There are many worlds and many systems of Universes existing all at the same time, all of them perishable.

— Anaximander 546 BC

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APOD - 4 hours 19 min ago

Almost every object in the


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

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APOD - 4 hours 19 min ago

Comet Pons-Brooks has quite a tail to tell.


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

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APOD - 4 hours 19 min ago

What does a supernova remnant sound like?


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

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APOD - 4 hours 19 min ago

Here is what the Earth looks like during a


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Ares 3 Landing Site: The Martian Revisited

APOD - 4 hours 19 min ago

Ares 3 Landing Site: The Martian Revisited


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Phobos: Moon over Mars

APOD - 4 hours 19 min ago

Phobos: Moon over Mars


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Millions of Stars in Omega Centauri

APOD - 4 hours 19 min ago

Globular star cluster


Categories: Astronomy, NASA

Chair for gamers boosts player performance and prevents muscular aches

Gamers seemed to be more comfortable after playing in a specialist gaming chair compared with a standard office chair
Categories: Astronomy

What Google’s New AI Fruit Fly Can Teach Us about Real Behavior

Scientific American.com - 4 hours 19 min ago

To learn how to move, groom itself and flap its wings, a fruit fly AI devoured hours of video of real insects

Categories: Astronomy

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample Is Already Rewriting Solar System History

Scientific American.com - 5 hours 19 min ago

Scientists have scarcely begun studying pristine material from asteroid Bennu brought back to Earth by the OSIRIS-REx mission, but have already found several surprises

Categories: Astronomy

Future Mars plane could help solve Red Planet methane mystery (exclusive)

Space.com - 6 hours 19 min ago
A new Mars plane idea, affectionately called MAGGIE, received early-stage NASA funding for a project starting in May. Its goal is to one day hunt for methane while soaring above the planet.
Categories: Astronomy

Total solar eclipse 2024: Live updates

Space.com - 6 hours 40 min ago
Stay up-to-date with the latest news on the total solar eclipse that will be visible across North America on April 8, 2024.
Categories: Astronomy

Mars may have captured and split a comet to create its two moons

How the Red Planet acquired its two moons, Phobos and Deimos, is unknown – they could have formed after something collided with the planet, or started out as asteroids – but now there is a hint of a cometary origin
Categories: Astronomy

Early galaxy seen by JWST contains giant young stars and supernovae

The light signature from GLASS-z12, one of the most distant galaxies we have ever seen, suggests some of its stars have already exploded as supernovae
Categories: Astronomy

DART Changed the Shape of Asteroid Dimorphos, not Just its Orbit

Universe Today - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 11:50pm

On September 26th, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) collided with the asteroid Dimorphos, a moonlet that orbits the larger asteroid Didymos. The purpose of this test was to evaluate a potential strategy for planetary defense. The demonstration showed that a kinetic impactor could alter the orbit of an asteroid that could potentially impact Earth someday – aka. Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA). According to a new NASA-led study, the DART mission’s impact not only altered the orbit of the asteroid but also its shape!

The study was led by Shantanu P. Naidu, a navigation engineer with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at Caltech. He was joined by researchers from the Lowell Observatory, Northern Arizona University (NAU), the University of Colorado Boulder (UCB), the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, and Johns Hopkins University (JHU). Their paper, “Orbital and Physical Characterization of Asteroid Dimorphos Following the DART Impact,” appeared on March 19th in the Planetary Science Journal.

The Didymos double asteroid system consists of an 851-meter-wide (2792 ft) primary orbited by the comparatively small Dimorphos. The latter was selected as the target for DART because any changes in its orbit caused by the impact would be comparatively easy to measure using ground-based telescopes. Before DART impacted with the moonlet, it was an oblate spheroid measuring 170 meters (560 feet) in diameter with virtually no craters. Before impact, the moonlet orbited Didymos with a period of 11 hours and 55 minutes.

Artist’s impression of the DART mission impacting the moonlet Dimorphos. Credit: ESA

Before the encounter, NASA indicated that a 73-second change in Dimorphos’ orbital period was the minimum requirement for success. Early data showed DART surpassed this minimum benchmark by more than 25 times. As Naidu said in a NASA press release, the impact also altered the moonlet’s shape:

“When DART made impact, things got very interesting. Dimorphos’ orbit is no longer circular: Its orbital period is now 33 minutes and 15 seconds shorter. And the entire shape of the asteroid has changed, from a relatively symmetrical object to a ‘triaxial ellipsoid’ – something more like an oblong watermelon.”

