Space and astronomy news
In our age, we’ve grown accustomed to pictures of astronauts inside the International Space Station, as they float in zero-G and tend their science experiments. We’re even getting used to images of spacewalking astronauts. But this is something new.
An image of two astronauts on a spacewalk, taken from the ground.
Continue reading “Stunning Image of ISS Taken From the Ground Shows two Spacewalking Astronauts”
For all of Earth’s geological diversity and its long history, the planet has never had ice volcanoes. But Pluto has. And that cryovolcanism has shaped some of the ice dwarf’s surface features.
The resulting structures are unique in the Solar System.
Continue reading “Pluto’s Surface was Shaped by Ice Volcanoes”
Jupiter’s moon Europa is a prime candidate in the search for life. The frozen moon has a subsurface ocean, and evidence indicates it’s warm, salty, and rich in life-enabling chemistry.
New research shows that the moon is pulling oxygen down below its icy shell, where it could be feeding simple life.
Continue reading “Europa Could be Pulling Oxygen Down Below the Ice to Feed Life”
When the James Webb Space Telescope aims at exoplanet atmospheres, it’ll use spectroscopy to identify chemical elements. One of the things it’s looking for is methane, a chemical compound that can indicate the presence of life.
Methane is a compelling biosignature. Finding a large amount of methane in an exoplanet’s atmosphere might be our most reliable indication that life’s at work there. There are abiotic sources of methane, but for the most part, methane comes from life.
But to understand methane as a potential biosignature, we need to understand it in a planetary context. A new research letter aims to do that.
Continue reading “It’s Not Conclusive, But Methane is Probably the Best Sign of Life on Exoplanets”
NASA’s Perseverance Rover is busy exploring Jezero Crater on Mars. Part of its mission is to collect samples for retrieval by a future mission. NASA and the ESA haven’t determined where the sample return mission will land yet.
That depends on the Perseverance mission and how it spends the rest of its time on Mars. But we know of one possible—albeit ambitious—landing spot: just west of Jezero Crater.
Continue reading “This is Where the Mars Sample Return Mission Could be Landing”
The Milky Way is older than astronomers thought, or part of it is. A newly-published study shows that part of the disk is two billion years older than we thought. The region, called the thick disk, started forming only 0.8 billion years after the Big Bang.
Continue reading “Part of the Milky Way Is Much Older Than Previously Believed”
Missions to Mars are expensive, even orbiters. They’re there to do science, not take pretty pictures. But sometimes Mars’ beauty is captured inadvertently, usually with some science mixed in.
That’s the case with this picture of star dunes captured by the HiRISE camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Continue reading “These are Star Dunes on Mars, Formed When the Wind Comes From Many Different Directions”
NASA’s Nancy Gracy Roman Space Telescope won’t launch until 2027, and it won’t start operating until some time after that. But that isn’t stopping excited scientists from dreaming about their new toy and all it will do. Who can blame them?
A new study examines the Roman Space Telescope’s power in detail to see if it can help us answer one of our most significant questions about the Universe. The question?
Will the Universe keep expanding and tear itself apart in a Big Rip?
Continue reading “NASA’s Roman Mission Might Tell Us if the Universe Will Tear Itself Apart in the Future”
In 2014, the Japanese Space Agency JAXA launched the Hayabusa 2 spacecraft to visit asteroid Ryugu. It arrived at the asteroid in June 2018 and studied it from orbit for over a year. Hayabusa 2 even dispatched four rovers to the asteroid’s surface. After departing, it flew past Earth in December 2020, dropping off a sample of Ryugu.
Of all the scientific results from that impressive mission, the most interesting one might be this: Asteroid Ryugu might not be an asteroid. It might be the remnant of a comet.
Continue reading “Asteroid Ryugu Might Actually Be a Dead Comet”
Our Solar System was born in chaos. Collisions shaped and built the Earth and the other planets, and even delivered the building blocks of life. Without things smashing into each other, we might not be here.
Thankfully, most of the collisions are in the past, and now our Solar System is a relatively calm place. But frequent collisions still occur in other younger solar systems, and astronomers can see the aftermath.
Continue reading “Astronomers See the Wreckage Where Planets Crashed Into Each Other in a Distant Star System”