The purpose of this blog is the creation of an open, international, independent and free forum, where every UFO-researcher can publish the results of his/her research. The languagues, used for this blog, are Dutch, English and French.You can find the articles of a collegue by selecting his category. Each author stays resposable for the continue of his articles. As blogmaster I have the right to refuse an addition or an article, when it attacks other collegues or UFO-groupes.
Druk op onderstaande knop om te reageren in mijn forum
Zoeken in blog
Deze blog is opgedragen aan mijn overleden echtgenote Lucienne.
In 2012 verloor ze haar moedige strijd tegen kanker!
In 2011 startte ik deze blog, omdat ik niet mocht stoppen met mijn UFO-onderzoek.
BEDANKT!!!
Een interessant adres?
UFO'S of UAP'S, ASTRONOMIE, RUIMTEVAART, ARCHEOLOGIE, OUDHEIDKUNDE, SF-SNUFJES EN ANDERE ESOTERISCHE WETENSCHAPPEN - DE ALLERLAATSTE NIEUWTJES
UFO's of UAP'S in België en de rest van de wereld Ontdek de Fascinerende Wereld van UFO's en UAP's: Jouw Bron voor Onthullende Informatie!
Ben jij ook gefascineerd door het onbekende? Wil je meer weten over UFO's en UAP's, niet alleen in België, maar over de hele wereld? Dan ben je op de juiste plek!
België: Het Kloppend Hart van UFO-onderzoek
In België is BUFON (Belgisch UFO-Netwerk) dé autoriteit op het gebied van UFO-onderzoek. Voor betrouwbare en objectieve informatie over deze intrigerende fenomenen, bezoek je zeker onze Facebook-pagina en deze blog. Maar dat is nog niet alles! Ontdek ook het Belgisch UFO-meldpunt en Caelestia, twee organisaties die diepgaand onderzoek verrichten, al zijn ze soms kritisch of sceptisch.
Nederland: Een Schat aan Informatie
Voor onze Nederlandse buren is er de schitterende website www.ufowijzer.nl, beheerd door Paul Harmans. Deze site biedt een schat aan informatie en artikelen die je niet wilt missen!
Internationaal: MUFON - De Wereldwijde Autoriteit
Neem ook een kijkje bij MUFON (Mutual UFO Network Inc.), een gerenommeerde Amerikaanse UFO-vereniging met afdelingen in de VS en wereldwijd. MUFON is toegewijd aan de wetenschappelijke en analytische studie van het UFO-fenomeen, en hun maandelijkse tijdschrift, The MUFON UFO-Journal, is een must-read voor elke UFO-enthousiasteling. Bezoek hun website op www.mufon.com voor meer informatie.
Samenwerking en Toekomstvisie
Sinds 1 februari 2020 is Pieter niet alleen ex-president van BUFON, maar ook de voormalige nationale directeur van MUFON in Vlaanderen en Nederland. Dit creëert een sterke samenwerking met de Franse MUFON Reseau MUFON/EUROP, wat ons in staat stelt om nog meer waardevolle inzichten te delen.
Let op: Nepprofielen en Nieuwe Groeperingen
Pas op voor een nieuwe groepering die zich ook BUFON noemt, maar geen enkele connectie heeft met onze gevestigde organisatie. Hoewel zij de naam geregistreerd hebben, kunnen ze het rijke verleden en de expertise van onze groep niet evenaren. We wensen hen veel succes, maar we blijven de autoriteit in UFO-onderzoek!
Blijf Op De Hoogte!
Wil jij de laatste nieuwtjes over UFO's, ruimtevaart, archeologie, en meer? Volg ons dan en duik samen met ons in de fascinerende wereld van het onbekende! Sluit je aan bij de gemeenschap van nieuwsgierige geesten die net als jij verlangen naar antwoorden en avonturen in de sterren!
Heb je vragen of wil je meer weten? Aarzel dan niet om contact met ons op te nemen! Samen ontrafelen we het mysterie van de lucht en daarbuiten.
A petrographic thin section of Apollo 17 sample 72275, a fragmental breccia. Photo credit: Randy Korotev
A set of instruments shut off almost 50 years ago are still producing useful results. It’s the seismometers left by the Apollo missions to monitor moonquakes, which as the name suggests are earthquakes but on the Moon. First off, the Apollo seismometers were the first to reveal that the Moon does indeed have quakes, which is an impressive achievement in its own right. And once we realized that the Moon shakes, we’ve been able to use the natural seismic vibrations produced inside the Moon to map out its interior structure.
It's the same way that we can map out the interior of the Earth. Vibrations travel at different speeds through different kinds of materials, just like sounds are different in the air versus under water.
The reason that the Apollo-era seismometers, which were shut off in 1978, still provide useful results is that even though they’re not producing data, our analysis techniques and understanding have improved. This means we can squeeze more information out of the data we already have, and decades after the seismometers went silent, we were able to use their data to find evidence for the existence of the Moon’s core.
So the Moon’s got a core, that’s nice. What’s the big deal? The big deal is that it’s best to stop thinking of the Moon as merely the natural satellite of the Earth. Instead, think of it as small rocky terrestrial world in its own right. It’s stepping out of the shadow and into the limelight, and it’s got something to say.
I’m reframing this because the Moon is our keystone to understanding how ALL terrestrial planets – Mercury, Venus, Mars, and yes, even Earth – evolved in their early history. That’s because the Moon still retains a record, a memory, of its younger days, frozen in place for billions of years. The Earth doesn’t remember most of its ancient history because of all our plate tectonics. We haven’t landed on Mercury. We’ve technically landed on Venus, but that wasn’t for very long so it doesn’t count. And yes, we’ve landed a lot on Mars, and even collected some samples…but we haven’t figured out how to get those samples back to Earth.
So not only does the Moon retain a memory of what all terrestrial planets go through, it’s right there and we’ve been able to touch it! And bring some back! And, and smell it! By cracking open Moon rocks, by looking at seismometer data, by looking at core samples, by looking at heat flow data, we can piece together what happened on the Moon and use that knowledge to inform what happens to Mars, Venus, Mercury…and Earth.
And what happened to the Moon was, put simply, not very pretty. We now know that there was a phase, shortly after it formed, when the Moon was covered in a single magma ocean with a depth of around 500 kilometers. What we call the Lunar highlands are simply the slightly-less-dense rock that floated to the surface of that magma ocean and then solidified first. What floated to the top and cooled was largely minerals containing oxygen and silicon, with iron sinking down to form the core – hey wait a minute, that’s exactly like the Earth! I told you the Moon could tell us about our own planet.
Shortly after the surface of the Moon largely cooled and the crust formed, it suffered a series of intense impacts, an epoch between 3.85 and 4 billion years ago called the Late Heavy Bombardment. Just strike after strike after strike, like a brutal uneven boxing match that you just can’t look away from. Each of those impacts formed breccias, which comes from the Italian word for rubble. Why we didn’t just call it rubble, I don’t know.
Breccias are formed when you have a bunch of different kinds of rocks and minerals doing their own thing, minding their own business, when WHAM a meteorite comes crashing in, smashing and mixing and fusing everything together, and then all those minerals are forced to cohabitate in the same rocks.
Finally, after the late heavy bombardment, the moon suffered periods of major volcanism, which would explode and pour liquid hot magma across their surroundings, generating the mare, or seas, that we see today.
Artist's depiction of comets containing semi-heavy water hitting Earth. Credit - NASA / Theophilus Britt Griswold
Comets are like the archeological sites of the solar system. They formed early on, and their composition helps us understand what the area around the early Sun was like, potentially even before any planets were formed. A new paper from researchers at a variety of US and European institutions used the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) to capture detailed spatial spectral images of comet 12P/Pons-Brooks, which is very similar to the famous Halley’s comet, and might hold clues to where the water on the Earth came from.
It might not be intuitively obvious just looking at it, but there are three types of water in Earth’s ocean. H2O, what we think of as regular water, is the most common, but there’s another, less common type known as semi-heavy water. Semi-heavy water replaces one of the hydrogen atoms in a water molecule with a deuterium atom - essentially a “heavy” version of hydrogen with two neutrons. About one in every 3,200 water molecules in the oceans is made up of this semi-heavy molecule, which is known as the D/H ratio. Even more rare is the true “heavy” water, where both hydrogen atoms are replaced with deuterium, which only happens in one in every 41 million water molecules.
The ratio of regular water to semi-heavy water has been of interest to astronomers for a long time as it can be used as evidence for where that water came from. There aren’t any biological or chemical processes that would change that ratio on a global scale, so it should be the same as when water was first delivered to Earth. Astronomers had long debated whether or not comets were that delivery mechanism, but data so far had been mixed as best about whether the ratio of semi-heavy water to water in the comets themselves was the same as that on Earth.
Fraser discusses the Oort Cloud, the source of many comets
Most previous comets that had been observed had higher D/H ratios in the water in their coma than that of Earth’s oceans, calling into question whether they were the original source. However, more recently comets from other “families”, such as Oort-cloud comets and Jupiter-family comets, which have a distinct orbital path from Halley-types like 12P/Pons-Brooks, have been found to have the correct D/H ratio, bringing these interplanetary travelers back into the spotlight as a potential source of Earth’s water.
However, up until now, no one had yet found the correct D/H ratio in a Halley-type comet. That’s really the most important finding of the new paper - ALMA watched the coma of 12P/Pons-Brooks in April and May 2024, with one continual week-long observational period capturing data on the semi-heavy water in it, and a single day capturing the much stronger spectrographic signal of the normal water.
To reconcile these two observational times, and any changes that might have occurred between them, the researchers used a radiative transfer model based on methanol, another common cometary gas, as a proxy for the potential variability in the rate of water production. To prove this point, the researchers also utilized data from the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility to prove that the production rate of both methanol and water didn’t change. Importantly, this proved that both the water and semi-heavy water in the coma was being produced by sublimation from the nucleus, not through chemical reactions in the coma itself.
Dr. Paul Hartogh discusses the D/H ratio in comets.
Credit - Serious Science YouTube Channel
One added feature of the ALMA data was its spatial resolution, and it was the first time that spatial data of these ratios was obtained for a Halley-type comet. While that particular finding didn’t have a major impact on the overall D/H ratio, it might be useful for future studies on the physics of comets. It can also be combined with spatial data from other types of comets that hint at an interesting theory - that, despite our different labels for them, they might have all come from the same place originally. The ratios are similar enough that the researchers suggest that the comets might have developed within 10AU of each other in the early solar system, essentially making only what happened to them afterward the differentiator between what we now view as different classes of comets.
More data is needed to prove that theory, but if it is true then comets are not only spectacular visitors that light up the sky every so often. They are a common thread that ties everything in the solar system together throughout its billion year history. While this paper in particular contributes to our understanding of that, and how they might have been the driving force of the creation of Earth’s oceans, there’s still a lot we don’t know about them - which means it is indeed time to collect more data.
Het Langdurige Mysterie van het Ontbrekende Normale Materie in het Universum: Een Doorbraak in de Astrofysica
Het Langdurige Mysterie van het Ontbrekende Normale Materie in het Universum: Een Doorbraak in de Astrofysica
Een afbeelding van een kunstenaar toont hoe korte, heldere flitsen van radiogolven door de mist tussen sterrenstelsels reizen, bekend als het intergalactische medium. Elke golflengte stelt astronomen in staat om de anders onzichtbare gewone materie te 'wegen'.
Melissa Weiss/CfA
Het universum, zoals wij het kennen, bestaat uit een complexe samenstelling van materie en energie. Hoewel wetenschappers aanzienlijke vorderingen hebben gemaakt in het begrijpen van de kosmische samenstelling, blijft een intrigerend vraagstuk bestaan: waar is al het 'normale' materie dat volgens theorieën en waarnemingen had moeten bestaan, maar tot nu toe grotendeels ontbrak in onze observaties? Recent onderzoek suggereert dat een lang bestaand raadsel over de zogenaamde 'ontbrekende' materie mogelijk opgelost is. Deze ontdekking heeft de potentie om ons begrip van de kosmische structuur en de evolutie van het heelal ingrijpend te veranderen.
Het Probleem van de Ontbrekende Materie
Het concept van 'normale' materie, ook wel baryonische materie genoemd, verwijst naar de materie die opgebouwd is uit baryonen: de elementaire deeltjes zoals protonen en neutronen. Deze vormen de basis van sterren, planeten, gaswolkjes en alles wat we kunnen waarnemen met het blote oog of telescopen. Het is de materie die wij kennen en die zichtbaar is in het universum. Toch bestaat er een fundamenteel probleem dat wetenschappers al decennia bezighoudt: de hoeveelheid baryonische materie die we in het heelal waarnemen, komt niet overeen met de hoeveelheid die we theoretisch verwachten op basis van kosmologische modellen en waarnemingen van de oerknal.
