Civilizations Could Use Gravitational Lenses to Transmit Power From Star to Star
A new paper shows how gravitational lenses could be used to beam power from one star system to another.
A Comprehensive Blueprint for the Settlement of Mars
A new study considers all the challenges, benefits, and necessary steps for settling Mars.
More JWST Observations are Finding Fewer Early Massive Galaxies
Astronomers using JWST were surprised to find mature-looking galaxies in the early Universe; they challenged existing models of cosmology. Astronomers wanted to see if these were ubiquitous, so they examined 19 galaxies in a different part of the sky. They measured high-redshift galaxies but did not find the same unusual mass distribution. This led them to suggest that those initial discoveries were outliers and not indicative of the early Universe.
What’s Next for NASA’s UFO Research? Outside Observers Weigh In
BOULDER, Colo. — NASA says it’s going to play a bigger role in studying what’s behind unidentified anomalous phenomena, the newfangled name for what we used to call UFOs. But exactly how should NASA step into that role? The astrophysicist who helped get the ball rolling last year as NASA’s associate administrator for science is …
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Gluttonous Black Holes Eat Faster Than Thought. Does That Explain Quasars?
At the heart of large galaxies like our Milky Way, there resides a supermassive black hole (SMBH.) These behemoths draw stars, gas, and dust toward them with their irresistible gravitational pull. When they consume this material, there’s a bright flare of energy, the brightest of which are quasars. While astrophysicists think that SMBHs eat too …
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Do The Gaps in Protoplanetary Disks Really Indicate Newly Forming Planets?
Modern instruments like ALMA have revealed newly forming stars surrounded by accretion disks. These images are so sensitive you can even see the gaps in the disk where new planets form, right? Maybe not. According to a new paper, systems with many newly forming planets are inherently unstable, so they can’t all indicate new worlds. Some gaps and rings around the stars might just indicate collections of pebbles that can never accrete into actual planets. The challenge will be to figure out which is which.
An Improved Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator Could Dramatically Reduce The Weight Of Interplanetary Missions
Radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) are the power plants of the interplanetary spacecraft. Or at least they have been for going on 50 years now. But they have significant drawbacks, the primary one being that they’re heavy. Even modern-day RTG designs run into the hundreds of kilograms, making them useful for large-scale missions like Perseverance but …
We Could SCATTER CubeSats Around Uranus To Track How It Changes
Exploration missions to the outer solar system are still sorely lacking, even though they were highly prioritized in the Planetary Science Decadal Survey from 2013-2022. In fact, many planets in the outer solar system have never even been orbited by a probe. For one in particular – Uranus – we must rely on data from …
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Does Beaming Power in Space Make Sense at the Moon?
The ESA is conducting a study to assess the potential for building space based solar power satellites… on the Moon!
A Planet Was Swallowed by a Red Giant, But it Survived
When our Sun runs out of hydrogen fuel in its core, it’ll switch to burning helium and bloat up as a red giant. This will make it 100 times larger, gobbling up the inner planets and maybe even Earth. Maybe there’s hope. Astronomers have found a planet orbiting a dying star that must have been swallowed up during that expansion phase. The star would have been 1.5 times bigger during the red giant phase than the planet’s orbit. Being inside a red giant star doesn’t lead to the inevitable death of a planet.