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🚀 Table Salt On Europa? How Much Will Artemis Missions Cost? Two New Earthlike Planets Found... And More

Top space stories this week from Fraser Cain, the publisher of Universe Today and host of the Guide to Space

View this email in your browser     An Orbit Map of the Solar System Hi, Vasiliy. Last week I talked about the killer asteroid that probably isn't going to hit Earth in September. This week I wanted to direct your attention at the enormous number of objects orbiting around in the Solar System. Seriously, it's a busy place. This amazing graphic was created by Eleanor Lutz, a PhD student in biology at the University of Washington. It contains the orbits of over 18,000 asteroids in the Solar System, most of which are over 10 km in size.  This is just one example of the incredible data-based posters that Eleanor creates. You can check out the rest at her website. Thanks! Fraser Cain Publisher Universe Today As always, if you have comments or questions, or suggestions on how I can improve this newsletter, please don't hesitate to reply this email or email me at info@universetoday.com. Patrons, don't forget to login to Universe Today. That'll remove all the ads for you. Join the 808 Patrons who get our videos early, see behind the scenes, and get no ads on Universe Today.     Planetary Protection: What If We Destroy Life Before We Even Find It? Explorers have always brought stowaways with them on board. Thanks to our travels around the world, hardy creatures like rats, goats, pigs and starlings and more have found their way to every corner of the globe. Not to mention our plants, microbes and viruses.  Wherever we go, life goes with us, whether we want it to or not. And when we travel to other worlds, it looks like the most extreme life Earth has ever cooked up is ready and willing to make the journey with us.  Now that the big flybys are over, it's time to dig into the regolith, search for life in underground lakes and oceans, return samples back to Earth. We're going to give life every opportunity to contaminate other worlds. What can we do to prevent it?   Subscribe to our podcasts: Universe Today Guide to Space Audio: iTunes - RSS Audio versions of all the media I upload to my YouTube channel, as well as bonus content, behind the scenes, interviews with Fraser and more Astronomy Cast: iTunes - RSS Your weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos, which I co-host with astronomer Dr. Pamela Gay. We have episodes on every concept in space and astronomy, from black holes to the history of astronomy. Weekly Space Hangout: iTunes - RSS A weekly round-up of all the breaking space news. Rocket launches, new discoveries from Hubble, and planetary science by three PhD astronomers... and me.     Starshades Will Reveal Planets Around Other Stars, But They Need to Be Aligned Perfectly Starshades are a really cool technology being developed by NASA to help see planets orbiting other stars. By positioning the Starshade 40,000 km away from the telescope, the center will perfectly block the star, and the planets will be visible between the petals. But the distance has to be perfect, within 1 meter, or it won't work. That'll be some serious formation flying.     Saltwater Similar to the Earth's Oceans has been Seen on Europa. Another Good Reason Why We Really Need to Visit This Place Europa is looking like a better and better place to search for life. New research suggests that the oceans under the thick icy crust are salty, just like the Earth's oceans. Like, regular old sodium chloride table salt, and not magnesium chloride (epsom salt) as astronomers originally believed. These yellowy regions on the surface of Europa were the key to understanding what could be under that thick shell of ice.     How Much Did the Original Apollo Missions Cost? As NASA embarks on its new missions to return humans to the Moon by 2024, they're being compared to the original Apollo missions that first carried humans to the Moon. Casey Dreier from the Planetary Society does the math on just how much the United States spent on those missions, in original 1960s dollars, inflation adjusted dollars, and as a percentage of the US budget.      Satellites Equipped With a Tether Would be Able to De-Orbit Themselves at the end of Their Life Space junk is a problem that's only going to get worse. In order to minimize their future danger, satellites and other space debris need to de-orbit themselves at the end of their lives. One idea to do this would be to extend an electrodynamic tether down behind them in orbit. The tether will emit electrons, which then causes it to be attracted by the Earth's magnetic field. A simple, elegant solution to a big problem.     How Much More Budget will NASA Need to Return to the Moon with Artemis? Now that NASA has announced their plans to return to the Moon, how much will this whole adventure cost? They've already asked for an additional $1.6 billion to get started, but that's just a drop in the bucket. Administrator Jim Bridenstine says they'll need $20 to $30 billion to get feet on the ground on the Moon.     