In de jaren 1950 al ontdekten astronomen dat de hoeveelheid baryonische materie in het heelal niet volledig kan worden verklaard door de objecten die we direct kunnen zien, zoals sterren en gaswolken. Toen ze de gegevens vergeleken met de voorspellende modellen van het heelal, bleek dat er een aanzienlijk deel van de baryonen ontbrak. Dit was een opmerkelijk probleem omdat het betekende dat er een grote hoeveelheid materie moest zijn die we niet konden detecteren, hoewel de theorieën en metingen aangeven dat ze aanwezig moesten zijn.
In het begin van de 21e eeuw werden de schattingen van de baryonische inhoud van het heelal verfijnd door middel van geavanceerde observaties. Onderzoek naar de kosmische microgolfachtergrond, de straling die de oerknal herinnert, gaf een eerste indicatie van de hoeveelheid baryonische materie die in het heelal aanwezig is. Daarnaast werden grote schaalstructuren zoals clusters van sterrenstelsels bestudeerd. Deze clusters bevatten enorme hoeveelheden gas dat zich uitstrekt over miljoenen lichtjaren en dat voornamelijk bestaat uit baryonen. Uit deze metingen bleek dat ongeveer 5% van de totale energie-inhoud van het heelal uit baryonische materie bestaat, volgens de standaard kosmologische modellen.
Maar hier ligt het probleem: als we proberen te tellen hoeveel baryonen we daadwerkelijk kunnen waarnemen in het heelal, dan komen we tot de conclusie dat slechts een fractie van die 5% echt zichtbaar is. We kunnen sterren, gaswolken en andere objecten tellen en meten, maar deze waarnemingen laten slechts een deel zien van de baryonen die volgens de modellen aanwezig zouden moeten zijn. Het resterende deel lijkt te 'verdwijnen' in de waarnemingen, wat heeft geleid tot de benaming ‘missing baryons’ of ‘ontbrekende materie’. Met andere woorden, er zou een groot deel van de baryonische materie in het heelal moeten zijn, maar die is tot nu toe niet direct zichtbaar of detecteerbaar met de instrumenten die we tot onze beschikking hebben.
Het ontbreken van deze baryonen vormt een van de grootste raadsels in de moderne kosmologie. Verschillende theorieën en onderzoekslijnen proberen te verklaren waar deze 'verdwenen' materie zich zou kunnen bevinden. Een veelgehoorde hypothese is dat deze baryonen zich in een soort diffuse, hete gaswolk bevinden die zich uitstrekt tussen de sterrenstelsels en clusters van sterrenstelsels, de zogenaamde 'warm-hot intergalactic medium' (WHIM). Dit gas is extreem dun en heet, waardoor het moeilijk te detecteren is met traditionele telescopen die vooral gevoelig zijn voor zichtbaar licht of koud gas.
Het onderzoek naar de ontbrekende baryonen is complex en vereist geavanceerde instrumenten en technieken, zoals X-ray telescopen en spectroscopie om het zwakke signaal van het diffuse gas op te vangen. Het vinden en bestuderen van deze ontbrekende materie is essentieel om een compleet beeld te krijgen van de samenstelling van het heelal en om de evolutie ervan beter te begrijpen. Het oplossen van dit vraagstuk kan ook nieuwe inzichten bieden in de dynamiek van het heelal, de werking van donkere materie en de aard van de kosmische evolutie.
Kortom, het probleem van de ontbrekende baryonische materie is een van de grote raadsels in de hedendaagse astronomie en kosmologie. Het benadrukt dat zelfs de meest fundamentele onderdelen van het universum, de materie die we het beste kennen, nog steeds mysteries bevat die wachten om opgelost te worden. Het zoeken naar deze 'verdwenen' baryonen is niet alleen een zoektocht naar ontbrekende materie, maar ook een zoektocht naar meer inzicht in de fundamentele werking van ons heelal.
De zoektocht naar de ontbrekende baryonen
Gedurende decennia waren astronomen vastbesloten om dit mysterie op te lossen. Verschillende hypothesen werden geopperd over waar deze baryonen zich konden bevinden. Eén van de meest aannemelijke theorieën stelde dat de ontbrekende materie zich bevindt in een diffuse, hete gaswolk die zich uitstrekt over de intergalactische ruimte. Dit heet het Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM), een extreem dunne en hete gasfase met temperaturen tussen 10^5 en 10^7 Kelvin. Vanwege de lage dichtheid en hoge temperatuur is het echter bijzonder moeilijk te detecteren met traditionele telescopen.
Recentelijk is er echter een belangrijke doorbraak geweest. Astronomen hebben gebruikgemaakt van geavanceerde instrumenten zoals de Cosmic Origins Spectrograph op de Hubble-ruimtetelescoop en de X-ray observatoria zoals Chandra en XMM-Newton. Door nauwkeurig te kijken naar de spectra van heldere achtergrondbronnen, zoals quasars, konden ze absorptielijnen identificeren die wijzen op het bestaan van het WHIM.
Een baanbrekende studie, gepubliceerd in 2023, toont aan dat een aanzienlijk deel van de ontbrekende baryonen inderdaad in dit hete, diffuse gas bevindt. Door meerdere lijnen van bevestiging te combineren, konden onderzoekers de hoeveelheid baryonische massa in het WHIM nauwkeurig schatten. Deze metingen suggereren dat ongeveer 60-70% van de 'verdwenen' baryonen nu wordt gevonden in deze intergalactische gaswolken.
Wat deze nieuwe bevindingen bijzonder maakt, is dat ze overeenkomen met de resultaten van recente onderzoeken die gebruikmaakten van Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs). Sinds 2007 zijn meer dan duizend FRBs gedetecteerd, waarvan slechts ongeveer 100 konden worden herleid tot hun galaxieën. Deze korte, krachtige radiosignalen fungeren als kosmische zaklampen die door de intergalactische ruimte reizen. Hun licht wordt beïnvloed door de materie die ze passeren: hoe meer materie, hoe meer de signalen vertragen, vooral in het zogenoemde plasma dispersion effect.
De 69 onderzochte FRBs, waarvan sommige zich op afstanden van 11,74 miljoen tot bijna 9,1 miljard lichtjaar bevinden, bieden een nieuwe manier om de verdeling van materie te bestuderen. Het meest verre FRB, genaamd FRB 20230521B, werd tijdens het onderzoek ontdekt en is momenteel het meest afgelegen waargenomen FRB. Met behulp van het Deep Synoptic Array, een netwerk van 110 radiotelescopen nabij Bishop, Californië, konden de onderzoekers 39 van deze FRBs traceren naar hun oorsprong. Daarnaast werden de afstanden gemeten met telescopen zoals Keck en Palomar in Hawaii en San Diego. De overige 30 FRBs werden gevonden met de Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder en andere telescopen wereldwijd.
Wanneer radiosignalen als FRBs door de ruimte reizen, worden ze beïnvloed door de materie die ze passeren. Hoe meer materie in hun pad, des te meer worden de signalen vertraagd of verspreid in verschillende golflengten. Dit fenomeen, plasma dispersie genoemd, stelt astronomen in staat om de hoeveelheid en verdeling van de intergalactische materie te meten. Door de vertragingen in verschillende golflengten te analyseren, konden de onderzoekers het gas dat de FRBs passeerden in kaart brengen.
Volgens Connor, een van de onderzoekers, fungeren FRBs als korte kosmische lantaarns: “We kunnen heel precies meten hoe de radiosignalen vertraagd worden op verschillende golflengten (plasma dispersie), en dat geeft ons een manier om alle baryon(en) mee te tellen.” Co-auteur Vikram Ravi vergelijkt het met het zien van de schaduw van alle baryonen: “Als je een persoon voor je ziet, kun je veel over hem te weten komen. Maar als je alleen zijn schaduw ziet, weet je nog steeds dat hij er is en ongeveer hoe groot hij is.”
Door deze nieuwe methode konden de onderzoekers de verdeling van het baryonische materie in het heelal beter in kaart brengen. Het resultaat toont aan dat 76% van de kosmische materie zich bevindt als heet, laag-dicht gas tussen de sterrenstelsels, terwijl 15% in galactische halo’s ligt. De rest bevindt zich binnen de sterren, planeten en koud gas in de sterrenstelsels zelf.
Een illustratie van een kunstenaar toont gewone materie als kleurige plekken in de ruimten tussen sterrenstelsels.
Jack Madden/IllustrisTNG/Ralf Konietzka/Liam Connor/CfA
Impliceert voor ons begrip van het heelal
Deze recente observatiegebaseerde bevindingen bieden een belangrijke aanvulling op ons huidige begrip van het heelal en bevestigen enkele langverwachte theorieën over de verdeling van materie in het kosmos. Ze sluiten naadloos aan bij eerdere voorspellingen uit geavanceerde simulaties en modelleringen, en laten zien dat het 'missing baryon problem'—het probleem dat wetenschappers al decennia lang proberen op te lossen—voor een groot deel een kwestie was van waar de materie zich bevindt in plaats van of die materie überhaupt bestond.
Het 'missing baryon problem' verwijst naar de discrepantie tussen de hoeveelheid baryonische materie (de normale materie die uit protonen en neutronen bestaat) die we zien in sterrenstelsels, gaswolken en andere zichtbare objecten, en de hoeveelheid die we theoretisch verwachten op basis van de kosmische achtergrondstraling en de modellering van het vroege heelal. Voorheen was het onduidelijk waar het grootste deel van deze baryonen zich bevond, want veel ervan was niet zichtbaar met de bestaande instrumenten. Nieuwe observaties, onder andere door middel van snelle radio-observaties en het gebruik van Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs), hebben nu uitgewezen dat een groot deel van deze baryonische materie zich bevindt in het Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM).
William H. Kinney, professor in de fysica aan de Universiteit van Buffalo, benadrukt dat de materie zelf al lang bekend was, maar dat we nu met nieuwe technieken en instrumenten hebben vastgesteld dat het grootste deel ervan in het WHIM ligt. Kinney zegt: “De decennia oude ‘missing baryon problem’ was nooit over of de materie er was, maar vooral over waar die zich bevond.” Het is een belangrijke doorbraak omdat het de lang bestaande onzekerheid wegneemt dat deze materie misschien niet bestond, en in plaats daarvan aantoont dat het zich voornamelijk in diffuse, warm en uitgestrekte gaswolken bevindt die zich tussen de sterrenstelsels uitstrekken.
Connor, een ander wetenschapper die betrokken is bij dit onderzoek, voegt hieraan toe: “Dankzij FRBs weten we nu dat driekwart van de baryonen in het heelal zweeft tussen de sterrenstelsels, in de kosmische webstructuur.” Deze kosmische webstructuur bestaat uit filamenten van gas en donkere materie die de grote schaal van het heelal vormen. De metingen van FRBs—zeer korte en krachtige radiogolven die door het heelal reizen—maken het mogelijk om de hoeveelheid materie die ze doorkruisen te bepalen, doordat de vertraging van het radiosignaal (de dispersie) wordt beïnvloed door de hoeveelheid gas dat het passeert.
Het begrijpen van deze verdeling van baryonische materie is van groot belang voor het verfijnen van onze modellen over de evolutie en structuurvorming van het heelal. Het laat zien dat een aanzienlijk deel van de materie niet zichtbaar is met traditionele telescopen, omdat het zich in een warm, dun gas bevindt dat moeilijk te detecteren is. Dit gas wordt verwarmd tot temperaturen tussen ongeveer 10^5 en 10^7 Kelvin, waardoor het vooral zichtbaar wordt in de röntgenstraling. Dit verklaart waarom eerdere observaties met bijvoorbeeld optische en radiotelescopen niet voldoende waren om deze materie te lokaliseren en te kwantificeren.
De nieuwe inzichten bieden niet alleen antwoorden, maar roepen ook nieuwe vragen op. Hoe wordt het WHIM gevormd en onderhouden? Welke fysische processen zorgen voor de verhitting en dispersie van deze gaswolken? Het lijkt erop dat interacties tussen het gas en de donkere materie, evenals energiebalansen binnen het heelal, een belangrijke rol spelen in de vorming en stabiliteit van het WHIM. Het bestuderen van deze processen is cruciaal voor een volledig begrip van de evolutie van het universum.
De ontwikkeling van nieuwe, gevoeliger instrumenten en observatietechnieken zal een grote rol spelen in het verder ontrafelen van deze mysteries. Zo wordt bijvoorbeeld gewerkt aan de geplande Lynx X-ray observator, die in staat zal zijn om röntgenstraling van het WHIM met hoge precisie te meten en in kaart te brengen. Daarnaast zal de James Webb Space Telescope, vooral bekend om zijn vermogen om in het infrarood te kijken, bijdragen aan het bestuderen van de interactie tussen baryonische materie en donkere materie, en het proces van structuurvorming op grote schaal.