Naidu and his team combined three data sources with their computer models to determine what happened to the asteroid after impact. The first was the images DART took of Dimorphos right before impact, which were sent back to Earth via NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN). These images allowed the team to gauge the dimensions of Didymos and Dimorphos and measure the distance between them. The second source was the Goldstone Solar System Radar (GSSR), part of the DNS network located in California responsible for investigating Solar System objects.

The GSSR was one of several ground-based instruments that precisely measured the position and velocity of Dimorphos relative to Didymos after impact – which indicated how the mission greatly exceeded expectations. The third source was provided by ground-based telescopes worldwide that measured changes in the amount of life reflected (aka. light curves) of both asteroids. Much like how astronomers monitor stars for periodic dips (which could indicate a transiting planet), dips in Didymos’ luminosity are attributable to Dimorphos passing in front of it.

Artist’s impression of the ESA’s Hera mission rendezvousing with Dimorphos. Credit: NASA

By comparing these light curves from before and after impact, the team learned how DART altered Dimorphos’ motion. Based on these data sources and their models, the team calculated how its orbital period evolved and found that it was now slightly eccentric. Said Steve Chesley, a senior research scientist at JPL and a co-author on the study:

“We used the timing of this precise series of light-curve dips to deduce the shape of the orbit, and because our models were so sensitive, we could also figure out the shape of the asteroid. Before impact, the times of the events occurred regularly, showing a circular orbit. After impact, there were very slight timing differences, showing something was askew. We never expected to get this kind of accuracy.”

According to their results, DART’s impact reduced the average distance between the two asteroids to roughly 1,152 meters (3,780 feet) – closer by about 37 meters (120 feet). It also shortened Dimorphos’ orbital period to 11 hours, 22 minutes, and 3 seconds – a change of 33 minutes and 15 seconds. These results are consistent with other independent studies based on the same data. They will be further tested by the ESA’s Hera mission, scheduled to launch in October 2024, when it makes a flyby of the double-asteroid and conducts a detailed survey.

Further Reading: NASA

The post DART Changed the Shape of Asteroid Dimorphos, not Just its Orbit appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Astronomy

Cosmochemistry: Why study it? What can it teach us about finding life beyond Earth?

Universe Today - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 11:48pm

Universe Today has had some fantastic discussions with researchers on the importance of studying impact craters, planetary surfaces, exoplanets, astrobiology, solar physics, comets, planetary atmospheres, and planetary geophysics, and how these diverse scientific fields can help researchers and the public better understand the search for life beyond Earth. Here, we will investigate the unique field of cosmochemistry and how it provides researchers with the knowledge pertaining to both our solar system and beyond, including the benefits and challenges, finding life beyond Earth, and suggestive paths for upcoming students who wish to pursue studying cosmochemistry. But what is cosmochemistry and why is it so important to study it?

“Cosmochemistry is the study of space stuff, the actual materials that make up planets, stars, satellites, comets, and asteroids,” Dr. Ryan Ogliore, who is an associate professor of physics at Washington University in St. Louis, tells Universe Today. “This stuff can take all the forms of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. Cosmochemistry is different from astronomy which is primarily concerned with the study of light that interacts with this stuff. There are two main benefits of studying actual astromaterials: 1) the materials record the conditions at the time and place where they formed, allowing us to look into the deep past; and 2) laboratory measurements of materials are extraordinarily precise and sensitive, and continue to improve as technology improves.”

In a nutshell, the field of cosmochemistry, also known as chemical cosmology, perfectly sums up Carl Sagan’s famous quote, “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” To understand cosmochemistry is to understand how the Earth got here, how we got here, and possibly how life got wherever we’re (hopefully) going to find it, someday.

Like all scientific fields, cosmochemistry incorporates a myriad of methods and strategies with the goal of answering some of the universe’s most difficult questions, specifically pertaining to how the countless stellar and planetary objects throughout the universe came to be. These methods and strategies primarily include laboratory analyses of meteorites and other physical samples brought back from space, including from the Moon, asteroids, and comets. But what are some of the benefits and challenges of studying cosmochemistry?

“One of the primary benefits of cosmochemistry is the ability to reproduce measurements,” Dr. Ogliore tells Universe Today. “I can measure something in my lab, and somebody else can measure either the same object, or a very similar object, in another lab to confirm my measurements. Only after repeated measurements, by different labs and different techniques, will a given claim be universally accepted by the community. This is difficult to do in astronomy, and also difficult using remote-sensing measurements on spacecraft studying other bodies in the Solar System.”

