Universe Today

The Athena Lunar Lander Also Fell Over on its Side

Rotating Black Holes are Packed with Energy. Here's How to Unlock It

After a long ‘eclipse drought,’ lunar totality once again spans the Americas The end is in sight. If skies are clear, North and South America will witness a fine total lunar eclipse early Friday morning, March 14th. This is the first eclipse of 2025, and the first total lunar eclipse for the hemisphere since November 2022.

When young stars form, they accumulate an accretion disk of dust and gas, which eventually forms planets. Typically, this process lasts less than 10 million years, as the increasing radiation from the star disperses the remaining material. However, recent observations from the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed a protoplanetary disk in a system estimated to be 30 million years old—three times longer than the expected lifespan. Scientists have already determined this is not a debris disk created by colliding planets, it’s an intriguing discovery that has forced a review of our model of planetary system and stellar evolution.

For the second time in a row, SpaceX lost the second stage of its Starship launch system during a flight test, while recovering the first-stage Super Heavy booster.

An X-ray signal has been detected at the very centre of the Helix Nebula, at the site of its central white dwarf star. It’s a burned out stellar remnant that doesn’t usually emit flashes of X-ray radiation but a new study has been analysing the outburst. The team of researchers think that the stellar corpse smashed into one of its surviving planets and that the X-rays are coming from the planetary debris as it falls onto the surface of the white dwarf.

An ultra-hot Neptune exoplanet has been observed by JWST and the image reveals dramatically different hemispheres. The planet orbits so close to its host start that it is tidally locked so one hemisphere remains facing the star. On this permanent daytime side, temperatures reach 2,000°C but the temperatures plummet on the daytime side. The observations show that the daytime side has bright reflective clouds on its cooler western hemisphere but not on its eastern side!

The Gaia Hypothesis theorizes that all of Earth's systems are tied together, making one large, living organism. While there's still some disagreement about whether or not that hypothesis is true, it is undeniable that many of Earth's systems are intertwined and that changes in one can affect another. As our technology advances, we are becoming more and more capable of detecting changes in those systems and how those changes affect other systems as well. A new proposal from a robotics expert at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) takes that exploration one step further by trying to develop a system that takes the "pulse" of a planet.

The mystery of Dark Matter endures. Despite sixty years of observation and research, scientists still haven't isolated the particle that accounts for roughly 85% of the Universe's mass. However, ongoing experiments and studies have provided insight into how this mysterious mass works. For instance, a research team led by a member of the Tokyo Metropolitan University relied on a new technique that has set new limits on the lifetime of Dark Matter (DM), bringing scientists a step closer to resolving this cosmological mystery.

Skeptics love to bring up one particular topic regarding long-term human space exploration - radiation. So far, all of the research completed on it has been relatively limited and has shown nothing but harmful effects. Long-term exposure has been linked to an increase in cancer, cataracts, or even, in some extreme cases, acute radiation poisoning, an immediate life-threatening condition. NASA is aware of the problem and recently supported a new post-doc from MIT named Robert Hinshaw via the Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. Dr. HHinshaw'sjob over the next year will be to study the effectiveness of an extreme type of mitochondria replacement therapy to treat the long- and short-term risks of radiation exposure in space.

The Moon's getting to be a popular place. Firefly's Blue Ghost touched down on March 2nd in Mare Crisium. It's the first privately built lander to land safely and begin its mission. The little spacecraft set down safely in an upright, stable position and sent back an "I'm here" signal right away.

The dividing line between gas giant planets and failed stars is blurry at best. The isolated planetary-mass object SIMP J013656.5+093347.3 could be either one. The distinction is largely semantic. However we choose to label and define it, the object displays a surprisingly complex atmosphere for an isolated object without any stellar energy input.

In an effort to conserve Voyager 2's dwindling energy and extend the spacecraft's mission, NASA has shut down another of its instruments. They did it with the Plasma Spectrometer in October 2024, and it won't be the last. In March, Voyager 2's Low-Energy Charged Particle instrument will be powered down.

There are several well-documented health risks that come from spending extended periods in microgravity, including muscle atrophy, bone density loss, and changes to organ function and health. In addition, astronauts have reported symptoms of immune dysfunction, including skin rashes and other inflammatory conditions. According to a new study, these issues could be due to the extremely sterile environment inside spacecraft and the International Space Station (ISS). Their results suggest that more microbes could help improve human health in space.

The study was led by Rodolfo A. Salido and Haoqi Nina Zhao, a bioengineer and an environmental analytical chemist at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), respectively. They were joined by researchers from multiple UCSD programs and centers, the University of Denver, the Chiba University-UC San Diego Center for Mucosal Immunology Allergy and Vaccines (cMAV), Space Research Within Reach, the Baylor College Center for Space Medicine, the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science (BMSIS), the Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group at NASA JPL, and the Astronaut Office at NASA Johnson.

The study was a collaborative effort with astronauts aboard the ISS, who swabbed 803 different surfaces – 100 times that of previous surveys – to get a census of microbes aboard the station. The researchers identified which bacterial species and chemicals were present in each sample and created three-dimensional maps to illustrate where each of them was found and how they might be interacting. Their results indicate that the ISS has a much lower diversity of microbes compared to human-built environments on Earth.