Kortom, deze nieuwe bevindingen helpen ons niet alleen om het 'missing baryon problem' op te lossen, maar bieden ook een dieper inzicht in de complexe dynamiek van het heelal. Ze bevestigen dat het grootste deel van de normale materie zich niet in de sterren en planeten bevindt, maar in een uitgestrekt en warm gas dat zich tussen de sterrenstelsels bevindt en de grote structuur van het heelal vormgeeft. Dit heeft grote implicaties voor ons begrip van de evolutie van het heelal en onderstreept het belang van geavanceerde observatietechnieken voor toekomstige kosmologische ontdekkingen. Het is een belangrijke stap in de richting van een completer en nauwkeuriger beeld van de samenstelling en de dynamiek van ons heelal.
De Deep Synoptic Array hielp astronomen om eerder onbekende snelle radiobroken te vinden.
Vikram Ravi/Caltech/OVRO
Conclusie
Het oplossen van het langlopende raadsel van de 'ontbrekende' baryonische materie markeert een belangrijke mijlpaal in de astrofysica. Dankzij geavanceerde observatietechnieken zoals de studie van FRBs en spectroscopie wordt het mogelijk om het grootste deel van deze mysterieuze materie terug te vinden in het hete intergalactische gas dat zich uitstrekt over grote afstanden. Deze ontdekkingen versterken ons begrip van de dynamiek en evolutie van het heelal en onderstrepen dat zelfs de oudste vragen over de kosmos nieuwe antwoorden kunnen brengen, mits we blijven kijken en innoveren. De combinatie van nieuwe technologieën en methoden brengt ons dichter bij het volledig begrijpen van de complexe structuur van het universum en de verborgen materie die het vormgeeft.
Artistic interpretation of CHIME's Outrigger array over North America localizing RBFLOAT to its host galaxy. Credit: Daniëlle Futselaar/MMT Observatory
An international team of scientists, including Northwestern University astrophysicists, has spotted one of the brightest fast radio bursts (FRBs) ever recorded—and pinpointed its location with unprecedented precision.
The millisecond-long blast—nicknamed RBFLOAT (short for "radio-brightest flash of all time" and, yes, a nod to "root beer float")—was discovered by the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) and its newly completed "Outrigger" array. By combining observations from sites in British Columbia, West Virginia and California, scientists traced the burst to a single spiral arm of a galaxy 130 million light-years away—accurate within just 42 light-years.
Because they occur so far away and vanish within the blink of an eye, FRBs are notoriously difficult to study. If scientists can pinpoint an FRB's exact location, however, they can explore its environment, including characteristics of its home galaxy, distance from Earth and potentially even its cause. Eventually, this information could help shed light on the nature and origins of these mysterious, fleeting bursts.
First time FRB was traced to source location was 2015
The study, "FRB 20250316A: A Brilliant and Nearby One-Off Fast Radio Burst Localized to 13 parsec Precision," published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, marks the first time the full Outrigger array was used to localize an FRB.
"It is remarkable that only a couple of months after the full Outrigger array went online, we discovered an extremely bright FRB in a galaxy in our own cosmic neighborhood," said Northwestern's Wen-fai Fong, a senior author on the study.
"This bodes very well for the future. An increase in event rates always provides the opportunity for discovering more rare events. The CHIME/FRB collaboration worked for many years toward this technical achievement, and the universe rewarded us with an absolute gift."
"This result marks a turning point," said corresponding author Amanda Cook, a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University. "Instead of just detecting these mysterious flashes, we can now see exactly where they are coming from. It opens the door for discovering whether they are caused by dying stars, exotic magnetic objects or something we haven't even thought of yet."
An expert on cosmic explosions, Fong is an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. She is also a member of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and the NSF-Simons AI Institute for the Sky (SkAI Institute).
An artist's depiction shows how brief, bright bursts of radio waves travel through the fog between galaxies, known as the intergalactic medium. Each wavelength allows astronomers to “weigh” the otherwise invisible ordinary matter.
Melissa Weiss/CfA
Four days of solar energy packed into a single blink
Flaring up and disappearing within milliseconds, FRBs are brief, powerful radio blasts that generate more energy in one quick burst than our sun emits in an entire year. While most pass unnoticed, every once in a while, an FRB is bright enough to detect. FRB20250316A, or RBFLOAT, was one of these rare events. Detected in March 2025, RBFLOAT released as much energy in a few milliseconds as the sun produces in four days.
"It was so bright that our pipeline initially flagged it as radio frequency interference, signals often caused by cell phones or airplanes that are much closer to home," Fong said. "It took some sleuthing by members of our collaboration to uncover that it was a real astrophysical signal."
And while many FRBs repeat—pulsing multiple times across several months—RBFLOAT emitted all its energy in just one burst. Even in the hundreds of hours after it was first observed, astronomers did not detect repeat bursts from the source. That means astrophysicists couldn't wait for another flare to gather more data. Instead, they only had one shot at pinpointing its location.
"RBFLOAT was the first non-repeating source localized to such precision," said Northwestern's Sunil Simha, a postdoctoral scholar at CIERA and study co-author. "These are much harder to locate. Thus, even detecting RBFLOAT is proof of concept that CHIME is indeed capable of detecting such events and building a statistically interesting sample of FRBs."
Location of RBFLOAT next to its host galaxy.
Credit: Yuxin "Vic" Dong/MMT
FRB forensics hint at a magnetar
To investigate RBFLOAT's origin, the scientists relied on CHIME, a large radio telescope in British Columbia and the world's most prolific FRB hunter. Smaller versions of CHIME, the Outriggers, enable astronomers to triangulate signals to precisely confine the specific locations of FRBs on the sky.
With this array of vantage points, the team traced the burst to the Big Dipper constellation in the outskirts of a galaxy about 130 million light-years away from Earth. The team precisely pinpointed it to a region just 45 light-years across, which is smaller than an average star cluster.
Follow-up observations from the 6.5-meter MMT telescope in Arizona and the Keck Cosmic Web Imager on the 10-meter Keck II Telescope in Hawai'i provided the most detailed view yet of a non-repeating FRB's surroundings. Simha analyzed the optical data obtained from Keck, and Northwestern graduate student Yuxin "Vic" Dong used the MMT to obtain deep optical images of the FRB's host galaxy.
Their investigations revealed the burst occurred along a spiral arm of the galaxy, which is dotted with many star-forming regions. The RBFLOAT occurred near, but not inside, one of these star-forming regions. Although astrophysicists still don't know exactly what causes FRBs, this evidence bolsters one leading hypothesis.
At least some appear to come from magnetars, ultra-magnetized neutron stars born from the deaths of massive stars. Star-forming regions often host young magnetars, which are energetic enough to produce quick, powerful bursts.
"We found the FRB lies at the outskirts of a star-forming region that hosts massive stars," Simha said. "For the first time, we could even estimate how deeply it's embedded in surrounding gas, and it's relatively shallow."
Keck's rich dataset and FRB's precise location enabled the team to perform first-of-its-kind analysis of the galaxy's properties at the FRB's location. These uncovered characteristics include the density of the galaxy's gas, star-formation rate and presence of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.
"The FRB lies on a spiral arm of its host galaxy," added Dong, who is the principal investigator of the MMT program.
"Spiral arms are typically sites of ongoing star formation, which supports the idea that it came from a magnetar. Using our extremely sensitive MMT image, we were able to zoom in further and found that the FRB is actually outside the nearest star-forming clump. This location is intriguing because we would expect it to be located within the clump, where star formation is happening.
"This could suggest that the progenitor magnetar was kicked from its birth site or that it was born right at the FRB site and away from the clump's center."
The start of something spectacular
With the CHIME Outriggers now fully running, astronomers expect to pin down hundreds more FRBs each year—bringing them closer than ever to solving the mystery of what causes these spectacular flashes. The localization power of the Outriggers, combined with CHIME's wide field of view, marks a turning point for the FRB search.
"For years, we've known FRBs occur all over the sky, but pinning them down has been painstakingly slow," Dong said. "Now, we can routinely tie them to specific galaxies, even down to neighborhoods within those galaxies."
"The entire FRB community has only published about 100 well-localized events in the past eight years," Simha said. "Now, we expect more than 200 precise detections per year from CHIME alone. RBFLOAT was a spectacular source to begin building such a sample."
"Thanks to the CHIME Outriggers, we're now entering a new era of FRB science," said study co-author Tarraneh Eftekhari, who is CIERA's assistant director.
"With hundreds of precisely localized events expected in the next few years, we can start to understand the full breadth of environments from which these mysterious signals emanate, bringing us one step closer to unlocking their secrets. RBFLOAT is just the beginning."
More information: FRB 20250316A: A Brilliant and Nearby One-off Fast Radio Burst Localized to 13 pc Precision, The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2025). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/adf62f on arXiv (2025). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2506.19006
Meet S/2025 U1, the latest addition to Uranus' family of moons. It's only about 10 km in diameter, but that doesn't mean it's insignificant. It could hint of even greater complexity in the ice giant's system of moons and rings. Due to the drastic differences in brightness levels, this image is a composite of three different treatments of the data, allowing the viewer to see details in the planetary atmosphere, the surrounding rings, and the orbiting moons. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M. El Moutamid (SWRI), M. Hedman (University of Idaho)
The JWST has another feather in its cap. The perceptive space telescope has taken a break from peering into the ancient, distant Universe and probing the formation and evolution of galaxies. It's turned its gaze closer to home, examining Uranus for the presence of undiscovered moons, and it found one.
The discovery of one more tiny moon might not seem like a big deal. But if the Solar System is a puzzle, it can't be completed without the small pieces. As scientists build a more complete understanding of Uranus, the tiny moon S/2025 U1 will be a part of it.
Astronomers found the small moon in JWST NIRCam images from February. It orbits about 56,000 km from Uranus' center, and has an orbital period of 9.6 hours. It follows a nearly circular orbit. That suggests that it formed there, rather than being captured, since captured moons tend to follow eccentric orbits.
“It’s located about 35,000 miles (56,000 kilometers) from Uranus’ center, orbiting the planet’s equatorial plane between the orbits of Ophelia (which is just outside of Uranus’ main ring system) and Bianca,” said Maryame El Moutamid, a lead scientist in SwRI’s Solar System Science and Exploration Division based in Boulder, Colorado. “Its nearly circular orbit suggests it may have formed near its current location.”
“This object was spotted in a series of 10 40-minute long-exposure images captured by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam),” said El Moutamid. “It’s a small moon but a significant discovery, which is something that even NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft didn’t see during its flyby nearly 40 years ago.”
Uranus is unique among the Solar System's planets because it's tipped on its side. So instead of a side view, the JWST gets a 'top down' view of the planet, its rings, and its moons.
In 1986, Voyager 2 came to within 81,500 km of Uranus and didn't spot the moon. At that time, only five of the planet's moons had been discovered, and Voyager discovered a sixth, Puck, named after a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Eventually, Voyager 2's images revealed the presence of 11 new moons.
S/2025 U1 is only about 10 km in diameter. That measurement is based on its albedo. If it has the same albedo as Uranus' other moons, then that measurement should stand. At only 10 km diameter, it's easy to see how it's gone undetected for so long.
The tiny moon adds more complexity to one of the Solar System's most complex environments. In fact, its discovery hints at even greater complexity yet to be discovered.
Moons around Saturn and Uranus can act like shepherds that maintain and shape the structure of the rings. Rings can also form from moons that get too close to their planets. When a moon exceeds the Roche Limit, the planet's gravity pulls the moon apart and the debris creates a ring. Around Saturn, there's growing evidence that the same material can then coalesce into another moon, and that this cycle has been repeated. In fact, Saturn's rings contain about 150 moonlets embedded in its rings, which could be evidence of new moons forming.
A similar cycle may happen at Uranus, though on a much shorter timescale. Uranus' moons are more densely packed than Saturn's, and collisions between moons may create the debris that forms rings.
“No other planet has as many small inner moons as Uranus, and their complex inter-relationships with the rings hint at a chaotic history that blurs the boundary between a ring system and a system of moons,” said Matthew Tiscareno of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, a member of the research team. “Moreover, the new moon is smaller and much fainter than the smallest of the previously known inner moons, making it likely that even more complexity remains to be discovered.”
This discovery isn't completely unexpected. Astronomers have been studying Uranus' moons and some have concluded that there must be more smaller moons. Only they can explain the sizes and edges of Uranus' rings. A 2020 paper said, "Given that 17 of the 20 sharp ring edges remain unexplained, one would expect several more moons to be required." These moons would be in the 5 to 10 km range, and S/2025 U1 is about 10km in diameter. Though the same paper said that Cassini should've found them, it was incorrect; only the JWST has the power to spot them.
Will the JWST find more tiny moons in the Solar System? Much of the space telescope's observing time is already spoken for. Its observations focus on its four main science themes. But a portion of its time is allocated to General Observer programs, and astronomers compete for this time with observing proposals. It seems likely that more GO programs will focus on the Solar System.
“Through this and other programs, Webb is providing a new eye on the outer solar system. This discovery comes as part of Webb’s General Observer program, which allows scientists worldwide to propose investigations using the telescope’s cutting-edge instruments. The NIRCam instrument’s high resolution and infrared sensitivity make it especially adept at detecting faint, distant objects that were beyond the reach of previous observatories,” said El Moutamid.
