Science Archives

October 31, 2024October 31, 2024 by Evan Gough

This is What it Sounds Like When the Earth’s Poles Flip

Ever wondered what a geomagnetic excursion sounds like? The ESA does. Image Credit: ESA

Is there something strange and alien confined deep inside the Earth? Is it trying to break free and escape into the heavens? No, of course not.

But in a new soundscape from the ESA, it sure sounds like it.

October 28, 2024October 28, 2024 by Evan Gough

Add Astronaut Nutrition to the List of Barriers to Long-Duration Spaceflight

NASA Astronauts Kjell Lindgren (center) and Scott Kelly (right) and Kimiya Yui (left) of Japan consume space grown food for the first time ever, from the Veggie plant growth system on the International Space Station in August 2015. Credit: NASA TV

Though there are no firm plans for a crewed mission to Mars, we all know one’s coming. Astronauts routinely spend months at a time on the ISS, and we’ve learned a lot about the hazards astronauts face on long missions. However, Mars missions can take years, which presents a whole host of problems, including astronaut nutrition.

Nutrition can help astronauts manage spaceflight risks in the ISS, but long-duration missions to Mars are different. There can be no resupply.

October 23, 2024October 23, 2024 by Evan Gough

NASA is Building Telescopes for the LISA Mission

NASA is supplying all six telescopes for their joint LISA mission with the ESA. In this image, a technician is inspecting a prototype in a clean room at the Goddard Space Flight Center. Image Credit: NASA/Dennis Henry

Some of the most cataclysmic and mysterious events in the cosmos only reveal themselves by their gravitational waves. We’ve detected some of them with our ground-based detectors, but the size of these detectors is limited. The next step forward in gravitational wave (GW) astronomy is a space-based detector: LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.

October 18, 2024October 18, 2024 by Evan Gough

The Sun Has Reached Its Solar Maximum and it Could Last for One Year

These extreme UV light images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the Sun at solar minimum (left, Dec. 2019) compared to the current solar maximum. Image Credit: NASA/SDO

For most of human history, the Sun appeared stable. It was a stoic stellar presence, going about its business fusing hydrogen into helium beyond our awareness and helping Earth remain habitable. But in our modern technological age, that facade fell away.

We now know that the Sun is governed by its powerful magnetic fields, and as these fields cycle through their changes, the Sun becomes more active. Right now, according to NASA, the Sun is at its solar maximum, a time of increased activity.

September 24, 2024September 24, 2024 by Evan Gough

How a Nearby Supernova Left its Mark on Earth Life

Artist's impression of a supernova. Supernovae bombarded Earth with radiation that has implications for the development of life on Earth. Image Credit: NASA

When a massive star explodes as a supernova, it does more than release an extraordinary amount of energy. Supernovae explosions are responsible for creating some of the heavy elements, including iron, which is blasted out into space by the explosion. On Earth, there are two accumulations of the iron isotope Fe60 in sea-floor sediments that scientists trace back about two or three million years ago and about five to six million years ago.

The explosions that created the iron also dosed Earth with cosmic radiation.

September 23, 2024September 23, 2024 by Evan Gough

From Frozen to Sweltering: Earth’s Climate Over the Last 485 Million Years

New research shows the global mean surface temperature across the last 485 million years. The gray shading corresponds to different confidence levels, and the black line shows the average. The colored bands along the top reflect the climate state, with cooler colors indicating icehouse (coolhouse and coldhouse) climates, warmer colors indicating greenhouse (warmhouse and hothouse) climates, and the gray representing a transitional state. Image Credit: Judd et al. 2024.

Earth’s last half-billion years were action-packed. During that time, the climate underwent many changes. There have been changes in ocean levels and ice sheets, changes in the atmosphere’s composition, changes in ocean chemistry, and ongoing biological evolution punctuated with extinction events.

A record of Earth’s temperature over the last 485 million years is helping scientists understand how it all played out and illustrating what could happen if we continue to enrich the atmosphere with carbon.

September 20, 2024September 20, 2024 by Evan Gough

Io’s Volcanoes are Windows into its Hot Interior

Juno captured this image of Io during Perijove 57. Data from Juno's JIRAM instrument is helping researchers understand how tidal heating shapes the moon's volcanic activity. Image Credit: NASA / SWRI / MSSS / Jason Perry © cc nc sa

NASA’s Juno spacecraft was sent to Jupiter to study the gas giant. But its mission was extended, giving it an opportunity to study the unique moon Io. Io is the most volcanically active body in the Solar System, with over 400 active volcanoes.

Researchers have taken advantage of Juno’s flybys of Io to study how tidal heating affects the moon.

September 19, 2024September 25, 2024 by Evan Gough

Plants Would Still Grow Well Under Alien Skies

This is an artist's illustration of the rocky super Earth HD 219134. It orbits a K-type star, a long-lived stable type of main sequence star. The light from K-type stars is different than the Sun's. Can Earth plants photosynthesize effectively near these stars? Image Credit: By NASA/JPL-Caltech - http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA19833.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41995148

Photosynthesis changed Earth in powerful ways. When photosynthetic organisms appeared, it led to the Great Oxygenation Event. That allowed multicellular life to evolve and resulted in the ozone layer. Life could venture onto land, protected from the Sun’s intense ultraviolet radiation.

But Earth’s photosynthetic organisms evolved under the Sun’s specific illumination. How would plants do under other stars?

September 13, 2024September 13, 2024 by Evan Gough

A Gravity Map of Mars Uncovers Subsurface Mysteries

In this new gravity map of Mars, the red circles show prominent volcanoes and the black circles show impact craters with a diameter larger than a few 100 km. A gravity high signal is located in the volcanic Tharsis Region (the red area in the center right of the image), which is surrounded by a ring of negative gravity anomaly (shown in blue). Credit: Root et al.

A team of scientists presented a new gravity map of Mars at the Europlanet Science Congress 2024. The map shows the presence of dense, large-scale structures under Mars’ long-gone ocean and that mantle processes are affecting Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in the Solar System.

September 12, 2024September 12, 2024 by Evan Gough

Groundbreaking New Maps of the Sun’s Coronal Magnetic Fields

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope has mapped the magnetic field of the Sun's corona for the first time. The corona is the source of most space weather, and this map will help scientists better understand the corona, space weather and other stars. Image Credit: Schad et al. 2024.

If you enjoyed this summer’s display of aurora borealis, thank the Sun’s corona. The corona is the Sun’s outer layer and is the source of most space weather, including aurorae. The aurora borealis are benign light shows, but not all space weather produces such harmless displays; some of it is dangerous and destructive.

In an effort to understand space weather and the solar corona, the National Science Foundation aimed the world’s most powerful solar telescope, the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, at the corona to map its magnetic fields.