Astronomy

Shielding astronauts from the killer radiation they face is a central challenge facing any designer of a deep-space crewed mission. Even relatively low levels of exposure for long periods of time can lead to everything from central nervous system damage to cancer. But current solutions, such as passive water shells or active superconducting magnets, have their own limitations. To get around those, a new paper, available in pre-print on arXiv by Valerio Parisi and a team of researchers from Italy and Germany, looks at the feasibility of using a permanent magnet (and its associated permanent magnetic field) to potentially block some of that deadly radiation without the costs of competing technologies.

Thirty years after the European Space Agency first demonstrated the power of flying two satellites in very close formation, the concept was recently recreated. By temporarily positioning two Copernicus Sentinel-1 radar satellites to replicate the pioneering ERS-1–ERS-2 ‘tandem mission’, ESA achieved one-day repeat radar imaging of the same Antarctic region.

The results once again demonstrate how this approach can be used to measure glacier motion and pinpoint the critical grounding line with exceptional precision.

NASA is serious about going back to the Moon. Ongoing missions like the recently completed Artemis II trip around the Moon are just one such sign. But perhaps more importantly, NASA is recognizing how much additional work will have to go into funding technology development if we hope to stay on the lunar surface permanently. To reflect that understanding, the agency recently released a request for public feedback on what it calls the Lunar Enabling Infrastructure Accelerator - which might have been named after a Star Wars fan, since its acronym is LEIA.

We’ve talked plenty of times here about the infeasibility of launching a mirror big enough to directly image exoplanets using current rocket fairings - at least as long as we’re not sending them 500+ AU away to a gravitational lensing point. We’ve also talked at length about the potential solution to that problem - interferometry, where multiple smaller satellites link up precisely, but are spaced far enough apart to act as one gigantic mirror. The problem is, from a technical standpoint, it’s really hard to build these kinds of systems. But the field has taken another step forward with a new paper from researchers at Xidian University and the Beijing Institute of Control Engineering, published in Space: Science & Technology, which describes a system to both control and calibrate a free-floating interferometer.

The laws of physics that concern heat and work could gain a firmer mathematical footing thanks to “gauge theory”, which already helps us understand quantum fields

The laws of physics that concern heat and work could gain a firmer mathematical footing thanks to “gauge theory”, which already helps us understand quantum fields

Egg cells missing a key protein may be more likely to end up with the wrong number of chromosomes, but an mRNA injection that helps the cells make the protein reduces the problem

Egg cells missing a key protein may be more likely to end up with the wrong number of chromosomes, but an mRNA injection that helps the cells make the protein reduces the problem

New research identifies five distinct sleep subtypes, revealing links between brain patterns, behavior and health

Fossils of Spriggina floundersi provide the earliest evidence of animals favouring one side of the body over the other – a feature of nervous systems that we see in our own right- and left-handedness

Fossils of Spriggina floundersi provide the earliest evidence of animals favouring one side of the body over the other – a feature of nervous systems that we see in our own right- and left-handedness

Scientists at UCF have found that the harsh conditions of spaceflight, radiation and weightlessness combined, can trigger changes in the liver that closely resemble accelerated ageing, and remarkably, the same genetic fingerprints show up in real astronaut blood samples. The discovery could shape how we protect future Mars explorers, and might just hold clues to slowing ageing back here on Earth too.

When a fireball streaked across the Alaska sky in broad daylight, the cameras meant to capture it saw nothing useful. Undeterred, scientists turned to sound waves too low for human ears and faint tremors picked up by earthquake sensors, piecing together an extraordinary account of the object's final seconds. What they discovered points to a surprising new way of tracking dangers falling from space, whether we can see them coming or not.

Scientists in Japan have built a low power device that pulls nitrogen straight from the air and turns it into fertiliser, then used it to successfully grow rice in simulated lunar soil. Along the way, they stumbled on an unexpected bonus that could make crops both healthier and better suited to life in space, one with surprising promise for farms back on Earth too.

A five year survey by the South Pole Telescope has produced a catalogue of more than seven thousand galaxy clusters, some dating back nearly eight billion years, giving astronomers their most detailed map yet of the universe's largest structures. Hidden inside the data is something even the researchers did not expect, a discovery that is quietly reshaping how we think star formation unfolded across the history of the universe.

The Outer Space Treaty from 1967 prohibits weapons in space. But a satellite launched by Russia has generated suspicion. Despite claims that it's a normal satellite, some things about it suggest otherwise. New research proposes a way to detect atomic weapons in space, helping enforce the treaty.

A new result using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows that the outer spiral arms in the Milky Way galaxy may reach wider than previously thought. This finding may lead astronomers to adjust their understanding of our home galaxy’s structure.

Sibling Supernova Remnants

A rare eruption in the Indian Ocean let researchers capture one of the clearest views yet of a seafloor spreading event