“Looking forward, the discovery of this moon underscores how modern astronomy continues to build upon the legacy of missions like Voyager 2, which flew past Uranus on Jan. 24, 1986, and gave humanity its first close-up look at this mysterious world. Now, nearly four decades later, the James Webb Space Telescope is pushing that frontier even farther,” El Moutamid said.
An international team of astronomers has published the results of a study of the pulsar nebula MSH 15-52, better known as the Hand of God. The Chandra X-ray telescope participated in these observations.
Hand of God
In 2009, NASA published images of an amazing structure located 17,000 light years from Earth. At its center is the pulsar PSR B1509-58, a rapidly rotating neutron star with a diameter of only 20 km. It was formed as a result of the collapse of a giant star that occurred approximately 1,700 years ago.
The Hand of God pulsar nebula. The image is based on data from the Chandra X-ray telescope and ATCA. Source: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Hong Kong/S. Zhang et al.; Radio: ATNF/CSIRO/ATCA; H-alpha: UK STFC/Royal Observatory Edinburgh; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
Despite its tiny size, the pulsar has a significant impact on its surroundings. It is responsible for the formation of a complex nebula that spans 150 light years. It resembles an X-ray image of a human hand with the palm and fingers extended. This is why the nebula got the nickname “Hand of God.”
Since then, astronomers have continued to study this object using Chandra. Now the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) has joined the observations. Its data was combined with data from Chandra, allowing for a new look at the exploding star and its surroundings.
Anatomy of a dead star
In the new image of the Hand of God, ATCA radio data is marked in red. In turn, the blue, orange, and yellow colors correspond to Chandra’s X-ray data. Hydrogen gas is shown in gold, and the area where X-ray and radio data intersect is shown in purple.
Structure of the pulsar nebula Hand of God. Source: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Hong Kong/S. Zhang et al.; Radio: ATNF/CSIRO/ATCA; H-alpha: UK STFC/Royal Observatory Edinburgh; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
The pulsar rotates nearly seven times per second and has a strong magnetic field, approximately 15 trillion times stronger than Earth’s. Rapid rotation and a strong magnetic field make B1509-58 one of the most powerful electromagnetic generators in the Milky Way. Its powerful wind, consisting of electrons and other particles, creates the nebula.
Radio data from ATCA show complex filaments aligned with the magnetic field of the nebula, shown by short straight white lines in the additional image. These filaments may be the result of the pulsar wind colliding with the remnants of a supernova.
Direction of magnetic field lines in the pulsar nebula Hand of God. Source: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Hong Kong/S. Zhang et al.; Radio: ATNF/CSIRO/ATCA; H-alpha: UK STFC/Royal Observatory Edinburgh; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
By comparing radio and X-ray data, researchers identified key differences between the two types of light sources. In particular, some notable X-ray features, including the jet at the bottom of the image and the inner parts of the three “fingers” at the top, are not detected in radio waves. This indicates that high-energy particles are escaping from the shock wave near the pulsar and moving along magnetic field lines, creating fingers.
Radio data also show that the structure of RCW 89 differs from typical young supernova remnants. Most of the radio emission is uneven and corresponds exactly to the clusters of X-ray and optical emission. It also extends far beyond X-rays. All these characteristics confirm the idea that RCW 89 is colliding with a dense cloud of hydrogen located nearby.
However, not all questions were answered. One of the mysterious areas is the sharp boundary of X-ray radiation in the upper right corner of the image, which appears to be a shock wave from a supernova. Supernova shock waves usually glow brightly in the radio waves of young supernova remnants, so researchers are surprised by the absence of a radio signal at the X-ray boundary.
MSH 15–52 and RCW 89 exhibit many unique features not found in other young pulsar nebulae. However, many questions remain unanswered regarding the formation and evolution of these structures. According to scientists, further research is needed to better understand the complex interaction between the pulsar wind and the supernova remnant.
It has long been known that water and carbon exist on Ceres, the largest object in the main asteroid belt. Recently, scientists discovered that in the past, it may have had a chemical energy source that could have sustained life on it.
Dwarf planet Ceres is shown in these enhanced-color renderings that use images from NASA’s Dawn mission. New thermal and chemicals models that rely on the mission’s data indicate Ceres may have long ago had conditions suitable for life.Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA MPS / DLR / IDASource: phys.org
Data on organic molecules on Ceres
A new NASA study has shown that Ceres may have had a constant source of chemical energy: molecules necessary for the metabolism of certain microorganisms. Although there is no evidence that microorganisms ever existed on Ceres, this discovery supports theories that this interesting dwarf planet, which is the largest body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, may once have had conditions suitable for single-celled life forms.
Scientific data from NASA’s Dawn mission, which ended in 2018, previously showed that the bright, reflective areas on Ceres’ surface are mainly composed of salts left behind by liquid that seeped up from underground. A later analysis in 2020 found that the source of this liquid was a huge deposit of brine, or salt water, beneath the surface. In other studies, the Dawn mission also found evidence that Ceres contains organic matter in the form of carbon molecules, which is necessary, though not sufficient on its own, to support microbial cells.
Hydrothermal sources on Ceres in the past
The presence of water and carbon molecules are two important pieces of the puzzle regarding Ceres’ suitability for life. New discoveries suggest a third element: a long-term source of chemical energy in Ceres’ distant past that could have sustained microorganisms. This result does not mean that there was life on Ceres, but rather that there was probably “food” that could have sustained life if it had ever arisen on Ceres.
In a study published in the journal Science Advances on August 20, scientists constructed thermal and chemical models simulating the temperature and composition of Ceres’ interior over time. They found that approximately 2.5 billion years ago, Ceres’ underground ocean may have had a stable source of hot water containing dissolved gases rising from metamorphosed rocks in the rocky core. The heat came from the decay of radioactive elements in the rocky inner layer of the dwarf planet when Ceres was young — an internal process that is believed to be common in our Solar System.
Ceres’s temperature evolution drives major interior events.Depending on the extent of internal heating, a mid-sized (~500- to 1000-km radius) icy body such as Ceres may undergo differentiation and then metamorphism of its interior and ocean freezing, leading to the present-day interior structure. After accreting (1), the temperature within Ceres as a function of time and depth controls the events that determine Ceres’s habitability: (2) ice-rock differentiation at ~4 Myr, (3) metamorphic volatiles are added into the ocean ~0.5 to 2 Gyr, and (4) ocean freezing. Here, we assume the ice shell is made of pure water ice.
The Ceres we know today is hardly suitable for life. It has become colder, with more ice and less water than in the past. Currently, radioactive decay inside Ceres does not produce enough heat to prevent water from freezing, and what remains of the liquid has turned into concentrated brine.
The period when Ceres was most likely habitable was between half a billion and 2 billion years after its formation (or approximately 2.5–4 billion years ago), when its rocky core reached its maximum temperature. At that time, warm liquids could have entered Ceres’ underground waters.
The dwarf planet also lacks the advantage of modern internal heating generated by the pull and push of a large planet, as occurs with Saturn’s moon Enceladus and Jupiter’s moon Europa. Thus, Ceres’ greatest potential for providing the energy necessary for life was in the past.
This illustration depicts the interior of dwarf planet Ceres, including the transfer
This result is also significant for water-rich objects throughout the outer Solar System. Many other icy moons and dwarf planets similar in size to Ceres (with a diameter of about 585 miles or 940 kilometers) and lacking significant internal heating from planetary gravitational pull may also have had a window of opportunity for life in the past.
A US military space-plane, the X-37B orbital test vehicle, is due to embark onits eighth flight into space on August 21, 2025. Much of what the X-37B does in space is secret. But it serves partly as a platform for cutting-edge experiments.
One of these experiments is a potential alternative to GPS that makes use of quantum science as a tool for navigation: a quantum inertial sensor.
Satellite-based systems like GPS are ubiquitous in our daily lives, from smartphone maps to aviation and logistics. But GPS isn't available everywhere. This technology could revolutionize how spacecraft, airplanes, ships and submarines navigate in environments where GPS is unavailable or compromised.
In space, especially beyond Earth's orbit, GPS signals become unreliable or simply vanish. The same applies underwater, where submarines cannot access GPS at all. And even on Earth, GPS signals can be jammed (blocked), spoofed (making a GPS receiver think it is in a different location) or disabled — for instance, during a conflict.
This makes navigation without GPS a critical challenge. In such scenarios, having navigation systems that function independently of any external signals becomes essential.
Traditional inertial navigation systems (INS), which use accelerometers and gyroscopes to measure a vehicle's acceleration and rotation, do provide independent navigation, as they can estimate position by tracking how the vehicle moves over time. Think of sitting in a car with your eyes closed: you can still feel turns, stops and accelerations, which your brain integrates to guess where you are over time.
Eventually though, without visual cues, small errors will accumulate and you will entirely lose your positioning. The same goes with classical inertial navigation systems: as small measurement errors accumulate, they gradually drift off course, and need corrections from GPS or other external signals.
Where quantum helps
If you think of quantum physics, what may come to your mind is a strange world where particles behave like waves and Schrödinger's cat is both dead and alive. These thought experiments genuinely describe how tiny particles like atoms behave.
At very low temperatures, atoms obey the rules of quantum mechanics: they behave like waves and can exist in multiple states simultaneously — two properties that lie at the heart of quantum inertial sensors.
The quantum inertial sensor aboard the X‑37B uses a technique called atom interferometry, where atoms are cooled to the temperature of near absolute zero, so they behave like waves. Using fine-tuned lasers, each atom is split into what's called a superposition state, similar to Schrödinger's cat, so that it simultaneously travels along two paths, which are then recombined.
Since the atom behaves like a wave in quantum mechanics, these two paths interfere with each other, creating a pattern similar to overlapping ripples on water. Encoded in this pattern is detailed information about how the atom's environment has affected its journey. In particular, the tiniest shifts in motion, like sensor rotations or accelerations, leave detectable marks on these atomic "waves".
The X-37B is being prepared for its eighth flight. (Image credit: US Space Force)
Compared to classical inertial navigation systems, quantum sensors offer orders of magnitude greater sensitivity. Because atoms are identical and do not change, unlike mechanical components or electronics, they are far less prone to drift or bias. The result is long duration and high accuracy navigation without the need for external references.
The upcoming X‑37B mission will be the first time this level of quantum inertial navigation is tested in space. Previous missions, such as NASA's Cold Atom Laboratory and German Space Agency's MAIUS-1, have flown atom interferometers in orbit or suborbital flights and successfully demonstrated the physics behind atom interferometry in space, though not specifically for navigation purposes.
By contrast, the X‑37B experiment is designed as a compact, high-performance, resilient inertial navigation unit for real world, long-duration missions. It moves atom interferometry out of the realms of pure science and into a practical application for aerospace. This is a big leap.
This has important implications for both military and civilian spaceflight. For the US Space Force, it represents a step towards greater operational resilience, particularly in scenarios where GPS might be denied. For future space exploration, such as to the Moon, Mars or even deep space, where autonomy is key, a quantum navigation system could serve not only as a reliable backup but even as a primary system when signals from Earth are unavailable.
Quantum navigation is just one part of the current, broader wave of quantum technologies moving from lab research into real-world applications. While quantum computing and quantum communication often steal headlines, systems like quantum clocks and quantum sensors are likely to be the first to see widespread use.
Countries including the US, China and the UK are investing heavily in quantum inertial sensing, with recent airborne and submarine tests showing strong promise. In 2024, Boeing and AOSense conducted the world's first in-flight quantum inertial navigation test aboard a crewed aircraft.
This demonstrated continuous GPS-free navigation for approximately four hours. That same year, the UK conducted its first publicly acknowledged quantum navigation flight test on a commercial aircraft.
This summer, the X‑37B mission will bring these advances into space. Because of its military nature, the test could remain quiet and unpublicized. But if it succeeds, it could be remembered as the moment space navigation took a quantum leap forward.
Cosmic Tunnels Connect Our Solar System to Distant Stars
Scientists have discovered extraordinary "interstellar tunnels" that create direct pathways from our solar system to distant stellar regions, fundamentally changing our understanding of the space around Earth. Using advanced X-ray telescope data, researchers at the Max Planck Institute have mapped these cosmic channels that stretch across vast regions of the galaxy, revealing an intricate network connecting different star systems.
The breakthrough discovery emerged from analysis of data gathered by the eROSITA X-ray telescope, which orbits the Sun-Earth Lagrangian point L2. This sophisticated instrument provided researchers with the clearest view ever obtained of the soft X-ray background, allowing them to peer deep into the structure of interstellar space without interference from Earth's atmosphere or magnetosphere. The telescope's unique position enables continuous observation of cosmic phenomena that remain invisible to ground-based instruments.
Our solar system exists within an enormous cavity known as the Local Hot Bubble, a region of space approximately 300 light-years across filled with million-degree plasma. This cosmic bubble was carved out by a series of supernova explosions that occurred between 10 and 20 million years ago, creating what astronomers describe as a "supernova graveyard."