Apart from the crewed Apollo missions to the Moon, all other samples from space have been returned via robotic spacecraft. While this might seem like an easy process from an outside perspective, collecting samples from space and returning them to Earth is a very daunting and time-consuming series of countless tests, procedures, precise calculations, and hundreds to thousands of scientists and engineers ensuring every little detail is covered to ensure complete mission success, often to only collect a few ounces of material. This massive effort is tasked with not only ensuring successful sample collection, but also ensuring successful storage of the samples to avoid contamination during their journey home, and then retrieving the samples once they land in a capsule back on Earth, where they are properly unpacked, cataloged, and stored for laboratory analysis.

To demonstrate the difficulty in conducting a sample return mission, only four nations have successfully used robotic explorers to collect samples from another planetary body and returned them to Earth: the former Soviet Union, United States, Japan, and China. The former Soviet Union successfully returned lunar samples to Earth throughout the 1970s; the United States has returned samples from a comet, asteroid, and even solar particles; Japan has successfully returned samples from two asteroids; and most recently, China succeeded in returning 61.1 ounces from the Moon, which is the current record for robotic sample return missions. But even with the difficulty of conducting a successful sample return mission, what can cosmochemistry teach us about finding life beyond Earth?

“Cosmochemistry can tell us about the delivery of the ingredients necessary for life to planets or moons via asteroids or comets,” Dr. Ogliore tells Universe Today. “Since we have both asteroid and comet material in the lab, we can tell if primitive pre-biotic organic compounds may have been delivered by these bodies. Of course, this doesn’t mean life on Earth (or elsewhere) started this way, only that it is one pathway. Detection of life on another world would be one of the biggest discoveries in the history of science. So of course we’d want to be absolutely sure! This requires repeated measurements by different labs using different techniques, which requires a sample on Earth. I think the only way we’d know for sure if there was life on Europa, Enceladus, or Mars is if we bring a sample back to Earth from these places.”

As it turns out, NASA is actively working on the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission, for which Dr. Ogliore is a member of the MSR Measurement Definition Team. The goal of MSR will be to travel to the Red Planet to collect and return samples of Martian regolith to Earth for the first time in history. The first step of this mission is currently being accomplished by NASA’s Perseverance rover in Jezero Crater, as it is slowly collecting samples and dropping them in tubes across the Martian surface for future retrieval by MSR.

For Europa, while there have been several discussions regarding a sample return mission, including a 2002 study discussing a sample return mission from Europa’s ocean and a 2015 study discussing a potential plume sample return mission, no definitive sample return missions from Europa are currently in the works, possibly due to the enormous distance. Despite this, and while not a life-finding mission, Dr. Ogliore has been tasked to lead a robotic mission to Jupiter’s volcanic moon, Io, to explore its plethora of volcanoes. For Enceladus, the Life Investigation for Enceladus (LIFE) mission has had a number of mission proposals submitted to return samples from Enceladus’ plumes, though it has yet to be accepted. But what is the most exciting aspect about cosmochemistry that Dr. Ogliore has studied during his career?

Image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft of the water vapor plumes emanating from the south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. (Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

“In my opinion the most important single measurement in the history of cosmochemistry was the measurements of the oxygen isotopic composition of the Sun,” Dr. Ogliore tells Universe Today. “To do this, we needed to return samples of the solar wind to Earth, which we did with NASA’s Genesis mission. However, the sample return capsule crashed on Earth. But did that stop the cosmochemists?! Hell no! Kevin McKeegan and colleagues at UCLA had built a specialized, enormous, complicated instrument to study these samples. Despite the crash, McKeegan and colleagues analyzed oxygen in the solar wind and found that it was 6% lighter than oxygen found on Earth, and it matched the composition of the oldest known objects in the Solar System: millimeter-sized calcium-aluminum inclusions (CAIs) found in meteorites.”

Dr. Ogliore continues by telling Universe Today about how this result was predicted by Bob Clayton at the University of Chicago, along with crediting his own postdoc, Lionel Vacher, for conducting a research project that built off the Genesis results, noting, “This was a really fun project because it was technically very challenging, and the results put the Solar System in its astrophysical context.”

