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How Did Jupiter's Galilean Moons Form?
We already know a decent amount about how planets form, but moon formation is another process entirely, and one we’re not as familiar with. Scientists think they understand how the most important Moon in our solar system (our own) formed, but its violent birth is not the norm, and can’t explain larger moon systems like the Galilean moons around Jupiter. A new book chapter (which was also released as a pre-print paper) from Yuhito Shibaike and Yann Alibert from the University of Bern discusses the differing ideas surrounding the formation of large moon systems, especially the Galileans, and how we might someday be able to differentiate them.
A Cosmic Noon Puzzle: Why Did Cosmic Noon Galaxies Emit So Many Cosmic Rays?
The Universe's early galaxies were engulfed in halos of high-energy cosmic rays. It's likely because they had tangled and turbulent magnetic fields. These fields accelerate cosmic rays to higher energies.
China’s Crewed Lunar Lander Passes Key Test Milestone
China took a step closer to the Moon, with the first short test for their crewed lunar lander. The test was completed on Wednesday, August 6th at a facility in China’s northern Hebei Province, and lasted just under 30 seconds. The tethered test successfully demonstrated the integration and performance of key systems, simulating descent, guidance, control and engine shutdown. This marks the first test for a China’s Manned (crewed) Space Agency (CMSA’s) human-rated lander.
JPL Is Ready To Test Mars Samples - If They're Ever Returned
Taking a walk is great for inspiration. There have been numerous studies about how people think more clearly on walks, and how new ideas come to them more frequently while doing so. That’s part of the reason some of the most famous minds in history included a daily walk in their schedule. Just such an inspiration must have happened recently to Nicholas Heinz, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California. On a hike in Arizona he found a rock that could be used as an analog of a unique one found by the Perseverance rover on Mars - and decided to take it back to his lab to study it.x
How Climate Change Will Reshape Space Weather's Impact on Satellites
Climate change isn't just transforming weather on Earth's surface, it’s also fundamentally altering how space weather affects the thousands of satellites orbiting our planet. New research reveals that rising carbon dioxide levels will dramatically change how geomagnetic storms impact the upper atmosphere, creating both opportunities and challenges for the satellite industry in the decades ahead.
How Gecko Feet Could Save Space Travel
Space is getting dangerously crowded. More than 50,000 pieces of debris larger than 10 centimetres are currently hurtling around Earth at breakneck speeds, turning Earth orbits into veritable minefields. Dead satellites, rocket fragments, and collision debris pose such a serious threat that the International Space Station regularly performs emergency manoeuvres to dodge potential impacts. Now, an international team of researchers thinks they've found an elegant solution to this growing crisis and it's inspired by a humble house gecko's amazing ability to walk on walls.
New Theory Points to the Universe's Greatest Fireworks Show
What if the universe began with a fireworks show? A new theory suggests that supermassive black holes, the mysterious giants found at the heart of galaxies, were born from the universe's very first stars in a spectacular flash of light that ionised all of space before vanishing forever. This dramatic "Pop III.1" model could finally explain how these giant stellar remnants grew so impossibly large so quickly after the Big Bang, while potentially solving several major puzzles plaguing modern astronomy, from the Hubble Tension to the nature of Cosmic Dawn itself.
Moonquakes Will Pose Risks To Long-term Lunar Base Structures
Our Moon is a seismically active world and its long history of quakes could affect the safety of permanent base structures there. That's one conclusion from a study of quakes along the Lee-Lincoln fault in the Taurus-Littrow valley where the Apollo 17 astronauts landed in 1972. “The global distribution of young thrust faults like the Lee-Lincoln fault, their potential to be still active and the potential to form new thrust faults from ongoing contraction should be considered when planning the location and assessing stability of permanent outposts on the Moon,” said Smithsonian senior scientist emeritus Thomas R. Watters, lead author of the paper.
Researchers Simulate What a Black Hole "Shadow" Looks Like
Supercomputer simulations are helping scientists sharpen their understanding of the environment beyond a black hole’s "shadow," material just outside its event horizon.
The JWST Shows Us That TRAPPIST-1d Is Not As Earth-Like As We Hoped
The exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 d intrigues astronomers looking for possibly habitable worlds beyond our Solar System because it is similar in size to Earth, rocky, and resides in an area around its star where liquid water on its surface is theoretically possible. But according to a new study using data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, it does not have an Earth-like atmosphere.
Mystery of the "Little Red Dots" May Finally Be Solved
Deep in the darkness, tiny red specks of light have been driving astronomers to distraction. These mysterious "little red dots" discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope shouldn't exist, they’re impossibly compact yet blazingly bright, defying our understanding of how galaxies form. Now, Harvard researchers believe they've solved this billion year old puzzle with a theory involving the universe's rarest structures; dark matter halos.
A Simple Instrument Could Find Martian DNA - If It Exists
Mars still holds the promise of being one of the first places in the solar system humanity will colonize. However, if there was evolutionarily distinct, extant life on the planet, it might sway the heart of even the most ardent Mars colonization fans. So astrobiologists are in a race against time to try to determine whether or not such life exists, before the entire planet becomes an analogue of the Earth’s biosphere, if only unintentionally, and only a shadow of the ones that exists here. A new paper from the Christopher Temby and Jan Spacek of the Agnostic Life Finder (ALF) team discusses one of the most promising ways to prove definitively that life exists on the Red Planet - finding polyelectrolyte polymers - in other words, DNA.