The research team, led by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, analyzed thousands of X-ray measurements to create the most detailed map ever produced of this local cosmic environment. Their findings, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, reveal that this bubble is far from uniform in temperature and structure, reveals the Max Planck Institute report.
What makes this discovery particularly remarkable is the identification of tunnel-like structures extending from the Local Hot Bubble toward specific constellations. These channels appear as regions of exceptionally hot, low-density plasma that create pathways through the surrounding cooler interstellar medium.
3D model of the solar neighborhood. The color bar represents the temperature of the LHB as colored on the LHB surface. The direction of the Galactic Centre (GC) and Galactic North (N) is shown in the bottom right. The link to the interactive version can be found at the bottom of the page.
The most significant tunnel discovery points directly toward the constellation Centaurus, home to some of our nearest stellar neighbors including the Alpha Centauri system. This cosmic highway extends across vast distances, potentially connecting our Local Hot Bubble with distant star-forming regions where new solar systems are being born.
A second interstellar tunnel was identified leading toward the constellation Canis Major, linking our solar system with the Gum Nebula located approximately 1,500 light-years away. Co-author Dr. Michael Freyberg explained the implications: "What we didn't know was the existence of an interstellar tunnel towards Centaurus, which carves a gap in the cooler interstellar medium" explains a Daily Mail report.
These tunnels may form part of an extensive branching network that connects different star-forming regions throughout our local galactic neighborhood. The researchers believe this interstellar highway system is maintained by the explosive births and deaths of massive stars, which create powerful shockwaves and stellar winds that push gas and debris through space.
The formation of these interstellar tunnels demonstrates a process astronomers call "stellar feedback," where the life cycles of massive stars shape the structure of entire galaxies. When extremely massive stars exhaust their nuclear fuel, they collapse and explode as supernovae, creating expanding shells of superheated plasma that sweep through space at tremendous velocities.
Previous research has shown that the supernova explosions that created our Local Hot Bubble also collected gas and debris at their expanding edges, creating ideal conditions for new star formation. These new stars then produce their own jets of hot gases and radiation, which continue pushing outward until they encounter other stellar bubbles and star-forming regions.
The discovery also provides fascinating insights into our solar system's cosmic journey. According to co-author Dr. Gabriele Ponti:
"The sun must have entered the LHB a few million years ago, a short time compared to the age of the sun. It is purely coincidental that the sun seems to occupy a relatively central position in the LHB as we continuously move through the Milky Way."
The Ancient Mysteries of Time and Space ebook available from the Ancient Origins store.
Implications for Galactic Evolution
This network of cosmic tunnels represents a previously unknown aspect of galactic architecture that influences how matter and energy move between different regions of space. The researchers discovered that these pathways exhibit a distinct north-south temperature dichotomy, with the southern regions significantly hotter than their northern counterparts.
The thermal pressure measured within the Local Hot Bubble suggests it may be "open" toward high galactic latitudes, allowing material to flow freely between our local environment and the broader galactic halo. This connectivity could have profound implications for understanding how elements created in stellar cores are distributed throughout the galaxy, potentially affecting the formation of new planetary systems.
The eROSITA telescope's unprecedented sensitivity to soft X-ray emissions has revealed structures that remained invisible to previous generations of instruments. By operating from the L2 Lagrangian point, the telescope avoids contamination from Earth's magnetosphere, providing the cleanest possible view of these faint cosmic phenomena.
Top image: eROSITA telescope's all sky survey image.
SwRI scientists reviewed spectral data of sample material taken from near-Earth asteroids Ryugu and Bennu (pictured above) and compared them with spectral data of main belt asteroid Polana from the James Webb Space Telescope and found that they closely match. Image Credit: NASA
In 2020, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Hayabusa2 spacecraft completed its primary mission when it returned samples of asteroid Ryugu to Earth. In 2023, NASA's OSIRIS-REx also completed its primary mission by returning samples of asteroid Bennu to Earth. Scientists in labs around the world have been studying those samples and have uncovered some surprises.
The Ryugu sample contained uracil, one of the four RNA nucleotides that are essential for life as we understand it. That discovery indicates that asteroids could've played a role in delivering the raw materials for life to Earth. The Bennu sample contained its own surprise. It contained unexpected phosphate compounds, which suggested that it could be a splinter from a small, ancient body with an ocean.
These findings show how complex asteroids can be, and that they're more than just chunks of space rock.
Asteroids are the fragments from collisions involving planetesimals. Each one is a puzzle piece that can help astronomers uncover our Solar System's history. One of the key endeavours in asteroid and Solar System science is determining which asteroids shared the same parent bodies, which can help illuminate the overall history of the Solar System.
Both are from the Polana collisional family in the main asteroid belt (MAB) between Mars and Jupiter. It took more than laboratory study of the samples to confirm it. The JWST played an important role, too, by obtaining both mid-infrared and near-infrared spectra from both asteroids.
"We present JWST Near Infrared Spectrograph and Mid-Infrared Instrument spectroscopy of the parent body of the family, (142) Polana, and compare it with spacecraft and laboratory data of both near-Earth asteroids," the authors write. "Spectral features at similar wavelengths in the spectra of Polana and those of Bennu and Ryugu support the hypothesis that both asteroids originated in the Polana family."
This figure shows the hydrogen content of asteroids determined by various techniques in other research. The Polana results are added from this study. Shaded regions show the range of H wt % for carbonaceous chondrites. Polana is similar to Bennu and Ryugu and unlike the CI and CM chondrites.
Image Credit: Arredondo et al. 2025. PSJ.
“Very early in the formation of the solar system, we believe large asteroids collided and broke into pieces to form an ‘asteroid family’ with Polana as the largest remaining body,” said lead author Arredondo in a press release. “Theories suggest that remnants of that collision not only created Polana, but also Bennu and Ryugu as well. To test that theory, we started looking at spectra of all three bodies and comparing them to one another.”
“They are similar enough that we feel confident that all three asteroids could have come from the same parent body,” Arredondo said.
Polana is much larger than both Ryugu and Bennu, at about 55 km in diameter. Bennu is only about 500 meters in diameter, and Ryugu is only about 850 meters in diameter. Polana is very dark, with an albedo of only 0.045, and is a Type F carbonaceous asteroid, a sub-group of the more common C-type asteroid.
The researchers think that after the collision that spawned them, Ryugu and Bennu were pushed out of their orbits close to Polana by Jupiter's immense gravity. As a result, the two smaller asteroids have been altered by their closer proximity to the Sun.
“Polana, Bennu and Ryugu have all had their own journeys through our solar system since the impact that may have formed them,” said SwRI’s Dr. Tracy Becker, a co-author of the paper. “Bennu and Ryugu are now much closer to the Sun than Polana, so their surfaces may be more affected by solar radiation and solar particles.
There are some differences between the three, especially around the depth and width of the 2.7 μm feature. This feature indicates hydrated minerals, or water-bearing minerals, and tells scientists something about an asteroid's history of thermal and aqueous alteration. "The differences in the depth and width of the 2.7 μm feature are more prominent between Polana and Ryugu than between Polana and Bennu. The cause of this difference is uncertain but could potentially be due to location in the early planetesimal or the effects of space weathering," the researchers write.
This figure compares NIRSpec Polana data to Bennu and Ryugu data. There are differences around the 2.7 micrometer feature that are likely due to space weathering.
Image Credit: Arredondo et al. 2025. PSJ.
“Likewise, Polana is possibly older than Bennu and Ryugu and thus would have been exposed to micrometeoroid impacts for a longer period,” Becker added. “That could also change aspects of its surface, including its composition.”
The differences could also stem from differences in the parent body.
"The differences in hydration between Bennu and Ryugu do not necessarily mean that they come from different parent bodies," the authors explain. "Differences between the similarly sized Bennu and Ryugu could be due to parent body partial dehydration due to internal heating. If Bennu came from surface material and Ryugu came from inner material, the parent body impact would produce different layers of compaction, which would cause them to have different macroporosities and levels of hydration."
In their conclusion, the authors state that despite differences, they're confident that all three bodies share the same parent body. "We find that similarities in the shapes and strengths of many of the spectral features across the NIR and MIR, including the prominent OH feature at 2.72 μm, support the hypothesis that Bennu and Ryugu could have originated in the new Polana family," they write.
Some regions of the spectra require further study to understand and explain, according to the authors.
"The analysis of the returned samples from both Bennu and Ryugu is ongoing, and future developments in the understanding of how surface processes manifest in NIR and MIR spectra will give additional insights into the interpretation of our Polana spectrum," they conclude.
Scientists studied Polana, a fairly large asteroid in the Main Belt, using a spectroscope installed on the James Webb Space Telescope. It turned out to be very similar to Bennu and Ryugu, which had previously been explored by spacecraft.
An article on the spectroscopy of Polana (142) was recently published in the Planetary Science Journal. Its authors claim that it has a common origin and forms a family with well-known objects such as Bennu and Ryugu.
The diameter of Polana is about 55 km. It was discovered back in the 19th century and has not been particularly noteworthy until now. Instead, Ryugu and Bennu were explored by spacecraft at close range, and material from the former was even brought back to Earth.
Spectral analysis of asteroids and their samples
A team of scientists led by Dr. Anicia Arredondo believes that in the early stages of the Solar System’s formation, large asteroids collided and broke into pieces to form a “family of asteroids,” the largest of which was Polana. Theories suggest that the remnants of this collision not only created Polana, but also Bennu and Ryugu. To test this theory, scientists began studying the spectra of all three bodies and comparing them with each other.
Arredondo and her team have applied for time on the James Webb Space Telescope to observe Polana using two different spectral instruments that focus on the near-infrared and mid-infrared spectra. Next, they compared this data with spectral data from physical samples of Ryugu and Bennu collected by two different space missions. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft encountered Ryugu in 2018 and collected samples that returned to Earth at the end of 2020. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft encountered Bennu in 2020 and collected samples that returned to Earth in late 2023.
Asteroid sizes
Bennu and Ryugu are considered asteroids on Earth because they orbit the Sun inside the orbit of Mars; however, they are not considered dangerous to Earth, with closest approaches of approximately 1.9 and 1 million miles, respectively.
Both Bennu and Ryugu are relatively small compared to Polana. Bennu’s diameter is approximately one-third of a mile, or roughly the same as that of the Empire State Building. Ryugu is twice as large, but Polana overshadows them both, being approximately 33 miles wide. Scientists believe that Jupiter’s gravity pushed Bennu and Ryugu out of their orbits near Polana.
Moon samples collected by the Apollo 17 mission have revealed new information about the Light Mantle, a distinctive bright band crossing the surface of the Moon. These are the remains of an ancient landslide that may be associated with the Tycho crater.
The last people on the Moon
Launched in December 1972, the Apollo 17 mission was the last flight in the Apollo program. As part of this program, NASA sent a scientist (geologist Harrison Schmitt) to the Moon for the first time, which largely determined its record “catch” of 110 kg of lunar soil samples, which were then delivered to Earth.
Harrison Schmitt on the Moon. Source: NASA
Light Mantle was one of the key objectives of the mission. This five-kilometer-long deposit, located at the foot of the two-kilometer-high South Massif mountain, has attracted the attention of scientists since its discovery. It is believed to be the remains of an ancient landslide. However, how exactly it formed and what allowed it to stretch for several kilometers was unknown.
The astronauts studied the Light Mantle by taking a series of cores. Some of them were placed in long-term storage in a sealed container in a special nitrogen storage facility. This was done with the expectation that in the future they could be studied using more advanced technologies and new scientific approaches that did not exist at that time.
Anatomy of a lunar landslide
This turned out to be the right decision. Over the next half-century, scanning technology took a huge leap forward, making it possible to examine samples in great detail. The research team took advantage of this circumstance. First, scientists simulated how landslides could occur on the Moon using rocks of similar composition. After that, they opened one of the sealed cores, analyzed its contents, and then compared it with the results of computer simulations.
A sample of lunar soil delivered by the Apollo 17 mission. It has been stored in a sealed container for over 50 years. Source: Dave Edey and Romy Hanna, UTCT, Jackson School of Geosciences/NASA
According to the researchers, analysis showed that the finer material covering the fragments in the core originated from them, rather than from the surrounding rock. This suggests that the debris broke apart and helped the landslide to “flow” like a liquid.
Although it is still unclear what exactly caused the landslide, one of the most likely causes was attributed to the impact of an asteroid that formed the Tycho crater. During the impact, countless rocks were thrown outwards and then fell back onto the Moon, forming small secondary craters. They diverge from Tycho with bright rays. Some of them stretch toward the Southern Massif.
The location where the lunar soil sample was collected. Source: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Scientists have suggested that some of the material ejected during the formation of Tycho may have struck the South Massif. This could have caused a landslide, which ultimately formed the Light Mantle.