Robotic Asteroid Mining Spacecraft Wins a Grant from NASA The first trillionaires will be the asteroid mining companies, extracting more precious metals from a single asteroid than has ever been dug out of the ground on Earth. But how will they do it? One company has just won a grant from NASA to use solar concentrators to harvest material from small asteroids they've fully enclosed, dismantling them rock by rock.     This is the Closest OSIRIS-REx has Gotten to Bennu. Just 680 Meters Above the Asteroid NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission is continuing to get closer and closer to Asteroid Bennu, in preparation for collecting a sample from the surface. This photograph was taken when the spacecraft was orbiting at just 680 meters above the surface. A record! It will make even closer approaches, getting within 225 meters of the surface, and will be able to see rocks as small as a marble on the surface.     Martian Clouds Might Start with Meteor Trails Through the Atmosphere Even though it has an incredibly thin atmosphere, Mars does get clouds. How do they form? One idea is that meteors streaking through the atmosphere providing particles that water molecules can use to condense out of the atmosphere. Every day, about three tons of dust enters the Martian atmosphere and might just trigger cloud formation.     Competition Will Let You Name an Exoplanet Got a cool idea for the name of a planet? Well good news, the International Astronomical Union is holding a competition, and taking suggestions from the public. How about a cool sci-fi name like Arrakis, or something historical? You can name the planet and the star it orbits.     Two Earthlike Worlds Found Orbiting a Red Dwarf Only 12.5 Light-Years Away I know, I know, more planets... yawn. But hold on, this is pretty cool. Astronomers have found two Earth-sized worlds orbiting within the habitable zone of a tiny red dwarf called Teegarden's Star, located only 12.5 light-years away. The star itself was only recently discovered, since it's so dim and only has 1/10th the mass of the Sun. Of course, just because they're in the habitable zone doesn't mean they're actually habitable, but it's a start.   Sky & Telescope Magazine has Found a New Home: the American Astronomical Society Earlier this year I was surprised to learn that the venerable Sky and Telescope magazine was up for auction. It was too rich for my blood, but I was nervous about where the magazine would end up next. Seriously, this is one of the publications that got me excited about astronomy in the first place. Good news, the American Astronomical Society picked it up for over $1 million this week.      The Earliest Example of Merging Galaxies Ever Found We live in a mature spiral galaxy, the Milky Way. But how did it come together? Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array have looked back to the edge of the observable Universe, and seen the earliest example of galaxies merging together, at a time when the Universe was only 800 million years old.    Other Interesting Space Stuff Westerlund-1: A star cluster full of monsters Oldest Meteorite Collection Found in World's Oldest Desert These are the biggest explosions seen by Fermi New report finds NASA awarded Boeing large fees despite SLS launch slips Scientists use the geology of the Moon to trace the history of the Sun Why alien moons may be a great place to find extraterrestrial life eROSITA: A new mission to hunt for dark energy will launch any day now Bam! Fresh Crater Spied on Mars — and It Looks Spectacular How Did This Black Hole Get So Big So Fast? Breaks in the Perfect Symmetry of the Universe Could Be a Window Into Completely New Physics Melting satellite parts in hot plasma to understand what happens when they burn up in the atmosphere Did Time Have A Beginning? ESA approves a mission to intercept a pristine comet inbound from the Oort Cloud, launching in 2028 There's a baby planet creating rings of gas and dust around this newly forming star system New Ideas to Reduce Muscle Loss During Spaceflight Amazing Astrophotography on @universetoday This picture has it all: auroras, the Milky Way, and ancient glacial ice. Amazing photography by @ollietaylorphotography during a trip to Iceland. We have featured over 1,000 astrophotographers on our Instagram page, which has more than 174,000 followers. Want to do a takeover? Use the hashtag #universetoday and I'll check out your photos.   Find your way across the night sky. Choose a variety of astronomy gear. Follow the Moon and the planets. Find deep sky objects across the seasons in both hemispheres. Observe comets, asteroids, satellites and space stations. Learn to do astrophotography. Get it on Amazon for only $18.89. Here are some other options.       View this email in your browser