The Vibrational Lives of Black Holes
When black holes are disrupted by things like infalling matter or gravitational waves, they vibrate like a bell struck with a clapper. The vibrations decay over time as the black hole returns to an equilibrium state. Astrophysicists can measure these vibrations to learn more about the black hole.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Discovers New Moon of Uranus
Using the powerful James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have spotted a moon nestled near Uranus’s rings that’s so small you could walk around it
Supernovas are hard to detect. Scientists just found a way to spot them hours after they explode
Why Hurricanes like Erin Trigger Rip Currents Hundreds of Miles Away
From Miami to Maine, the East Coast is under moderate or high rip current risk advisories because of Hurricane Erin
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4634-4635: A Waiting Game
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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4634-4635: A Waiting Game NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on Aug. 18, 2025 — Sol 4633, or Martian day 4,633 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 12:39:47 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech
Written by Lucy Thompson, Planetary Scientist and APXS Team Member, University of New Brunswick, Canada
Earth Planning Date: Monday, Aug. 18, 2025
The downlink data from our weekend activities arrived on Earth as we started planning this morning. As the APXS payload uplink and downlink lead, I assess the downlink data to ensure that our observations executed and that the instrument is healthy before we can proceed with the day’s activities. We also need that downlink data to assess which targets we can safely touch with Curiosity’s arm, to place APXS and MAHLI to analyze chemistry and closeup textures, respectively, as well as target for Mastcam and ChemCam, and plan the next drive. Because of the relatively late downlink, we all waited patiently for the necessary data to be processed before we could really start to plan in earnest.
It is always exciting to see our new parking spot and the view in front of the rover. Today was no exception. The drive executed as planned and we are on stable ground, which will enable us to unstow the arm for contact science with APXS and MAHLI.
We selected a representative bedrock patch (“Gil”) that was large enough and smooth enough to brush for dust removal, and to place APXS and MAHLI on. ChemCam will also analyze this target with LIBS, and Mastcam will capture a documentation image. The bedrock at this location is representative of an intermediate zone between the large resistant ridges and hollows that comprise the boxwork terrain that we are currently exploring. Mastcam will image the wall of a prominent resistant ridge that we are driving to (“Río Frío”), as well as a narrow, sand-filled trough (“Cusi Cusi”). The remote long-distance imaging capabilities of ChemCam will be used to look at the base of the Mishe Mokwa butte, off to the east.
Observations to monitor the atmosphere are also planned before we drive away from this location. They include a Navcam large dust-devil survey and suprahorizon movie, and a Mastcam tau observation to observe dust in the atmosphere. After the touch (and targeted science) part of this touch-and-go plan, the drive (go part) should take us about 36 meters (about 118 feet) to the wall of Río Frío. (see associated image).
After the drive, we will document the ground beneath the rover’s wheels with MARDI before some untargeted science. Mastcam will again image Río Frío in early morning light, trying to highlight structures and veins that might be present, and ChemCam will utilize their autonomous targeting capabilities to analyze a bedrock target in our new workspace. Two more atmospheric observations are also squeezed in before we hand over to the next plan: a Navcam cloud-altitude observation and line-of-sight scan.
Standard REMS, DAN and RAD activities round out this jam-packed plan. The downlink was well worth the wait!
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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4631-4633: Radiant Ridge Revolution
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Curiosity Blog, Sols 4631-4633: Radiant Ridge Revolution NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on Aug. 14, 2025 — Sol 4629, or Martian day 4,629 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 12:11:32 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech
Written by Remington Free, Operations Systems Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Earth planning date: Friday, Aug. 15, 2025
Today we uplinked a three-sol weekend plan with lots of exciting activities — to support both the science and engineering teams!
While usually our science activities take front and center stage, we often also do engineering maintenance activities as well to maintain the mechanisms and engineering health state of the rover. On Sol 4631, we planned a maintenance activity of our Battery Control Boards (BCBs) which are electronic control boards attached to the rover’s batteries and are what let us interact with the batteries as needed. This maintenance is done periodically to correct for any time drift on the BCBs, so we get as accurate of data as possible.
On this sol, we also did a dump of all of our parameters — these are essentially variables set onboard the rover which serve as inputs to a variety of functions. Occasionally we send a list of all these variables back down to the ground so we can verify they match as expected. We don’t want to have set a value and then forget about it!
We, of course, also did science activities on this sol. After completing our engineering activities, we started off with some remote science; this included Mastcam imaging and ChemCam measurements of several interesting targets. These were chosen in order to assess variability within the “Cerro Paranal” ridge within view, and to document any layering or fractures in the rock. We then completed several arm activities in order to get more information on these targets through the use of our APXS spectrometer.
On Sol 4632, we planned some remote atmospheric science, including a Navcam dust-devil survey, a Mastcam tau (measurement of the atmospheric opacity), APXS atmospheric observations, and more imaging of some of the ridge targets we looked at in the previous sol.
On Sol 4633, we continued with more science imaging, including a horizon movie using Navcam and a dust-devil movie, before proceeding into our drive. We planned a drive of about 19 meters (about 62 feet) to the south, along the eastern edge of Cerro Paranal. After the drive, it is then standard for us to take new imaging of our new location. We’re excited to get these science images back and to hear how the drive went when the team comes back on Monday!
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