A Hyper Velocity Star Found with an Exoplanet Hanging on for Dear Life

This artist’s concept visualizes a super-Neptune world orbiting a low-mass star near the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Scientists recently discovered such a system that may break the current record for fastest exoplanet system, traveling at least 1.2 million miles per hour, or 540 kilometers per second. NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (Caltech-IPAC)

Hypervelocity stars have been seen before but NASA scientists have just identified a potential record-breaking exoplanet system. They found a hypervelocity star that has a super-Neptune exoplanet in orbit around it. This discovery could reshape our understanding of planetary and orbital mechanics. Understanding more about these fascinating high velocity stars challenges current models of stellar evolution. However it formed, its amazing that somehow, it has managed to hang on to its planet through the process!

Continue reading “A Hyper Velocity Star Found with an Exoplanet Hanging on for Dear Life”

Efforts to Detect Alien Life Advanced by Simple Microbe Mobility Test

Bacteria - Credit : NASA

Finding alien life may have just got easier! If life does exist on other worlds in our Solar System then it’s likely to be tiny, primative bacteria. It’s not so easy to send microscopes to other worlds but chemistry may have just come to the rescue. Scientists have developed a test that detects microbial movement triggered by an amino acid known as  L-serine. In lab testing, three different types of microbes all moved towards this chemical and could be a strong indicator of life.

Continue reading “Efforts to Detect Alien Life Advanced by Simple Microbe Mobility Test”

Curiosity’s Other Important Job: Studying Martian Clouds

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this feather-shaped iridescent cloud just after sunset on Jan. 27, 2023. Studying the colors in iridescent clouds tells scientists something about particle size within the clouds and how they grow over time. These clouds were captured as part of a seasonal imaging campaign to study noctilucent, or “night-shining” clouds. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

MSL Curiosity is primarily a rockhound. It’s at Gale Crater, examining the rocks there and on Mt. Sharp, which sits in the middle of the crater and rises 5.5 km above the crater floor. But Curiosity is also a skywatcher, and its primary camera, Mastcam, was built with Martian clouds in mind.

Continue reading “Curiosity’s Other Important Job: Studying Martian Clouds”

A Balloon With a Tether Could Explore Venus’ Surface

Venus is very variable. Its surface constantly changes from volcanic activity, and the difference between its lower and upper atmosphere is night and day, with a dramatic change in sulfuric acid concentration. So, designing a system that works for all parts of Venus is particularly challenging. NASA thinks they might be on to a new idea of how to do so and has funded Ben Hockman, a roboticist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to work on a tethered atmospheric sensor attached to a balloon as part of the NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts Phase I program.

Continue reading “A Balloon With a Tether Could Explore Venus’ Surface”

Hydrogels Could Be Ideal Radiation Protection For Astronauts

Space radiation
Space radiation: the threat is real. Credit: ESA

Hydrogel protection could be crucial for safe human space exploration.

It’s a key problem that will need to be addressed, if humans are to attempt deep-space, long duration missions. Not only is radiation exposure a dangerous health risk to humans, but it also poses a hazard to equipment and operating systems. Now, a team at Ghent University in Belgium are testing a possible solution: 3D printed hydrogels, which could provide deformable layers of water-filled protection.

Continue reading “Hydrogels Could Be Ideal Radiation Protection For Astronauts”

To Probe the Interior of Neutron Stars, We Must Study the Gravitational Waves from their Collisions

neutron star merger and gamma ray burst
Artistic representation of two merging neutron stars. Credit: Dana Berry, SkyWorks Digital, Inc.

When massive stars reach the end of their life cycle, they undergo gravitational collapse and shed their outer layers in a massive explosion (a supernova). Whereas particularly massive stars will leave a black hole in their wake, others leave behind a stellar remnant known as a neutron star (or white dwarf). These objects concentrate a mass greater than the entire Solar System into a volume measuring (on average) just 20 km (~12.5 mi) in diameter. Meanwhile, the extreme conditions inside neutron stars are still a mystery to astronomers.

In 2017, the first collision between two neutron stars was detected from the gravitational waves (GWs) it produced. Since then, astronomers have theorized how GWs could be used to probe the interiors of neutron stars and learn more about the extreme physics taking place. According to new research by a team from Goethe University Frankfurt and other institutions, the GWs produced by binary neutron star (BNS) mergers mere milliseconds after they merge could be the best means of probing the interiors of these mysterious objects.

Continue reading “To Probe the Interior of Neutron Stars, We Must Study the Gravitational Waves from their Collisions”

The JWST Gives Us Our Best Image of Planets Forming Around a Star

Astronomers used the JWST's interferometry mode to study the PDS 70 extrasolar system. Image Credit: Blakely et al. 2024.

Planets are born in swirling disks of gas and dust around young stars. Astronomers are keenly interested in the planet formation process, and understanding that process is one of the JWST’s main science goals. PDS 70 is a nearby star with two nascent planets forming in its disk, two of the very few exoplanets that astronomers have directly imaged.

Researchers developed a new, innovative approach to observing PDS 70 with the JWST and uncovered more details about the system, including the possible presence of a third planet.

Continue reading “The JWST Gives Us Our Best Image of Planets Forming Around a Star”

The Euclid Space Telescope Captures a Rare, Stunning Einstein Ring

An Einstein Ring takes center stage in a sky filled with colourful stars and galaxies. Image Credit: ESA/Euclid/Euclid Consortium/NASA, image processing by J.-C. Cuillandre, G. Anselmi, T. Li. LICENCE: CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO or ESA Standard Licence

Sometimes, things across the vast Universe line up just right for us. The Einstein Ring above, like all Einstein Rings, has three parts. In the foreground is a distant massive object like a galaxy or galaxy cluster. In the background, at an even greater distance away, is a star or another galaxy.

We’re the observers, the third part, and all three must be perfectly aligned for an Einstein Ring to appear.

Continue reading “The Euclid Space Telescope Captures a Rare, Stunning Einstein Ring”

Tiny Solar Jets Drive the Sun’s Fast and Slow Solar Wind

Tiny jets escape from the Sun and power the solar wind. Courtesy ESA.
Tiny jets escape from the Sun and power the solar wind. Courtesy ESA.

Our Sun is a giant plasma windbag spewing a constant stream of charged particles called the solar wind. This stream leaves the Sun at speeds around 400 to 800 kilometers per second and extends to the outer edge of the Solar System to about 125 astronomical units. Astronomers have long wondered about what feeds this powerful outflow.

Continue reading “Tiny Solar Jets Drive the Sun’s Fast and Slow Solar Wind”

A Blown-Glass Structure Could House Astronauts on the Moon

Humanity will eventually need somewhere to live on the Moon. While aesthetics might not be the primary consideration when deciding what kind of habitat to build, it sure doesn’t hurt. The more pleasing the look of the habitat, the better, but ultimately, the functionality will determine whether or not it will be built. Dr. Martin Bermudez thinks he found a sweet synergy that was both functional and aesthetically pleasing with his design for a spherical lunar habitat made out of blown glass. NASA apparently agrees there’s potential there, as he recently received a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase I grant to flesh out the concept further.

Continue reading “A Blown-Glass Structure Could House Astronauts on the Moon”