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Speaking of Science: Where the warbler winters

Prothonotary warblers, songbirds as yellow as sliced mangoes, breed in U.S. wetlands during warm months. Their plumage clashes against dark forests so starkly that a flock of them...

Talk nerdy to us

A prothonotary warbler, wearing a small tracking device on its back. (Joan Eckhardt) Prothonotary warblers, songbirds as yellow as sliced mangoes, breed in U.S. wetlands during warm months. Their plumage clashes against dark forests so starkly that a flock of them appears like "butter dripping from the trees," said Ohio State University biologist Christopher Tonra. Such scenes are increasingly rare. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers prothonotary warblers to be a species of concern, and in Canada, the warblers are endangered. Tonra and his colleagues recently tracked the declining birds. The goal, as the researchers report Wednesday in the journal the Condor, was to discover where the animals spend the winter. Scientists knew that the animals, each of which weighs no more than a pair of nickels, migrated thousands of miles south each autumn and returned north in the spring. Previous research suggested that the birds sought shelter in coastal mangrove forests. If so, the loss of these habitats could explain the shrinking warbler populations. The warblers are too small for conventional satellite tags. Only in the past decade has technological miniaturization allowed researchers to track small birds. These geolocators sense sunlight, measuring the time from sunrise and sunset, which allows scientists to estimate a bird's location each day. The authors of the new study, conservationists in states from Wisconsin south to Louisiana and east to Virginia, tagged nearly 150 warblers with the tiny devices. Data recovered from 34 birds contained several surprises, Tonra said. Nine in every 10 birds spent the wintertime in a relatively small region in Colombia. "That was regardless of whether they were tagged in Wisconsin or they were tagged in Louisiana," Tonra said. The warblers clustered around the Magdalena River Valley in inland Colombia, not the coastal jungles. This valley "more mimics the kinds of habitats they breed in, in the temperate zone, than mangroves do," Tonra said. Jared Wolfe, a wildlife biologist at Michigan Technological University who was not involved with this research, said the warbler study was "precedent-setting" due to its geographic span and the number of birds tracked. "Identifying important winter areas represents a critical step towards conserving birds throughout their entire annual cycle," Wolfe said. "It challenges our ideas about where we think these birds go," said Kenneth Rosenberg, a conservation scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology who was not a member of the research team. Rosenberg applauded the thoroughness of the study but cautioned the trackers, affixed to birds that roost in dark and dense forests, may not sense the full amounts of sunlight. If that happened, it's possible the birds were actually living in forests closer to the equatorial coast, he said. The research team has partnered with Selva, a nonprofit conservation organization in Colombia. Focusing on this region in Colombia would produce "the biggest bang for our conservation buck," he said, for protecting winter habitats. Tonra and his colleagues also discovered that the birds dawdled on their way south. Instead of stopping just for a quick refuel, some birds spent as many as three weeks in Central American tropics before arriving in Colombia for the winter. Other migratory bird species, scientists are learning, make long stopovers, too. "This paper, and others, have really highlighted this blind spot," Tonra said. For these birds, migration appears to be a series of long-haul jumps punctuated by rest periods, rather than a steady trickle from backyard to backyard to, finally, jungle. During the stopovers, birds "need to put on fat, basically, to gain energy," Rosenberg said. In the warblers' case, that means feasting on snails and insects. Conservationists frequently point out the "ecosystem services" that animals provide for humans. Prothonotary warblers, for instance, hunt pests that damage coffee crops. But Tonra spoke, too, of this migration — a 3,000-mile journey completed by a creature that weighs less than most pocket change — as an ecological marvel. On fall and spring nights, warblers join "billions of animals flying above our heads," Tonra said. "And the more we can do to help them get there and complete that journey, since we've made it more difficult for them in many ways, is a really important thing." — Ben   ADVERTISEMENT   Running water, cranes, shockingly modern streets. At Pompeii, archaeologists find surprising tech. The show in Richmond reveals long-past innovations in the Roman city, which was buried in ash from Mount Vesuvius's eruption in A.D. 79. By Erin Blakemore · Read more   USDA research agencies will move to Kansas City region despite opposition Almost a year after unveiling a plan to move USDA science divisions, the agriculture secretary has selected a relocation site. By Ben Guarino · Read more   This is what it looks like when galaxies are about to die "We know what they look like once they're dead," said astrophysicist Allison Kirkpatrick. "But the rest of it is just pieces that we've guessed at." By Sarah Kaplan · Read more     ADVERTISEMENT   Archaeologists find signs of ritualized cannabis use 2,500 years ago in China The report does not change the historical consensus about early cannabis use but does add some striking physical evidence for it. By Joel Achenbach · Read more   USDA division votes to unionize as employees protest planned relocation Employees at the National Institute of Food and Agriculture voted to organize as tensions between labor and management are at an apex. By Ben Guarino and Lisa Rein · Read more   Recommended for you Get the Energy and Environment newsletter The latest news about climate change, energy and the environment, delivered every Thursday. Sign Up

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