In the past decade, astronomers have witnessed three interstellar objects (ISOs) passing through the Solar System. This included the enigmatic 'Oumuamua in 2017, the interstellar comet 2I/Borisov in 2019, and 3I/ATLAS in July 2025. This latest object also appears to be a comet based on recent observations that showed it was actively releasing water vapor as it neared the Sun. The detection of these objects, which were previously theorized but never observed, has piqued interest in the origins of ISOs, their dynamics, and where they may be headed once they leave the Solar System.
Since asteroids and comets are essentially material leftover from the formation of planets, studying ISOs could reveal what conditions are like in other star systems without having to send interstellar missions there. In a recent paper, Shokhruz Kakharov and Prof. Abraham Loeb calculated the trajectories of all three interstellar visitors to determine where they came and apply age constraints. Their results indicate these ISOs originated from different regions in the Milky Way's disk, and range in age from one to several billion years.
Kakharov is a graduate student at Harvard University's Astronomy Department whose work includes studies on interstellar objects, the trajectories of spacecraft like Voyager, direct imaging, and the flux of extragalactic dark matter. Prof. Loeb is the Frank B. Baird Jr. Professor of Professor of Science at Harvard University and the Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (ITC) at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). The paper that details their findings appeared online and is being reviewed for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Artist's impression of Project Dragonfly, a study for an interstellar spacecraft.
Credit: i4is
The discovery of 'Oumuamua kicked off a revolution in astronomy, confirming the existence of ISOs and inspiring efforts to study them closer. As Kakharov told Universe Today via email, they've also transformed our understanding of galactic dynamics and the formation of planetary systems:
Before 1I/'Oumuamua's discovery in 2017, we had no direct evidence that objects from other star systems could reach our solar system. These visitors provide unique samples of material from distant planetary systems, offering insights into the chemical composition and physical properties of exoplanetary material that we cannot obtain through remote observations alone. They also serve as natural probes of the interstellar medium and galactic dynamics, revealing the gravitational interactions that shape stellar populations over billions of years.
Since asteroids and comets are essentially material leftover from the formation of planetary systems, the study of ISOs enables the study of other star systems without having to mount interstellar missions. Currently, the only viable means for sending spacecraft to neighboring star systems involves gram-scale wafercraft and lightsails that are accelerated by direct energy arrays to a small fraction of the speed of light. Examples include Breakthrough Initiative's Starshot, and the Institute for Interstellar Studies' (i4is) Swarming Proxima Centauri concept.
While these mission concepts could reach the nearest star (Proxima Centauri) within a human lifetime, they would be very expensive to mount, and it would be decades before we learned what conditions are like in neighboring star systems. But as 'Oumuamua, 2I/Borisov, and 3I/ATLAS have demonstrated, ISOs pass through our Solar System regularly, each offering unique research opportunities. Determining where each ISO originated is the first step toward understanding the diversity and dynamics of stellar populations in the Milky Way. Said Kakharov:
Understanding ISO origins provides a deeper context for interpreting their physical and chemical properties. For example, knowing that 3I/ATLAS likely originated from an old stellar population suggests it may have experienced different evolutionary processes than younger objects. This information helps us understand the diversity of planetary system architectures and the conditions under which objects are ejected into interstellar space. Also, tracing their origins helps identify potential source regions and ejection mechanisms, whether through gravitational scattering, stellar evolution, or other dynamical processes.
For their purposes, Kakharov and Loeb ran a series of Monte Carlo numerical simulations using the GalPot galactic potential model, a software package designed to calculate the gravitational potential of a galaxy:
For each ISO, we generated 10,000 different possible trajectories by sampling from the observational uncertainties in their velocities and systematic uncertainties in the Solar motion relative to the Local Standard of Rest. We integrated each trajectory for 1 billion years in the Milky Way's gravitational potential to determine their maximum vertical excursions from the galactic plane. This statistical approach provides robust estimates of their orbital parameters and accounts for the significant uncertainties inherent in long-term orbital predictions.
From this, they were able to numerically integrate the trajectories of these three interstellar objects back in time and relate them to potential stellar populations. "Our analysis revealed that the three ISOs originate from distinct stellar populations with different ages and galactic locations," said Kakharov. Their results showed 3I/ATLAS is the oldest of the three, with a median age of 4.6 billion years, and originated from the Milky Way's thick disk. This component is thicker than the galaxy's thin disk (where our Sun resides) and is populated by older, lower metallicity stars.
1I/'Oumuamua is relatively young by comparison, about 1 billion years, and originated from the thin disk where new stars are still forming. 2I/Borisov falls between them in age, approximately 1.7 billion years old, and originated from the thin disk. "This diversity suggests that ISOs are ejected from planetary systems throughout the galaxy's history, not just from young, recently formed systems." These results also offer a preview of what's to come thanks to new observational facilities that will become operational in the coming years. Said Kakharov:
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory's Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will dramatically increase ISO detection rates, potentially finding dozens of new interstellar objects per year. Future missions like the European Space Agency's Comet Interceptor could potentially help with an ISO for in-situ analysis. These facilities will enable statistical studies of ISO populations, allowing us to understand their frequency, distribution, and diversity across different stellar environments.
The idea that it is the Earth that revolves around the Sun, and not vice versa, was known even to ancient Greek philosophers. And the most interesting thing is that it was based on calculations and observations that anyone can repeat on their own.
How to determine the distance to the Sun and Moon
Aristarchus of Samos
Usually, when talking about the heliocentric system of the world, Nicolaus Copernicus is mentioned. However, the outstanding Polish astronomer, although he did a lot to strengthen the idea of the Earth revolving around the Sun, was not its author.
This idea was well known in ancient times, and it is associated with the name of a completely different scientist, Aristarchus of Samos. He lived in the 3rd century BC and already then defended such a view of the structure of the world. Ancient authors actively discussed it: some supported it, others rejected it. But the fact remains – it was widespread and did not seem implausible.
And the most interesting thing is that it was based not on interpretations of sacred texts or empty speculation, but on observations, measurements, and calculations. Moreover, they were easily accessible for verification both then and now.
Heliocentric model. Source: www.daviddarling.info
It all started with the question of how far away the Moon and Sun are from Earth. It would seem that neither can be reached; they appear to be approximately the same size, and who knows how big they are. However, there is a way to determine this.
However, it requires accepting the fact that the Moon is a sphere that does not emit light itself, but only reflects sunlight. But it is not difficult to come to this conclusion even by simply observing the phases of our satellite. This is especially evident in the first days of the new moon, when a thin crescent and the rest of the sphere are visible, like a ghost. This phenomenon was later named Da Vinci’s glow.
Distances to the Sun and Moon
Assuming that the Moon is a sphere onto which the Sun’s rays fall, it follows that when it is half illuminated, the angle between the lines connecting the Moon and the Sun and the Moon and the Earth is a right angle. Even the ancient Greeks knew how to solve problems involving right-angled triangles.
If we measure the angle between the Moon and the Sun at this moment, its tangent will be the ratio of the distances from the Moon to the Sun and from the Earth to the Moon.
The positions of the Moon and Sun during quadrature. Source: Wikipedia
Aristarchus did not yet know what a tangent was, but he had the mathematical tools to calculate the required value, at least approximately. However, there is one major problem here. It is extremely difficult to determine the exact moment when the Moon is illuminated by the Sun exactly halfway (this configuration is called quadrature).
The angle to be measured is very close to 90°, and it is easy to make a mistake when measuring it. Aristarchus of Samos calculated it to be 87°. According to his calculations, the Sun was located 18 to 20 times farther from Earth than the Moon, whereas in reality the distance to the Sun is approximately 390 times greater.
However, this mistake did not prevent the scientist from coming to the correct conclusion that the Sun is much further away from us than the Moon. And since both appear to be approximately the same size in the sky, the daytime star must be about 19 times larger than the nighttime ornament.
Solar eclipse and the sizes of celestial bodies
But how much larger or smaller than Earth is the Moon itself? Aristarchus of Samos was aided by his observations of lunar eclipses and his understanding that they occur when the Moon passes into Earth’s shadow. The ancient Greek scientist believed that the Earth’s shadow was equal to its diameter, when in fact it is about 25% smaller because the Sun is not a point source of light.
Page from Aristarchus’ work. Source: Wikipedia
However, this error was not so significant. Aristarchus calculated that the duration of a total eclipse is 3.5 hours. He also knew that the period of the Moon’s rotation around the Earth is 27.3 days. Again, he did not know that the speed of its orbital motion is not constant. We can write the equation 2r/t = 2πR/T, where r is the radius of the Earth, t is the duration of the eclipse, R is the distance to the Moon, and T is its orbital period.
From this equation, it is easy to determine that the ratio of the distance to the Moon and the radius of the Earth (R/r) is approximately 59.6 – not far from the actual value. Using this ratio and the angular radius of the Moon, Aristarchus determined that its size is approximately three times smaller than that of Earth, which is quite close to the modern value of 0.273 times the radius of our planet.
Knowing this and the ratio of the distances from Earth to the Sun and from Earth to the Moon, we can calculate how much larger our star is than our planet. Aristarchus of Samos calculated that its radius was more than 19 times that of Earth, but less than 43 times. Of course, this was incorrect due to inaccurate angle measurements during the quadrature; however, it was still obvious that the Sun was much larger than the Earth.
Statue of Aristarchus of Samos near the University of Thessaloniki. Source: Wikipedia
Aristarchus also suggested that smaller bodies usually revolve around larger ones, which seems logical from a common-sense point of view. Modern astrophysicists, of course, could argue about how convincing this argument is.
However, Aristarchus once again came to the correct conclusion: the Earth does indeed revolve around the Sun. In ancient times, astronomers repeatedly measured the distances to the Sun and Moon. For example, in the 1st century BC, Posidonius calculated that it was located at a distance of 9,893 Earth radii from us. This was still half the actual value, but even so, our sun seemed like a real giant compared to our planet, which was an argument in favor of heliocentrism.
But eventually, the ancient Greeks and Romans lost interest in the idea that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Historians still argue about the reasons for this. Perhaps religious issues were the cause, since in those days, belief in the immobility of the Earth was even more important for the authority of priests than it was during the Renaissance.
Another possible reason is purely scientific: the absence of visible annual parallax of stars. If the Earth revolved around the Sun, we would see it shift slightly as the seasons change. But nothing like that happens.
Aristarchus of Samos himself explained this, correctly assuming that the stars are simply very far away, which is why their parallax is small. However, this was only confirmed in the 19th century. Until then, it was a real problem that constantly cast doubt on heliocentrism. Be that as it may, it became dominant in scientific thought many centuries after the end of the classical era.
Space is littered with cosmic wanderers. Some are stars booted from the grip of a companion they once had. Others are rogue comets and asteroids on runaway trajectories with nowhere to go and no one chasing them. We typically call those interstellar objects. Then there are mysterious fragments booted from their solar system by the explosive culmination of their stars’ lives. That’s what Garrett Levine at Yale University is looking for.
"At the end of a star's lifetime, it's losing mass, and everything's going haywire in its system," Levine tells Inverse. "Some stuff might fall onto the star, and some might leave the system, and it's the latter we're looking at."
These fragments are called jurads (named for the late astronomer Michael Jura), and short of using god-like powers to shatter a planet light years away and peer inside, they’re the best way to get even a glimpse of how planets form in distant star systems, and if they’re chemically like any of the planets in our Solar System. To find these jurads, Levine and his colleagues are using one of the most ambitious projects in astronomy: the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). This program will use the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile (whose potential with the group’s research is what Levine calls the “scientific opportunity of a lifetime”), to image the entire visible sky for an unparalleled survey of what is lurking in and beyond our Solar System. If the researchers can spot a jurad, astronomers around the world can point a telescope at it, and this might reveal the secrets of how planets form beyond our Solar System.
Cosmic Backyard is an Inverse series that explores the cutting-edge research looking into the depths of the cosmos. This work is pushing the boundaries of our understanding of the universe, and our place in it.
Tracing an Interloper
In 2017, a mysterious object swept through our Solar System. Called ‘Oumuamua, its trajectory showed that it came from outside our Solar System, and was on its way back out. While debate After 'Oumuamua's discovery, astronomers speculated about the existence of another kind of object from exoplanetary systems. Researchers call these objects jurads and they are most often icy bodies like comets, but potentially asteroids or fragments of planets pushed to the outskirts of their star’s system. They seem to roam freely around the galaxy after their home stars died and their gravity weakened as they subsequently lost mass.
The comets and asteroids of our Solar System are ancient leftovers of the processes that gave birth to Earth and its sibling worlds, and so can shed light on our Solar System's ancient history. Interstellar objects could similarly shed light on the formation of exoplanets and, "originating from varied environments, can not only reveal how common or unique our Solar System is, but also how comets change over time," Dennis Bodewits, an astrophysicist at Auburn University in Alabama who is not affiliated with Levine’s research, tells Inverse.
