Phys.org Astronomy and Space

• Martian volcanoes could be hiding massive glaciers under a blanket of ash

  When we think of ice on Mars, we typically think of the poles, where we can see it visibly through probes and even ground-based telescopes. But the poles are hard to access, and even more so given the restrictions on exploration there due to potential biological contamination. Scientists have long hoped to find water closer to the equator, making it more accessible to human explorers. There are parts of the mid-latitudes of Mars that appear to be glaciers covered by thick layers of dust and rock.

• Occupy Mars? Or the moon? Get a reality check on Elon Musk's plans

  It's an age-old debate in space circles: Should humanity's first city on another world be built on the moon, or on Mars? As recently as last year, SpaceX founder Elon Musk saw missions to the moon as a "distraction." In a post to his X social-media platform, he declared that "we're going straight to Mars."

• Cosmic curveball: Distant system challenges planet-formation theory

  An international team of astronomers has discovered a distant planetary system that challenges long-standing theories of how planets form. Across our galaxy, astronomers routinely observe a characteristic pattern in planetary systems: rocky planets orbiting close to their host star with gas giants farther away. Our own solar system follows this rule, with the inner planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, composed of rock and iron, and the outer planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune being predominantly gaseous.

• NASA moon rocket hit by new problem, putting March launch with astronauts in jeopardy

  NASA's new moon rocket suffered another setback Saturday, putting next month's planned launch with astronauts in jeopardy.

• Cosmologists collaborate to sharpen measurements of the Hubble constant

  Drawing together leading experts from across the field, an international collaboration of cosmologists has created a unified approach for measuring the value of the Hubble constant. Published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, the milestone could bring us a step closer to understanding why the universe appears to be expanding faster than our standard cosmological model predicts.

• A low-cost microscope to study living cells in zero gravity

  As space agencies prepare for human missions to the moon and Mars, scientists need to understand how the absence of gravity affects living cells. Now, a team of researchers has built a rugged, affordable microscope that can image cells in real time during the chaotic conditions of zero-gravity flight—and they're making the design available to the broader scientific community.

• Supercomputer simulations reveal rotation drives chemical mixing in red giant stars

  Advances in supercomputing have made solving a long‐standing astronomical conundrum possible: How can we explain the changes in the chemical composition at the surface of red giant stars as they evolve?

• SpaceX rocket left behind a plume of chemical pollution as it burnt up in the atmosphere

  Space junk returning to Earth is introducing metal pollution to the pristine upper atmosphere as it burns up on re-entry, a new study has found.

• Citizen science: Map the Earth's magnetic shield with the Space Umbrella Project

  A stream of charged particles known as the solar wind flows from the sun toward Earth. Here, it meets Earth's magnetic fields, which shield our planet like a giant umbrella. The Space Umbrella project needs your help investigating this dynamic region, where NASA's Magnetosphere Multiscale (MMS) mission has been collecting data since 2015. The MMS mission investigates how the sun and Earth's magnetic fields connect and disconnect, explosively transferring energy from one to the other in a process that is important to the sun, other planets, and everywhere in the universe.

• 3D method can accurately measure gravity in wide binary stars, as demonstrated by pilot study

  Since the third Gaia data release in 2022, wide binary stars with separation greater than several thousand astronomical units have been intensely investigated across the world, to probe the nature of gravity in the low acceleration regime, weaker than about 1 nanometer per second squared.

• REGALADE: The most extensive catalog of galaxies for modern astronomy

  An international team of scientists led by the Institute of Cosmos Sciences at the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (IEEC) has presented REGALADE, an unprecedented catalog covering the entire sky and bringing together nearly 80 million galaxies. The work, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, marks a turning point for astronomy and opens up a new scenario that allows researchers to explore cosmic events with a degree of precision never before achieved.

• Impact-formed glass provides evidence of cosmic collision in Brazil about 6 million years ago

  For the first time in Brazil, researchers have identified a field of tektites. These are natural glasses formed by the high-energy impact of extraterrestrial bodies against Earth's surface. These structures, named geraisites in honor of the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, where they were first discovered, constitute a new strewn field. This expands the incomplete record of impacts in South America.

• Small but mighty microplate reader could transform NASA research

  A small but mighty piece of lab equipment, about the size of a cellphone, has arrived at the International Space Station after launching with NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 mission. NASA aims to use the off-the-shelf device, called a microplate reader, to conduct vital biological research in space and get real-time access to data.

• NASA targets March for first moon mission by Artemis astronauts after fueling test success

  NASA aims to send astronauts to the moon in March after acing the latest rocket fueling test.

• Flexible force fields can protect our return to the moon

  Lunar dust remains one of the biggest challenges for a long-term human presence on the moon. Its jagged, clingy nature makes it naturally stick to everything from solar panels to the inside of human lungs. And while we have some methods of dealing with it, there is still plenty of experimentation to do here on Earth before we use any such system in the lunar environment. A new paper published in Acta Astronautica from Francesco Pacelli and Alvaro Romero-Calvo of Georgia Tech and their co-authors describes two types of flexible Electrodynamic Dust Shields (EDSs) that could one day be used in such an environment.

