NASA and Axiom Space Do a Partial Reveal of the Spacesuit That Will be Worn on the Moon
When humans return to the Moon in 2025, they'll need new lunar spacesuits. NASA has contracted Axiom Space in a private-public partnership to supply them. This week, we saw a partial reveal of the new suits in action. The final suits will be white to reflect the Sun's heat on the Moon, but these are covered with an additional black layer that conceals their proprietary design. Although we don't know exactly what they're going to look like, the suits show clear mobility, with a model demonstrating squats, lunges, and kneeling down, movements that would have been extremely difficult with the Apollo-era EVA suits.
Read the full story by Nancy Atkinson
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Venus Breakthrough // $1B to Deorbit ISS // Strange Moon Spacesuit Reveal
Venus has active volcanoes, we get a glimpse of NASA's new lunar exploration suits, and scientists build a completely flat telescope lens.
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Christiaan Huygens' Telescope Lenses Tell Us He Was Nearsighted
One of the most famous astronomers in history was the 17th-century Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens. In addition to many contributions in optics, mechanics, and timekeeping, Huygens was the first to describe the true nature of Saturn's rings and observed its moon Titan for the first time. According to a new study, Huygens was nearsighted, based on the lenses he made for his telescopes. They tested his lenses and found they were all slightly lacking from modern optical principles, but all in a similar way. The lenses were designed to be perfect for Huygens, adjusted for his nearsightedness.
Read the full story by Scott Alan Johnston
A Human Migration to Space is NOT so Inevitable, Says New Research
Humanity has spread to every corner of Planet Earth, so it seems inevitable that we'll continue onward into the Universe, settling down on world after world. But a new study suggests that might not be true. Earth is special and unique in the Universe, and we evolved to live on this planet. The amount of energy it would take to live on another world might be too expensive for future generations to be willing to pay.
Read the full story by Matt Williams
Don't Panic Over the Risk of an Asteroid Smashup in 2046
A recently discovered asteroid, named 2023 DW, has a projected 1-in-670 chance of impacting Earth on February 14, 2046. However, don't worry - initial observations of near-Earth asteroids often predict impact risks far into the future. Recall Apophis? Astronomers will focus their telescopes on potentially hazardous space rocks and conduct thorough observations to better determine their future trajectories. It's highly likely this asteroid will prove to be harmless.
Read the full story by Alan Boyle
Milky Way From ISS, Jupiter Catching Fire, Best Sci-Fi Novel | Q&A 215
How does Venus hold its atmosphere without a magnetosphere? Is the Sun moving to the Milky Way's centre? What happens when the space elevator cable snaps? Can we solve the Hubble Tension? All this and more in this week's Q&A!
JWST Sees So Many Galaxies, and It's Just Getting Started
Hubble Space Telescope's Deep Field revealed thousands of galaxies in a seemingly empty spot in the sky. JWST has taken this to the next level with its COSMOS-Web survey, revealing 25,000 galaxies in six pictures from the telescope. This is just 4% of the data that will eventually be collected with the COSMOS-Web survey, and it already provides details inaccessible to Hubble. It will take another gather data in another 77 pointings in April/May and then a remaining 69 in December/January 2024.
Read the full story by Nancy Atkinson
Even the Calmest Red Dwarfs are Wilder Than the Sun
Astronomers recognize that red dwarf stars can be unpredictable and tumultuous during their initial few billion years, launching numerous solar flares and coronal mass ejections at their planets. This might be disastrous for any life on those planets, leading astronomers to ponder just how volatile these stars are. Researchers examined nearly two decades of stellar data, observing the behavior of close to 200 red dwarf stars. They discovered that nearly all of these stars are variable to some degree, even the calmest ones.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
Pluto Team Updates Science From the Solar System's Edge
It's been nearly eight years since NASA's New Horizons spacecraft arrived at Pluto and continued on to Arrokoth, but researchers continue to uncover new information about these enigmatic worlds. This week, scientists revealed some of their most recent findings on the formation of Arrokoth, the origin and timing of Pluto's pronounced axial tilt, the peculiar bladed ice structures on its surface, and the part its heart-shaped region played in shaping its surface. I'm confident we'll discover even more in the decades ahead.
Read the full story by Alan Boyle
It's Time to Start Planning Your 2023/2024 Eclipse Adventures
Remember how exciting it was in 2017 when a total solar eclipse crossed the United States? We're in for two more well-placed eclipses over the next year, so it's time to get organized to take advantage of these celestial events. On October 14, 2023, an annular eclipse will be visible from the coast of Oregon to the Texas Panhandle. On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse will be visible from southern Texas to Eastern Canada. If you live near San Antonio, don't go anywhere. You'll get to see both eclipses from your backyard.
Read the full story by Nancy Atkinson
The State of Suborbital Space Science
If you want to study weightlessness, you don't necessarily need to fly into orbit. Plenty of research can be done on a suborbital flight, using a few seconds to study the effects. Several private and public organizations conduct experiments on suborbital flights, and the technique has benefits. What's the current state of suborbital science?
Read the full story by Carolyn Collins Petersen
Didymos is Spinning So Quickly That Rocks are Detaching at its Equator and Going Into Orbit
NASA's DART mission crashed into the asteroid Dimorphos in 2022, sending out a plume of material scientists have been studying carefully. Dimorphos is in orbit around asteroid Didymos, and DART was able to analyze the larger asteroid as it flew past. Astronomers found small grains of dust in the environment that came from Didymos. This is because the asteroid is spinning so quickly that the material on its equator is almost perfectly weightless, drifting off its surface into orbit. Most find their way back to the surface again, but some are blown away by the solar wind into interplanetary space.