Whereas a typical interstellar object could have been flung out of its home star system at any time — comets are flung out of our own Solar System regularly — jurads are fragments that are flung out upon the death of their star.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will open its eyes to the night skies in 2024. As data pours in, the telescope could catch a jurad flying in.
"It's a really incredible opportunity to gain crucial information about extrasolar systems," study co-author Aster Taylor, an astrophysicist at the University of Michigan, tells Inverse. "Interstellar objects, including jurads, are basically our only chance to take samples from another stellar system. It's hard to express how exciting that is for me, as an astrophysicist."
All in all, investigating objects from another star helps address the "big and general question that many astronomers would like to answer — whether our Solar System is typical, an outlier, or in-between," Levine says. "There are many ways to attack this question, and our study is one example."
An illustration of ‘Oumuamua.
NASA
It Works On Paper
To figure out if they could find jurads with the Rubin Observatory, Levine and company first modeled Oort Clouds, the giant swarms of icy rocks around stars where comets are usually believed to originate. (The research was outlined in a recent study in the Planetary Science Journal.) They estimated how many objects that Oort Clouds around stars about one to eight times the Sun's mass might release in their end stages. They also modeled if astronomers would be able to tell if an object came from before or after a star’s death.
When our Sun and roughly 97 percent of all stars die, all that will be left is their core, and this leftover object is called a white dwarf. Previous research suggested that each white dwarf is expected to kick out up to an Earth's amount of mass.
They found that it was possible to distinguish jurads from objects kicked out before a star died. As stars reach their ends, they grow bright and blast out gusts of gas. This can drive off hyper-volatile molecules such as carbon monoxide, and stellar winds could deposit dust that covers the entire jurad surface, they say.
However, LSST is currently expected to only discover about 15 interstellar objects over the course of its roughly 10-year observational campaign. As such, given what scientists currently know about exoplanetary systems, Levine and his colleagues say it's not impossible but not likely that LSST will detect a jurad.
Still, Pedro Bernardinelli, an astrophysicist at the University of Washington in Seattle who was not involved in the work, notes there are many uncertainties with analyses of this kind. "This is not a problem with the work — it is rather a problem with our understanding of planetary formation, and how similar or not our own Solar System is to others," he notes. As such, "I would not take as a prophecy that LSST will never find such objects."
"It's a very exciting time to be in astronomy and astrophysics," Levine says. "We're at a point where we've answered a lot of questions, but like all good fields of science, once we've answered a question, usually two or three more pop up."
Extraterrestrial life NASA scientists discovered a way in which life could form in our solar system outside the Earth, questioning the preconceived necessary elements for the development of organisms.
The beginning of life Protocells are a type of primitive precursor to the organisms on Earth. If they develop on Titan, it would add order and complexity to the moon’s conditions, key elements for life.
Titan’s conditions Titan is the only moon in our solar system with a substantial atmosphere. It is also the only object, aside from Earth, that researchers are certain contains liquid on its surface.
Atmosphere Most of Titan’s atmosphere is made of Nitrogen. It was challenging to study due to its gold haziness until NASA sent its Cassini spacecraft to study Saturn and its moons.
Photo: Jenny McElligott/eMITS
Photo: Jenny McElligott/eMITS
Lakes and rivers Instead of water, Titan’s lakes and rivers are filled with other liquids, NASA explained in a press release. They have hydrocarbons like ethane and methane.
A different form of life Those conditions complicate the perspective of life in Titan as we know it. Water was central to the development of organisms on Earth.
Weather However, thanks to Cassini’s data, NASA now knows that Titan has meteorological patterns, and those patterns influence the surface rivers and lakes.
Rain The second most significant element in Titan’s atmosphere is methane, which forms clouds and rain. The falling liquid erodes the surface to create more rivers.
Vesicles The falling drops are also the central element behind NASA’s new theoretical path toward protocells on Titan by forming vesicles, cell-like compartments.
Amphiphiles The process involves amphiphiles, molecules that can self-organize into vesicles by joining into one compartment that encapsulates some liquid inside, as well as the molecules.
Droplets This process can occur on Titan thanks to rain. When it hits the surface of rivers and lakes, it can lift droplets from their surface, where the amphiphiles reside.
Falling back down When these droplets fall back down into the surface of the liquid, they can hit other amphiphiles and form vesicles, a form of organized molecule which can lead to different forms.
Photo: Christian Mayer (Universität Duisburg-Essen) and Conor Nixon (NASA Goddard)
Interaction The vesicles could interact with the liquid and other vesicles, competing for resources, which fuels evolution and other forms of organized organisms.
Life in an unexpected form The prospect of this process on Titan challenges the science’s preconceived conditions for life. Particularly, the need for liquid water on the surface of a world.
Reconsidering the conditions It would amplify the scope of what scientists consider ideal conditions for life. It could change all the research around the topic.
More to explore If Titan can hold life, other planets and moons with similar conditions could also do so. A NASA press release said the next mission, Dragonfly, will clarify that in late 2034.
Astronomers have solved a decade-long cosmic puzzle after discovering what appears to be the mythical "Eye of Sauron" lurking in the distant universe. The stunning revelation comes from 15 years of ultra-precise radio telescope observations that have finally explained why a seemingly slow-moving celestial object has been one of the brightest sources of high-energy gamma rays and cosmic neutrinos ever detected.
The breakthrough report, just published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, centers on PKS 1424+240, a blazar located billions of light-years from Earth that had long perplexed scientists. This active galaxy, powered by a supermassive black hole consuming matter at its core, stood out as the brightest known neutrino-emitting blazar identified by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory while simultaneously glowing with very high-energy gamma rays detected by ground-based Cherenkov telescopes.
The cosmic enigma lay in a fundamental contradiction known as the "Doppler factor crisis." While the blazar's extraordinarily bright emissions suggested it should have fast-moving jets of plasma, radio observations showed these jets appeared to move sluggishly - contradicting established theories that only the fastest jets could produce such exceptional luminosity.
Yuri Kovalev, lead author of the study and Principal Investigator of the MuSES project at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, described the moment of discovery.
"When we reconstructed the image, it looked absolutely stunning. We have never seen anything quite like it - a near-perfect toroidal magnetic field with a jet, pointing straight at us."
The research team utilized the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), employing a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) that connects radio telescopes across the globe to form a virtual telescope the size of Earth. This provides the highest resolution available in astronomy, enabling scientists to study the finest details of distant cosmic jets with unprecedented clarity.
The solution to this cosmic puzzle lies in an extraordinary geometric alignment. The team discovered that PKS 1424+240's jet is pointed almost directly toward Earth, allowing astronomers to peer straight down its barrel - a viewing angle of less than 0.6 degrees. This near-perfect alignment creates what researchers term "looking into the jet cone," an exceptionally rare observational opportunity.
This head-on geometry produces dramatic effects due to special relativity. Jack Livingston, a co-author at the Max Planck Institute, explained the phenomenon:
"This alignment causes a boost in brightness by a factor of 30 or more. At the same time, the jet appears to move slowly due to projection effects - a classic optical illusion."
The research team's polarized radio signals revealed the structure of the jet's magnetic field, showing a likely helical or toroidal configuration resembling the fictional Eye of Sauron from J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings." This toroidal magnetic field structure plays a crucial role in launching and collimating the plasma flow while accelerating particles to extreme energies.
The "Eye of Sauron": plasma jet in the blazar PKS 1424+240, showing the toroidal magnetic field structure.(Y.Y. Kovalev et al.)
Cosmic Particle Accelerators
This discovery has profound implications for understanding how the universe's most powerful particle accelerators operate. The findings confirm that active galactic nuclei containing supermassive black holes function not only as electron accelerators but also as proton accelerators - the likely source of the high-energy neutrinos detected by IceCube.
Cosmic neutrinos are nearly massless particles that travel at nearly the speed of light and can pass through entire planets without interaction. Their detection provides unique insights into the most violent processes in the universe, making PKS 1424+240's neutrino emissions particularly significant for astrophysics.
The blazar's extreme relativistic beaming effects, with a Doppler factor reaching approximately 32, make it persistently bright and maintain high average flux levels. This places PKS 1424+240 among the top 1% of gamma-ray sources while simultaneously making it the brightest blazar in terms of high-energy neutrino emission.
Radio telescope data showing the detailed structure of PKS 1424+240.(MOJAVE Program/VLBA/Y.Y. Kovalev et al.)
Breakthrough in Multimessenger Astronomy
The MOJAVE program (Monitoring Of Jets in Active galactic nuclei with VLBA Experiments) represents a decades-long effort to monitor relativistic jets in active galaxies. Anton Zensus, Director at the Max Planck Institute and co-founder of the program, reflected on the significance:
"When we started MOJAVE, the idea of one day directly connecting distant black hole jets to cosmic neutrinos felt like science fiction. Today, our observations are making it real."
This achievement strengthens the connection between relativistic jets, high-energy neutrinos, and magnetic field structures in cosmic accelerators, marking a significant milestone in multimessenger astronomy - the study of cosmic phenomena using multiple types of signals including electromagnetic radiation, gravitational waves, and neutrinos.
The research suggests that only a few percent of jets are viewed within a degree of our line of sight, making PKS 1424+240 an extraordinarily rare find. Future observations of similar VHE-emitting blazars will be crucial for developing quantitative models of neutrino production in cosmic jets and better understanding the role of relativistic beaming in gamma-ray emission.
Top image: Looking inside the plasma jet cone of the blazar PKS 1424+240 with a radio telescope of the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA).
A artist's picture of Ganymede's magnetosphere. Illustration Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI); Science Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Saur (University of Cologne, Germany)
We already know a decent amount about how planets form, but moon formation is another process entirely, and one we’re not as familiar with. Scientists think they understand how the most important Moon in our solar system (our own) formed, but its violent birth is not the norm, and can’t explain larger moon systems like the Galilean moons around Jupiter. A new book chapter (which was also released as a pre-print paper) from Yuhito Shibaike and Yann Alibert from the University of Bern discusses the differing ideas surrounding the formation of large moon systems, especially the Galileans, and how we might someday be able to differentiate them.
The Galilean moons form what is known as the circum-Jovian disc (CJD), and analogue of the circum-stellar disc (CSD) that surrounds the Sun, but instead has Jupiter at its center. The other 93+ non-Galilean moons around Jupiter also define the CJD, but their creation might be different due to the size differentials.
According to the paper, there are three main differences between the formation of planets and the formation of moons. Moon formation happens on a much faster time scale - around 10-100 times faster than planet formation. The system itself is also always gaining additional material from the CSD and losing it to whatever is at the center of the disk, which in the CJD’s case is Jupiter. And finally, there aren’t nearly as many examples of systems with multiple large moons as there are planetary systems, at least since the discovery of exoplanets 30 years ago. Jupiter and Saturn remain our only examples of large moon systems, and it will be awhile before any multi-exo-moon system will be found.
Fraser discusses the formation of our own Moon, which was dramatically different than that of the Galileans.
So what we can tell about the formation of these moon systems from the two we know about. The paper breaks the process down into a three-step process. First is the formation of the CJD, which includes gas and dust as well as moons. This was originally supported by a “minimum mass model” developed in the 1980s that assumed the disc was static and contained approximately the overall mass of the Galilean moons. In 2002, a new theory was developed that modeled the CJD as a “gas-starved disc” where the original CJD was relatively material poor but had plenty of additional material added to it by gravitational capture from the CSD.
That gravitational capture is believed to have played a key role in the formation of the Galilean moons and marks the second phase of their creation. However, Jupiter is a planet, and one of the requirements of a planet is that it clears its orbital path. Since Jupiter is the largest planet, it does so very effectively, which includes what astronomers consider “pebbles” (but on Earth could be considered a decent-sized boulder a few meters across).
One way for moons to accrete given this paucity of small material is by using even smaller material - small dust particles can make their way into the CJD without being disrupted by Jupiter, though there’s some debate about how effective this process is. Another method would be "planetesimal capture” where Jupiter’s gravity well catches the core of what would have ended up being a planet, but then ends up simply being one of the giant planet’s moons. They could have been gravitationally disturbed by Saturn, and then slowed in their orbit by running through the gas cloud surrounding early Jupiter that made up the CJD.
Fraser discusses the missions that will explore Jupiter's moons in more detail.
There are some differences in the Galilean moons themselves that can be used to prove or disprove these different formation theories. For example, Callisto isn’t in resonance with Jupiter at all, unlike the rest of its Galilean brethren. One potential theory for that is that Jupiter’s fourth moon was formed under different conditions, or maybe was hit by its own impactor that knocked it from its natural course. Callisto is again an outlier as it’s only partially “differentiated” (meaning it has a separate core, mantle, and outer shell), unlike its three compatriots. Some pebble accretion models think that Callisto is still early on in its formation journey and will eventually begin to look more like its peers.
But ultimately those questions, and many more about the formation of large moon systems, will be hard to answer without more data. The Jupiter Icy Moon Explorer (JUICE) mission will help shed some light on those questions, but even then it's still only one, or at the most two, data sets that we have available. Until exoplanet hunting telescopes become powerful enough to start finding exomoons as often as they currently find planets, many of these formation theories will remain untested. That data will eventually come along someday, and when it does it will help us understand some important parts of our own solar system better.
