fact about the Moon is that it doesn’t have much of a magnetosphere to speak of. There’s no blanket to protect it from the solar wind ravaging its surface, blowing away its atmosphere and charging the notoriously dangerous dust particles that make up its regolith. However, scientists have also known for around 60 years that some parts of the moon do experience sudden spikes in a magnetic field - some of which are up to 10 times stronger than the background magnetization. Since their discovery, these “lunar external magnetic enhancements” (LEMEs) have puzzled researchers - what was causing them, and why did they reach so high above the lunar surface that spacecraft could see them? A new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters by Shu-Hua Lai and her colleagues at the National Central University in Taiwan explains for the first time what is likely causing these LEMEs - a novel type of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability.

"Ionic Liquids" Could Redefine the Habitable Zone

March 12, 2026

“Follow the water” has been a guiding mantra of astrobiology, and even space exploration more generally for decades. If you want to find life, it makes sense to look for the universal solvent that almost all types of life on Earth use. But what if life doesn’t actually need water to live or even evolve? A recent paper, available in pre-print on arXiv by researchers at MIT, including Dr. Sara Seager, and the University of Cardiff, proposes an alternative to water as the basis for life - ionic liquids (ILs) and deep eutectic solvents (DES). These liquids could allow life to exist in environments we had once thought were far too hot, too cold, or too barren to support life, and could dramatically change our search for it throughout the cosmos.

Researchers Create a Nanoengineered Light Sail That Won't Melt

March 11, 2026

Traditional chemical rockets, though they are the most commonly used propulsion method for space exploration today, are beholden to the tyranny of the rocket equation. Every ounce of thrust they use must also start out as fuel, which means the rocket itself will have to weigh more, and weight is one of the limiting factors in how fast a propulsion system can go. So, scientists have been searching for, and actively testing, alternatives for decades. One of the most promising is the solar sail - a huge reflective sheet that uses sunlight, or in some cases a “pushing laser” to maneuver about the solar system without any onboard propellant necessary. A recent paper published in the Journal of Nanophotonics by Dimitar Dimitrov and Elijah Taylor Harris of Tuskegee University describes a new type of light sail that solves some of the major problems of existing designs.

Aliens Might Have Their Radio Signals Blurred By Their Star's Solar Wind

March 10, 2026

Back in the early 2000s, my computer screen, like that of many other space enthusiasts, was typically covered in a series of rainbow-colored spectral signals. As my computer crunched through thousands of data points of radio signals collected by the SETI@Home initiative, I was hoping I was in some small way contributing to one of humanity’s greatest scientific endeavours - the search for extraterrestrial life. But, according to a new paper published in The Astrophysical Journal by Vishal Gajjar and Grayce Brown of the SETI Institute, it seems unlikely that the signals SETI@Home was tailored to look for actually exist. That doesn’t mean there weren’t aliens yelling into the void at the top of their electronic lungs, but simply that the space weather from their local star might have changed the signal to make it unrecognizable by the time it reached us.

Scientists Find the First Direct Evidence of Binary Asteroids Sharing Material

March 10, 2026

Scientists occasionally have a hard time figuring out whether data they are seeing is an actual physical phenomenon or just a trick of their instrumentation. A new paper in The Planetary Science Journal from Jessica Sunshine and their colleagues at the University of Maryland describes one such confusing scenario. In this case, the researchers noted some fan-like patterns across the surface of Dimorphos, the asteroid hit by NASA’s DART mission, and thought it might be a trick of their camera. But after some image correction, computation, and physical experimentation, they determined the patterns were caused by the first-ever documented cases of material transfer between two asteroids.

How Jagged Moon Dust Could Support Future Astronauts

March 09, 2026

Lunar dust can be a pain - but it’s also literally the ground we will have to traverse if we are ever to have a permanent human settlement on the Moon. In that specific use case, it’s clingy, jagged, staticky properties can actually be an advantage, according to a new paper, recently published in Research from researchers at Beihang University, who analyzed the mechanical properties of samples returned by Chang’e 6 mission to the far side of the Moon.

Terraforming Mars Isn't a Climate Problem—It's an Industrial Nightmare

March 09, 2026

Even when the idea of terraforming Mars was originally put forward, the idea was daunting. Changing the environment of an entire planet is not something to do easily. Over the following decades, plenty of scientists and engineers have looked at the problem, and most have come to the same conclusion - we’re not going to be able to make Mars anything like Earth anytime soon. A new paper available in pre-print on arXiv from Slava Turyshev of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is a good explainer as to why.