Like the myriad of scientific disciplines that Universe Today has examined during this series, cosmochemistry is successful due to its multidisciplinary nature that contributes to the goal of answering some of the universe’s most difficult questions. Dr. Ogliore emphasizes that analysis of laboratory samples involves a multitude of scientific backgrounds to understand what the researchers are observing within each sample and the processes responsible for creating the samples. Additionally, this also includes the aforementioned sample return missions and hundreds to thousands of scientists and engineers who partake in each mission. Therefore, what advice can Dr. Ogliore offer to upcoming students who wish to pursue cosmochemistry?

“Biology, chemistry, geology, physics, math, electronics — you need it all!” Dr. Ogliore tells Universe Today. “If you like learning new things constantly, then planetary science is for you. It is good to get a very broad education. This will serve you well in a number of careers, but it is especially true for planetary science and cosmochemistry. I get to work with people who study volcanoes, and mathematicians working on chaotic motion. How cool is that?!”

All things considered, cosmochemistry is both an enormously challenging and rewarding field of study to try and answer some of the most difficult and longstanding questions regarding the processes responsible for the existence of celestial bodies in the Solar System and beyond, including stars, planets, moons, meteorites, and comets, along with how life emerged on our small, blue world. As noted, cosmochemistry perfectly sums up Carl Sagan’s famous quote, “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” It is through cosmochemistry and the analysis of meteorites and other returned samples that enable researchers to slowly inch our way to answering what makes life and where we can find it.

“Meteorites are the most spectacular record of nature known to mankind,” Dr. Ogliore tells Universe Today. “We have rocks from Mars, the Moon, volcanic worlds, asteroid Vesta, and dozens of other worlds. Iron meteorites are the cores of broken apart planets. These rocks record processes that occurred four and a half billion years ago and fall to Earth in a blazing fireball traveling at miles per second. You can follow various blogs that track fireballs, and even calculate areas where meteorites might have fallen. If you ever have the opportunity, go try to find one of these freshly fallen meteorites. The odds are long, but it is worth a try. I have not found a meteorite myself yet, but it is a life goal of mine.”

How will cosmochemistry help us better understand our place in the universe in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post Cosmochemistry: Why study it? What can it teach us about finding life beyond Earth? appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Astronomy

Webb Finds Deep Space Alcohol and Chemicals in Newly Forming Planetary 

Universe Today - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 9:13pm

Since its launch in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has made some amazing discoveries. Recent observations have found a number of key ingredients required for life in young proto-stars where planetary formation is imminent. Chemicals like methane, acetic acid and ethanol have been detected in interstellar ice. Previous telescopic observations have only hinted at their presence as a warm gas. Not only have they been detected but a team of scientists have synthesised some of them in a lab.

These molecules found in the solid stage phase in young protostars are an indicator that the processes leading to formation of life may be more common than first thought. The complex organic molecules (COMs) were first predicted decades ago before space telescopes observations inconclusively identified them. A team of astronomers using the Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) on the JWST as part of the James Webb Observations of Young ProtoStars programme have identified the COMs individually. 

MIRI, ( Mid InfraRed Instrument ), flight instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope, JWST, during ambient temperature alignment testing in RAL Space’s clean rooms at STFC’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, 8th November 2010.

One of the target objects observed as part of this study was IRAS 2A, a low mass protostar. The science team are particularly interested because the system has similar characteristics as our own star, the Sun. It gives us a great test bed to explore the processes of the Solar System and Earth’s development.

The presence in the solid phase and earlier detections in the gas phase suggests the process behind their existence is sublimation of ice. The process of sublimation is the transition straight from solid to gas without going through the liquid phase. The detection of COMs in ice suggests this is the origin of the COMs in gas. 

The scientific community are now looking at the liklihood of transportation of the COMs to early planets as they form around the young stars. It is believed that their transportation as an ice are far more efficient to the protoplanetary disks than as a gas. It is quite likely that the icy COMs can be transported and inherited by comets and asteroids  as the planets form. These new icy objects that develop can then, through their impacts, carry the complex molecules to planets, seeding them with the ingredients for life.

A closeup of the inner region of the Orion Nebula as seen by JWST. There’s a protoplanetary disk there that is recycling an Earth’s ocean-full of water each month. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, PDRs4All ERS Team; Salomé Fuenmayor image

The team not only detected complex molecules, they also detected formic acid (the stuff that makes some insect bites sting), sulphur dioxide and formaldehyde. The sulphur dioxide was particularly useful since it allowed the team to calculate the deposits of oxidised sulphur as a function of emissions of the same. This is particularly of interest since it was pivotal in the development of metabolic reactions and processes in the young Earth. 