A scene from a visualization of the Lee-Lincoln scarp in Taurus-Littrow on the Moon. This scarp is evidence of moonquakes that sent rocks and landslides across the surface. Seismometers left on the Moon by Apollo astronauts recorded hundreds of events between 1969 and 1977, including 28 shallow moonquakes. The study narrowed the locations of these quakes and found that many of them occurred near scarps, implying that the forces creating the scarps also caused the quakes, and they continue to shape the lunar surface. The Lee-Lincoln scarp was only about 13 kilometers from one of the epicenters identified by the scientists. Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
Our Moon is a seismically active world with a long history of quakes stretching back to its early history. It turns out those quakes can and will affect the safety of permanent base structures for anybody planning to explore and inhabit the Moon. That's one conclusion from a study of quakes along the Lee-Lincoln fault in the Taurus-Littrow valley where the Apollo 17 astronauts landed in 1972. “The global distribution of young thrust faults like the Lee-Lincoln fault, their potential to be still active and the potential to form new thrust faults from ongoing contraction should be considered when planning the location and assessing stability of permanent outposts on the Moon,” said Smithsonian senior scientist emeritus Thomas R. Watters, lead author of the paper.
They base their work on evidence of moonquakes in the region over the past 90 million years, largely in material gathered by the Apollo astronauts. Chunks of rocks and landslides are mute proof of the power of magnitude 3.0 quakes to shift the surface materials around. Along with other active faults on the Moon, the Taurus-Littrow rocks and landslides show that our lunar companion is likely still geologically active.
Why Lunar Seismicity?
Here on Earth, we get earthquakes all the time. By some estimates, our planet shakes about 55 times a day, although many of these tremors are so weak we don't feel them. They happen largely due to plate tectonics and volcanic activity. Plates slip past each other very gradually, which releases energy that gets dissipated as an earthquake. We all know about the really famous spots on Earth for that kind of action - the San Andreas Fault line, the Ring of Fire in the Pacific, and parts of southeast Asia, for example. Volcanic activity also spurs earthquakes when underground magma causes "shudders" as it moves. Recent events such as the ongoing Kilauea eruptions in Hawai'i and those near Grindavik, Iceland, cause swarms of earthquakes as a result of that magma movement.
However, that's not how it works on the Moon. The two most likely causes for lunar quakes are tidal pulling and the continual cooling and shrinking of the Moon. The tidal quakes happen because Earth's gravity pulls on the Moon, which results in deep quakes up to hundreds of miles inside. Weaker quakes originate closer to the surface and those are generally thought to be due to lunar shrinkage. Since the Moon formed billions of years ago, it has lost about 150 feet of its diameter due to the gradual cooling after its birth. There are also very minor temblors that happen when a meteoroid slams into the surface, or when surface rocks react to heating and cooling from the Sun. All this activity describes a world that is constantly shaking and shuddering.
This artist’s concept shows the Moon’s hot interior and volcanism about 2 to 3 billion years ago. It is thought that volcanic activity on the lunar near side (the side facing Earth) helped create a landscape dominated by vast plains called mare, which are formed by molten rock that cooled and solidified. As the Moon has continued to cool, it has shrunk and its surface contracted. That causes scarps and fault lines to form.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Quakes and Risks
To understand the risk of quakes to future bases, Watters and research partner Nicholas Schmerr of the University of Maryland, studied materials from the Apollo 17 landing site. These rock samples, along with other details about rock falls and landslides on the Moon, told them that there are thousands of young thrust faults on the Moon. They point to a continual evolution of surface units, many caused by earthquake activities that create lunar thrust faults. That happens when rocks are compressed and one block is pushed up over another, generally as a result of the ongoing contraction of the Moon.
According to Watters and Schmerr, mission planners are going to have to consider those fault lines and the ongoing related lunar quakes when planning bases on the Moon. Short-term missions, like the Apollo landing, which had astronauts on the Moon for nearly 2 weeks, didn't face much danger from a quake or two. However, permanent bases face significant chances of damage during a quake, simply due to numbers. “If astronauts are there for a day, they’d just have very bad luck if there was a damaging event,” Schmerr pointed out. “But if you have a habitat or crewed mission up on the Moon for a whole decade, that’s 3,650 days times 1 in 20 million, or the risk of a hazardous moonquake becoming about 1 in 5,500. It’s similar to going from the extremely low odds of winning a lottery to much higher odds of being dealt a four of a kind poker hand.”
Taurus-Littrow valley taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. The valley was explored in 1972 by the Apollo 17 mission astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. They had to zig-zag their lunar rover up and over the cliff face of the Lee-Lincoln fault scarp that cuts across this valley.
Credits: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Planning for Quakes
It's not just habitats and science missions that could be damaged by lunar quakes. Russia, China, and the U.S. are planning to put nuclear power plants on the Moon. Such facilities could supply all the power anyone needs for bases and exploration, but they come with a safety price and could be quite susceptible to quake damage. That's why any these and other places need to be built with tough safety margins, and not located near any active fault lines. That's going to be a tall order, considering the extent of quakes and the numbers of fault lines that thread through the Moon.
This is why the scientists' study of lunar paleoseismology is so important. Gathering evidence of past quakes (going back many millennia), as well as more recent ones, is going to help chart the safest places to build bases, habitats, and power plants. “If astronauts are there for a day, they’d just have very bad luck if there was a damaging event,” Schmerr added. “But if you have a habitat or crewed mission up on the Moon for a whole decade, that’s 3,650 days times 1 in 20 million, or the risk of a hazardous moonquake becoming about 1 in 5,500. It’s similar to going from the extremely low odds of winning a lottery to much higher odds of being dealt a four of a kind poker hand.”
A scene from a visualization of the Lee-Lincoln scarp in Taurus-Littrow on the Moon. This scarp is evidence of moonquakes that sent rocks and landslides across the surface. Seismometers left on the Moon by Apollo astronauts recorded hundreds of events between 1969 and 1977, including 28 shallow moonquakes. The study narrowed the locations of these quakes and found that many of them occurred near scarps, implying that the forces creating the scarps also caused the quakes, and they continue to shape the lunar surface. The Lee-Lincoln scarp was only about 13 kilometers from one of the epicenters identified by the scientists. Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
Our Moon is a seismically active world with a long history of quakes stretching back to its early history. It turns out those quakes can and will affect the safety of permanent base structures for anybody planning to explore and inhabit the Moon. That's one conclusion from a study of quakes along the Lee-Lincoln fault in the Taurus-Littrow valley where the Apollo 17 astronauts landed in 1972. “The global distribution of young thrust faults like the Lee-Lincoln fault, their potential to be still active and the potential to form new thrust faults from ongoing contraction should be considered when planning the location and assessing stability of permanent outposts on the Moon,” said Smithsonian senior scientist emeritus Thomas R. Watters, lead author of the paper.
They base their work on evidence of moonquakes in the region over the past 90 million years, largely in material gathered by the Apollo astronauts. Chunks of rocks and landslides are mute proof of the power of magnitude 3.0 quakes to shift the surface materials around. Along with other active faults on the Moon, the Taurus-Littrow rocks and landslides show that our lunar companion is likely still geologically active.
Why Lunar Seismicity?
Here on Earth, we get earthquakes all the time. By some estimates, our planet shakes about 55 times a day, although many of these tremors are so weak we don't feel them. They happen largely due to plate tectonics and volcanic activity. Plates slip past each other very gradually, which releases energy that gets dissipated as an earthquake. We all know about the really famous spots on Earth for that kind of action - the San Andreas Fault line, the Ring of Fire in the Pacific, and parts of southeast Asia, for example. Volcanic activity also spurs earthquakes when underground magma causes "shudders" as it moves. Recent events such as the ongoing Kilauea eruptions in Hawai'i and those near Grindavik, Iceland, cause swarms of earthquakes as a result of that magma movement.
However, that's not how it works on the Moon. The two most likely causes for lunar quakes are tidal pulling and the continual cooling and shrinking of the Moon. The tidal quakes happen because Earth's gravity pulls on the Moon, which results in deep quakes up to hundreds of miles inside. Weaker quakes originate closer to the surface and those are generally thought to be due to lunar shrinkage. Since the Moon formed billions of years ago, it has lost about 150 feet of its diameter due to the gradual cooling after its birth. There are also very minor temblors that happen when a meteoroid slams into the surface, or when surface rocks react to heating and cooling from the Sun. All this activity describes a world that is constantly shaking and shuddering.
This artist’s concept shows the Moon’s hot interior and volcanism about 2 to 3 billion years ago. It is thought that volcanic activity on the lunar near side (the side facing Earth) helped create a landscape dominated by vast plains called mare, which are formed by molten rock that cooled and solidified. As the Moon has continued to cool, it has shrunk and its surface contracted. That causes scarps and fault lines to form.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Quakes and Risks
To understand the risk of quakes to future bases, Watters and research partner Nicholas Schmerr of the University of Maryland, studied materials from the Apollo 17 landing site. These rock samples, along with other details about rock falls and landslides on the Moon, told them that there are thousands of young thrust faults on the Moon. They point to a continual evolution of surface units, many caused by earthquake activities that create lunar thrust faults. That happens when rocks are compressed and one block is pushed up over another, generally as a result of the ongoing contraction of the Moon.
According to Watters and Schmerr, mission planners are going to have to consider those fault lines and the ongoing related lunar quakes when planning bases on the Moon. Short-term missions, like the Apollo landing, which had astronauts on the Moon for nearly 2 weeks, didn't face much danger from a quake or two. However, permanent bases face significant chances of damage during a quake, simply due to numbers. “If astronauts are there for a day, they’d just have very bad luck if there was a damaging event,” Schmerr pointed out. “But if you have a habitat or crewed mission up on the Moon for a whole decade, that’s 3,650 days times 1 in 20 million, or the risk of a hazardous moonquake becoming about 1 in 5,500. It’s similar to going from the extremely low odds of winning a lottery to much higher odds of being dealt a four of a kind poker hand.”
Taurus-Littrow valley taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. The valley was explored in 1972 by the Apollo 17 mission astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt. They had to zig-zag their lunar rover up and over the cliff face of the Lee-Lincoln fault scarp that cuts across this valley.
Credits: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University
Planning for Quakes
It's not just habitats and science missions that could be damaged by lunar quakes. Russia, China, and the U.S. are planning to put nuclear power plants on the Moon. Such facilities could supply all the power anyone needs for bases and exploration, but they come with a safety price and could be quite susceptible to quake damage. That's why any these and other places need to be built with tough safety margins, and not located near any active fault lines. That's going to be a tall order, considering the extent of quakes and the numbers of fault lines that thread through the Moon.
This is why the scientists' study of lunar paleoseismology is so important. Gathering evidence of past quakes (going back many millennia), as well as more recent ones, is going to help chart the safest places to build bases, habitats, and power plants. “If astronauts are there for a day, they’d just have very bad luck if there was a damaging event,” Schmerr added. “But if you have a habitat or crewed mission up on the Moon for a whole decade, that’s 3,650 days times 1 in 20 million, or the risk of a hazardous moonquake becoming about 1 in 5,500. It’s similar to going from the extremely low odds of winning a lottery to much higher odds of being dealt a four of a kind poker hand.”
Beste bezoeker, Heb je zelf al ooit een vreemde waarneming gedaan, laat dit dan even weten via email aan Frederick Delaere opwww.ufomeldpunt.be. Deze onderzoekers behandelen jouw melding in volledige anonimiteit en met alle respect voor jouw privacy. Ze zijn kritisch, objectief maar open minded aangelegd en zullen jou steeds een verklaring geven voor jouw waarneming! DUS AARZEL NIET, ALS JE EEN ANTWOORD OP JOUW VRAGEN WENST, CONTACTEER FREDERICK. BIJ VOORBAAT DANK...
Druk op onderstaande knop om je bestand , jouw artikel naar mij te verzenden. INDIEN HET DE MOEITE WAARD IS, PLAATS IK HET OP DE BLOG ONDER DIVERSEN MET JOUW NAAM...
Druk op onderstaande knop om een berichtje achter te laten in mijn gastenboek
Alvast bedankt voor al jouw bezoekjes en jouw reacties. Nog een prettige dag verder!!!
Over mijzelf
Ik ben Pieter, en gebruik soms ook wel de schuilnaam Peter2011.
Ik ben een man en woon in Linter (België) en mijn beroep is Ik ben op rust..
Ik ben geboren op 18/10/1950 en ben nu dus 75 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: Ufologie en andere esoterische onderwerpen.
Op deze blog vind je onder artikels, werk van mezelf. Mijn dank gaat ook naar André, Ingrid, Oliver, Paul, Vincent, Georges Filer en MUFON voor de bijdragen voor de verschillende categorieën...
Veel leesplezier en geef je mening over deze blog.