• Atom-thin electronics withstand space radiation, potentially surviving for centuries in orbit

  Atom-thick layers of molybdenum disulfide are ideally suited for radiation-resistant spacecraft electronics, researchers in China have confirmed. In a study published in Nature, Peng Zhou and colleagues at Fudan University put a communications system composed of the material through a gauntlet of rigorous tests—including the transmission of their university's Anthem—confirming that its performance is barely affected in the harsh environment of outer space.

• Near-infrared study finds no clear counterpart to mysterious gamma-ray source

  Spanish astronomers have conducted a near-infrared study of an ultra-high energy gamma-ray source designated LHAASO J2108+5157. The new study, published February 11 on the arXiv preprint server, tries to unravel the mysterious nature of this source.

• The persistence of gravitational wave memory

  Neutron stars are ultra-dense remnants of massive stars that collapsed after supernova explosions and are made up mostly of subatomic particles with no electric charge (i.e., neutrons). When two neutron stars collide, they are predicted to produce gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime that travel at the speed of light.

• NASA moves forward with Artemis II tanking test that could set up moonshot mission

  NASA is set to begin fueling 700,000 gallons of cryogenic propellant on the Space Launch System rocket at Kennedy Space Center on Thursday as it moves ahead with a test countdown of the Artemis II mission.

• A 'blood moon' is coming to the US in March—and the next good one isn't until 2029

  A total lunar eclipse will cross the skies over the contiguous United States on Tuesday, March 3, turning the moon a deep reddish color in what's commonly called a "blood moon."

• SpaceX launch to feature rare booster landing in Bahamas

  It will be business as usual for SpaceX when it tries to send up a rocket from the Space Coast Thursday night, but not so much for when the rocket comes back down.

• 42 years of measuring the sun, the Earth and the energy in between

  On Jan. 31, 1958, Explorer 1 became the first satellite launched by the United States. Its primary science instrument, a cosmic ray detector, was designed to measure the radiation environment in Earth orbit. Though its final transmission was in May 1958, it continued to revolve around Earth more than 58,000 times. As those looping orbits continued, NASA was busy building other groundbreaking instruments to observe and better understand Earth's systems.

• NASA boss blasts Boeing and space agency managers for Starliner's botched astronaut flight

  NASA's new boss blasted Boeing and the space agency Thursday for Starliner's botched flight that left two astronauts stuck for months at the International Space Station.

• AI tool observes solar active regions to advance warnings of space weather

  New research by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and the National Science Foundation's National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF-NCAR) has developed a new tool providing a first step toward the ability to forecast space weather weeks in advance, instead of just hours. This advance warning could allow agencies and industries to mitigate impacts to GPS, power grids, astronaut safety and more.

• Why some objects in space look like snowmen: Gravitational collapse may shed light on contact binaries

  Astronomers have long debated why so many icy objects in the outer solar system look like snowmen. Michigan State University researchers now have evidence of the surprisingly simple process that could be responsible for their creation.

• NASA conducts second rocket fueling test that will decide when Artemis astronauts head to the moon

  NASA took another crack at fueling its giant moon rocket Thursday after leaks halted the initial dress rehearsal and delayed the first lunar trip by astronauts in more than half a century.

• Webb maps the mysterious upper atmosphere of Uranus

  For the first time, an international team of astronomers have mapped the vertical structure of Uranus's upper atmosphere, uncovering how temperature and charged particles vary with height across the planet. Using Webb's NIRSpec instrument, the team observed Uranus for nearly a full rotation, detecting the faint glow from molecules high above the clouds.

• How fast is the universe expanding? Supernova could provide the answer

  That the universe is expanding has been known for almost a hundred years now, but how fast? The exact rate of that expansion remains hotly debated, even challenging the standard model of cosmology. A research team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), the Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) and the Max Planck Institutes, MPA and MPE, has now imaged and modeled an exceptionally rare supernova that could provide a new, independent way to measure how fast the universe is expanding. The studies are published on the arXiv preprint server.

• Rocket re-entry pollution measured in atmosphere for first time

  When part of a SpaceX rocket re-entered Earth's atmosphere exactly a year ago, it created a spectacuglar fireball that streaked across Europe's skies, delighting stargazers and sending a team of scientists rushing toward their instruments.

• Largest ever radio sky survey maps the universe in unprecedented detail

  An international collaboration using the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) has published an exceptionally detailed radio sky map, revealing 13.7 million cosmic sources and delivering the most complete census yet of actively growing supermassive black holes. It showcases an extraordinary variety of systems powered by these black holes, whose radio emission can extend for millions of light-years.