Overall, the team found that chemicals from cleaning products and disinfectants were ubiquitously throughout the station and that astronauts mostly introduce microbes aboard the ISS through shed human skin cells. They also found that different modules hosted different microbial communities and chemical signatures based on the module’s use. For example, dining and food preparation areas contained more food-related microbes, whereas the ISS’s space toilet contained more urine- and fecal matter-related microbes and bioproducts of metabolism (metabolites).

“We noticed that the abundance of disinfectant on the surface of the International Space Station is highly correlated with the microbiome diversity at different locations on the space station,” said Zhao in a Cell Press release. These results suggest that more microbes from Earth could help improve astronaut health. Said Salido:

“Future built environments, including space stations, could benefit from intentionally fostering diverse microbial communities that better mimic the natural microbial exposures experienced on Earth, rather than relying on highly sanitized spaces. If we really want life to thrive outside Earth, we can’t just take a small branch of the tree of life and launch it into space and hope that it will work out. We need to start thinking about what other beneficial companions we should be sending with these astronauts to help them develop ecosystems that will be sustainable and beneficial for all.” 

The team found that microbial communities were less diverse aboard the ISS than most places on Earth, except where urban, industrialized, and isolated environments (i.e., hospitals) were concerned. They further found that ISS surfaces lacked free-living environmental microbes usually found in soil and water. Similar to the well-documented benefits gardening has for the human immune system, the researchers conclude that incorporating these microbes and their substrates into the ISS could improve astronaut health without sacrificing hygiene.

“There’s a big difference between exposure to healthy soil from gardening versus stewing in our own filth, which is kind of what happens if we’re in a strictly enclosed environment with no ongoing input of those healthy sources of microbes from the outside,” said co-author Robin Knight, a computational microbiologist and professor at UCSD and leader of the Knight Lab.

Looking to the future, the researchers hope to refine their analyses to detect potentially pathogenic microbes and how environmental metabolites could be used as indicators for astronaut health. The team claims that these methods could also help improve the health of people living and working in similarly sterile environments on Earth.

This research was supported by the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, UCSD, the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), and the ISS National Laboratory. The paper detailing their findings, “The International Space Station has a unique and extreme microbial and chemical environment driven by use patterns,” was published on February 27th in the journal Cell.

Further Reading: EurekAlert!

The post For the Sake of Astronaut Health, Should we Make the ISS Dirtier? appeared first on Universe Today.

On December 27th, 2024, the Chilean station of the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) detected 2024 YR4. This Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) belongs to the Apollo group, which orbits the Sun with a period of approximately four years. For most of its orbit, 2024 YR4 orbits far from Earth, but sometimes, it crosses Earth’s orbit. The asteroid was spotted shortly after it made a close approach to Earth on Christmas Day 2024 and is now moving away. Additional observations determined it had a 1% probability of hitting Earth when it makes its next close pass in December 2032.

This led the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) – overseen by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) – to issue the first-ever official impact risk notification for 2024 YR4. The possibility of an impact also prompted several major telescopes to gather additional data on the asteroid. This included the Subaru Telescope at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii, which captured images of the asteroid on February 20th, 2025. Thanks to the updated positional data from these observations, astronomers have refined the asteroid’s orbit and determined that it will not hit Earth.

This is not the first time the odds of the asteroid hitting Earth have been reevaluated. Throughout February, refined measurements of the asteroid altered the estimated likelihood multiple times, first to 2.3% and then to 3.1%, before dropping significantly to 0.28%. Thanks to the observations of the Subaru Telescope, which were conducted at the request of the JAXA Planetary Defense Team and in response to the IAWN’s call for improved orbital tracking, the chance of impact has been downgraded to 0.004%.

The updated estimate was calculated by NASA’s Center for NEO Studies (CNEOS), the ESA’s Near-Earth Objects Coordination Centre (NEOCC), and the NEO Dynamic Site (NEODyS). The Subaru observations were conducted using the telescope’s Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC), a wide-field prime-focus camera that captured images of 2024 YR4 as it grew dimmer. The observations have since been forwarded to the Minor Planet Center (MPC) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Dr. Tsuyoshi Terai of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), who led the observations, explained:

“Although 2024 YR4 appeared relatively bright at the time of its discovery, it has been steadily fading as it moves away from the Earth. By late February, observations would have been extremely challenging without a large telescope. This mission was successfully accomplished thanks to the Subaru Telescope’s powerful light-gathering capability and HSC’s high imaging performance.”

Based on these latest observations, the IAWN reports that 2020 YR4 will “pass at a distance beyond the geosynchronous satellites and possibly beyond the Moon.” They also indicate that there is no significant potential that the asteroid will impact Earth in the next century. The IAWN also states that it will continue to track 2024 YR4 through early April. At this point, it will be too faint to image and won’t be observable from Earth again until 2028.

Further Reading: NAOJ

The post Good News! The Subaru Telescope Confirms that Asteroid 2024 YR4 Will Not Hit Earth. appeared first on Universe Today.

There are several well-documented health risks that come from spending extended periods in microgravity, including muscle atrophy, bone density loss, and changes to organ function and health. In addition, astronauts have reported symptoms of immune dysfunction, including skin rashes and other inflammatory conditions. According to a new study, these issues could be due to the extremely sterile environment inside spacecraft and the International Space Station (ISS). Their results suggest that more microbes could help improve human health in space.