Read the full story by Scott Alan Johnston
Habitable Planets Near Red Dwarfs
Can there be habitable planets orbiting around red dwarfs? My guest, Mariano Battistuzzi, performed experiments to check it! So, can life survive in the conditions created by red dwarf stars? Let's find out in this interview.
Potentially Active Volcanoes Have Been Found on Venus
Venus holds many mysteries, and one of the biggest is whether or not there are still active volcanoes on its surface. NASA's Magellan mission gathered radar images of Venus's surface decades ago, but the observations were inclusive. Scientists have the data more thoroughly and discovered a volcanic vent on Venus that changed shape and increased in size in less than a year. This appears to be conclusive evidence that Venus is still volcanically active. NASA is sending the VERITAS mission to Venus soon, which will capture more images of the planet's surface and should see if the vent is continuing to grow.
Read the full story by Nancy Atkinson
Perseverance Watches Carefully as Ingenuity Lifts Off for its 47th Flight
This is a picture of NASA's Ingenuity helicopter taking off on Mars for its 47th time. The image was taken with the Mastcam-Z imager on board the Perseverance Rover from a distance of 120 meters. Although they're operating separately, NASA keeps the two robots close together. For this flight, it traveled 429 meters, reaching an altitude of 12 meters, repositioning it for an upcoming flight, and capturing images of science targets along its path.
Read the full story by Nancy Atkinson
ExoMars is Back on Track for Mars in 2028
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has had wide-ranging consequences for the relationship between Roscosmos and Europe. Roscomos was supposed to provide the launch and landing components for the Rosalind Franklin rover as part of ESA's ExoMars mission. Other partners have stepped in, replacing Russia's role, and the rover is back on track for a 2028 mission to Mars. ESA showed off new tests with Rosalind Franklin, demonstrating its ability to drill 1.7 meters into simulated Martial regolith, deeper than any rover has ever dug on Mars.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
Infrared Earth-Like Planet Hunter Telescope [NIAC 2023]
In this interview, I'm talking with Heidi Newberg. Her team won a NIAC grant that will investigate building a telescope that will be hunting for Earth-like worlds. The project is called DICER, which stands for Diffractive Interfero Coronagraph Exoplanet Resolver.
Planets Might Protect Their Water Until Their Star Settles Down
Scientists have discovered that planets don't just have water on their surface; they can also lock it away in rocks deep within their interiors. For planets orbiting red dwarf stars, this could be vital, allowing them to hang onto the water during the star's early tempestuous stage. Researchers have developed a model to predict how much water-rich minerals could be inside a newly formed planet. These minerals act like a sponge, locking water away from the surface and releasing it later to replenish oceans.
Read the full story by Carolyn Collins Petersen
The Universe Sparkles in Gamma Rays in This New NASA Animation
The Earth's atmosphere blocks gamma radiation, which is good. But it also means that we can't detect it without space telescopes. NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope has been orbiting the Earth for 15 years, observing these high-energy photons coming from all directions. NASA recently created this all-sky animation that shows just one year of gamma-ray sources observed by Fermi. 90% of these are blazars, supermassive black holes with jets pointed at Earth, but there are also gamma-ray bursts and other extreme astrophysical events in the catalog.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
LAST WEEK: China's Giant Rocket, Dark Big Bang, Next Bright Comet
The official verdict on Artemis 1. Canadian kids discovered something NASA didn't know. Was there a Dark Big Bang? The next bright comet for 2024.
Read the full story by Anton Pozdnyakov
Other Interesting Space Stuff
- Can We Get a Warning Before Neutron Stars Collide?
- Watch the Cheylabinsk Meteor Breakup in this Detailed Simulation
- NASA's Ingenuity Helicopter Sees A Beautiful Sunset on Mars
- Sci-Fi Christmas is Ruined. Planet Vulcan Doesn't Exist
- Hypervelocity Stars Teach us About Black Holes and Supernovae
- If Primordial Black Holes Exist, We Could Detect their Radio Emissions
- The Discovery of a Hot Neptune That Shouldn't Exist
- Astronauts Could Mix and Match Parts to Make the Perfect Robot for Any Job
- NASA Requests a Billion Dollars to De-Orbit the ISS
- Europa's Ice Rotates at a Different Speed From its Interior. Now We May Know Why.
- A New Mission Will Search for Habitable Planets at Alpha Centauri
- Remnants of a Relict Glacier Found Near the Equator on Mars
- A Super-Earth and a Mini-Neptune
- A Rogue Earth and Neptune Might Have Been Found in Older Data
- Interstellar Objects From Broken Dyson Spheres
- Don't Just Grow Potatoes on Mars, Use them for Concrete
- Here's Where Artemis 3 Might Land. It Looks... Inviting
- Largest Catalog of Exploding Stars Now Available
- Sunrise Over the Pacific
- Virgin Orbit Pausing all Work, Reportedly Furloughs Staff
- 'Terminator Zones' on Distant Planets Could Harbor Life, Astronomers say
- New Horizons Team Adds AI to Kuiper Belt Object Search
Amazing Astrophotography on @universetoday
Prelude to a Supernova: The James Webb Captures a Rare Wolf-Rayet Star
This captivating image, captured by JWST, displays a hot, young star on the brink of detonating as a supernova. Classified as a Wolf-Rayet star, the object possesses at least 30 times the mass of the Sun. These stars consume their fuel rapidly, having a lifespan of approximately 10 million years. In their final stages, they generate potent winds that expel a significant portion of their mass into space. This particular star, WR124, is situated merely 15,000 light-years away and has probably already thrown out ten solar masses of material. Astronomers anticipate its explosion in a few hundred thousand years.
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