The 4.6-Billion-Year-Old Tape Recorder Hidden Inside Asteroid Dust

March 06, 2026

Asteroids are critical to unlock our understanding of the early solar system. These chunks of rock and dust were around at the very beginning, and they haven’t been as modified by planetary formation processes as, say, Earth has been. So scientists were really excited to get ahold of samples from Ryugu when they were returned by Hayabusa-2 a few years ago. However, when they started analyzing the magnetic properties of those samples, different research groups came up with different answers. Theorizing those conflicting results came from small sample sizes, a new paper recently published in JGR Planets from Masahiko Sato and their colleagues at the University of Tokyo used many more samples to finally dig into the magnetic history of these first ever returned asteroid samples.

Scientists Publish the First Direct Measurement of Space Debris Pollution

March 05, 2026

Back in February 2025, a SpaceX rocket that had delivered 22 Starlink satellites to orbit had a malfunction. It failed to execute a planned deorbit burn and drifted for 18 days in orbit before beginning an uncontrolled descent about 100km off the west coast of Ireland. Some parts of the rocket landed in Poland, and while they didn’t injure anybody, there was enough concern about the lack of communication that Poland dismissed the head of its space agency. But that wasn't the only lasting impact of this failure. A new paper from Robin Wing and her colleagues at the Leibniz Institute for Atmospheric Physics, published in Communications Earth & Environment ties that specific rocket reentry to a massive plume of pollution for the first time.

Introducing the 'Interplanetary Habitable Zone'

March 04, 2026

Anyone familiar with the search for alien life will have heard of the “Goldilocks Zone” around a star. This is defined as the orbital band where the temperature is just right for liquid water to pool on a rocky planet’s surface - a good approximation for what we thought of as the early conditions for life on Earth. But what happens if that life doesn’t stay on an Earth analog? If they, like we, start to move towards their neighboring planets, the idea of a habitable zone becomes much more complicated. A new paper from Dr. Caleb Scharf of the NASA Ames Research Center, and one of the agency’s premier astrobiologists, tries to account for this possibility by introducing the framework of an Interplanetary Habitable Zone (IHZ).

Red Dwarf Stars Might Starve Alien Plants of the "Quality" Light They Need to Breathe

March 04, 2026

Red dwarfs make up the vast majority of stars in the galaxy. Such ubiquity means they host the majority of rocky exoplanets we’ve found so far - which in turn makes them interesting for astrobiological surveys. However, there’s a catch - astrobiologists aren’t sure the light from these stars can actually support oxygen-producing life. A new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv, by Giovanni Covone and Amedeo Balbi, suggests that they might not - when it comes to stellar light, quality is just as important as quantity. And according to their calculations, Earth-like biospheres are incredibly difficult to sustain around red dwarfs.

The Coldest "Stars" in the Galaxy Might Actually Be Alien Megastructures

March 03, 2026

Ever since physicist Freeman Dyson first proposed the concept in 1960, the “Dyson sphere” has been the holy grail of techno-signature hunters. A highly advanced civilization could build a “sphere” (or, in our more modern understanding, a “swarm” of smaller components) around their host star to harvest its entire energy output. We know, in theory at least, that such a swarm could exist - but what would it actually look like if we were able to observe one? A new paper available in pre-print on arXiv, and soon to be published in Universe from Amirnezam Amiri of the University of Arkansas digs into that question - and in the process discloses the types of stars that are the most likely to find them around.

How Saving Earth Could Ruin Orbit

March 02, 2026

Satellite imaging is increasingly important to every field from crop monitoring to poverty reduction. So it’s no surprise that there have been more and more satellites launched to try to meet that growing demand. But with more satellites comes more risk for collision - and the debris field that comes after the collision. A new paper in Advanced in Space Research from John Mackintosh and his co-authors at the University of Manchester looks at how we might use mission design to mitigate some of the hazards of increasing the number of satellites even more

How to Weigh a Killer Asteroid at 22 Kilometers per Second

March 02, 2026

Estimating a mass for a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) is perhaps the single most important thing to understand about it, after its trajectory. Actually doing so isn’t easy though, as the mass for objects in the tens to hundreds of kilometers in size are too small to have their mass calculated by traditional radio-frequency tracking techniques. A new paper from Justin Atchison of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and his co-authors proposes a method that could find the mass of asteroids even on the smaller end of that range, but will require precise coordination.

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