A team from the University of Hawaii’s Department of Chemistry led by Professor Ralf I. Kaiser managed to synthesise a complex molecule known as Glyceric Acid. Understanding its formation process helps us to understand how life evolved on Earth. The experiments used interstellar model ices and estimates of Galactic Cosmic Ray levels to form Glyceric Acid with a photo ionisation laser. This may have been similar to the role of lightning in the evolution of our own atmosphere.

Source : Cheers! Webb finds ethanol and other icy ingredients for worlds and Unraveling the origins of life: Scientists discover ‘cool’ sugar acid formation in space

The post Webb Finds Deep Space Alcohol and Chemicals in Newly Forming Planetary  appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Astronomy

Mercury is the Perfect Destination for a Solar Sail

Universe Today - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 8:26pm

Solar sails rely upon pressure exerted by sunlight on large surfaces. Get the sail closer to the Sun and not surprisingly efficiency increases. A proposed new mission called Mercury Scout aims to take advantage of this to explore Mercury. The mission will map the Mercurian surface down to a resolution of 1 meter and, using the highly reflective sail surface to illuminate shadowed craters, could hunt for water deposits. 

Unlike conventional rocket engines that require fuel which itself adds weight and subsequently requires more fuel, solar sails are far more efficient. Light falling upon the sail can propel a prob across space. It’s a fascinating concept that goes back to the 1600’s when Johannes Kepler suggested the idea to Galileo Galilei. It wasn’t until the beginning of the 21st Century that the Planetary Society created the Cosmos 1 solar sail spacecraft. It launched in June 2005 but a failure meant it never reached orbit. The first successfully launched solar sail was Ikaros, launched by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency it superbly demonstrated the feasibility of the technology. 

Artist’s illustration of IKAROS. Credit: JAXA

It has been known since 1905 that light is made up of tiny little particles known as photons. They don’t have any mass but while travelling through space, they do have momentum. When a tennis ball hits a racket, it bounces off the strings and some of the ball’s momentum is transferred to the racket. In a very similar way, photons of light hitting a solar sail transfer some of their momentum to the sail giving it a small push. More photons hitting the sail give another small push and as they slowly build up, the spacecraft slowly accelerates. 

Mercury Scout will take advantage of the solar sail idea as its main propulsion once it has reached Earth orbit. The main objectives for the mission are to map out the mineral distribution on the surface, high resolution imaging down to 1 meter resolution and identification of ice deposits in permanently shadowed craters. The solar sail was chosen because it offers significant technical and financial benefits lowering overall cost and reducing transit time to Mercury. 

To propel the Mercury Scout module, the sail will be around 2500 square meters and 2.5 microns thick. The material is aluminised CP1 which is similar to that used in the heat shield of the James Webb Space Telescope. The sails four separate quadrants unfurl along carbon fibre supports and will get to Mercury in an expected 3.8 years. On arrival it will transfer into a polar orbit and then spend another 176 days mapping the entire surface. 

To enable the entire planet to be mapped the the orbit will have to be maintained by adjusting the angle of the sail. In the same way the captain of a sailing ship can sail against, or sometimes into wind by adjusting sail angle and position so the solar sail can be used to generate thrust in the required direction. 

Data from the Mercury Atmosphere and Surface Composition Spectrometer, or MASCS, instrument is overlain on the mosaic from the Mercury Dual Imaging System, or MDIS. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Unlike other more traditional rocket engines whose life is usually limited to fuel availability, the solar sail is limited by degradation in sail material. Its life expectancy is around 10 years. Additional coatings are being explored to see if the life of the sail can be extended further. 

Source : MERCURY SCOUT: A SOLAR SAIL MISSION TO THE INNERMOST PLANET

The post Mercury is the Perfect Destination for a Solar Sail appeared first on Universe Today.

Categories: Astronomy

Spreading rock dust on farms boosts crop yields and captures CO2

New Scientist Space - Space Headlines - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 8:01pm
We already have evidence that rock dust can remove carbon dioxide from the air – now there are signs that spreading the dust on farm fields also enhances crop growth
Categories: Astronomy

Spreading rock dust on farms boosts crop yields and captures CO2

New Scientist Space - Cosmology - Wed, 03/27/2024 - 8:01pm
We already have evidence that rock dust can remove carbon dioxide from the air – now there are signs that spreading the dust on farm fields also enhances crop growth
Categories: Astronomy