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13-01-2026 om 23:58 geschreven door peter  

Asteroid Behaving Strangely

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13-01-2026 om 21:15 geschreven door peter  

Story by Kouceila Rekik

Credit: NASA | The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel© Daily Galaxy US

The Gateway, NASA’s upcoming lunar space station, is one step closer to reality as engineers have successfully powered on its solar electric propulsion system, a spacecraft engine designed to orbit and maneuver around the Moon. This achievement marks a major milestone in NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to establish a sustainable human presence on the lunar surface and prepare for future missions to Mars.

Building The Power And Propulsion Element

At the heart of the Gateway lies the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE), developed under the supervision of NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. Construction and assembly are led by Lanteris Space Systems in Palo Alto, California, where teams have integrated the spacecraft’s main electrical system within protective panels. This ensures the hardware can withstand the harsh environment of deep space.

Once fully operational, the PPE will generate up to 60 kilowatts of electricity,enough to supply power for communications, navigation, and orbital adjustments. The engine’s advanced solar electric propulsion allows for continuous, efficient thrust powered by sunlight, offering an innovative alternative to traditional chemical propulsion.

The system’s propulsion capability is built around three 12-kilowatt thrusters developed by L3Harris and four 6-kilowatt BHT-6000 thrusters by Busek. Together, these thrusters provide the necessary maneuverability to maintain the Gateway’s orbit and reposition it as needed for lunar missions. Redwire, another NASA partner, is responsible for the roll-out solar arrays, lightweight, flexible panels that convert sunlight into electrical energy.

Jsc2025e087964~large

© Daily Galaxy US

This hardware will power not only the Gateway’s core functions but also its visiting spacecraft and future science payloads, forming the energetic backbone of NASA’s next-generation lunar operations.

The Gateway’s Role In NASA’s Artemis Program

The Gateway is a cornerstone of NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17. Unlike the International Space Station, the Gateway will not be permanently crewed. Instead, it will serve as a modular outpost, orbiting the Moon in a highly stable near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO).

• Related video: Update On the Em Drive, And NASA's Creating The Coldest Place In The Universe (Joe Scot

This orbit provides ideal access to both the lunar surface and deep space, making it an essential platform for testing life-support systems, radiation protection, and advanced propulsion technologies. Astronauts visiting the Gateway will conduct scientific experiments, prepare landers for surface missions, and evaluate long-duration spaceflight conditions, all critical for future crewed missions to Mars.

NASA envisions Gateway as an international collaboration, involving key contributions from ESA (European Space Agency), JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), and CSA (Canadian Space Agency). Each partner will deliver specialized modules, robotics, and technology to create a truly global platform for exploration.

Engineering A Sustainable Future Beyond Earth

NASA’s decision to rely on solar electric propulsion for the Gateway is both a technological and environmental breakthrough. Unlike conventional rockets, which burn large quantities of fuel in short bursts, this system produces continuous, gentle thrust using electricity derived from sunlight. Over time, it can achieve impressive velocities with minimal resource consumption, an essential feature for long-duration missions far from Earth.

The Gateway will also act as a proving ground for autonomous operations, as it will often function without a human crew onboard. This autonomy will be vital for deep-space missions where communication delays make real-time control impossible. The spacecraft’s design prioritizes efficiency, durability, and adaptability, ensuring it can operate safely and independently in lunar orbit for years at a time.

Through its partnership with Lanteris, L3Harris, Busek, and Redwire, NASA is cultivating a powerful ecosystem of innovation that bridges public and private sectors. These collaborations are essential for building the infrastructure required for humanity’s next leap: establishing a permanent foothold on another world.

{ The Daily Galaxy }

13-01-2026 om 20:34 geschreven door peter  

NASA has announced the date of the world’s first medical evacuation from the ISS. The Dragon spacecraft with the Crew-11 mission team will undock from the station on January 14.

The medical issue aboard the ISS became known on January 7, when NASA canceled a spacewalk scheduled for the following day. Astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman were supposed to participate in the spacewalk.

Shortly thereafter, the aerospace administration announced that it would bring the Crew-11 mission team home early in order to better diagnose and treat this medical issue. NASA did not disclose which astronaut had fallen ill or what the problem was, citing privacy concerns. According to unofficial reports, it is 58-year-old Mike Fincke. This is his fourth flight into space and his third long-term assignment to the ISS.

At a subsequent press conference, NASA Chief Medical Officer James Polk declined to name the astronaut or disclose his diagnosis. However, he provided the following general description of the situation:

“This is not an operational issue. This was not an injury that occurred in the pursuit of operations,” Polk said. “It’s mostly having a medical issue in the difficult areas of microgravity, and with the suite of hardware that we have at our avail to complete a diagnosis.”

According to NASA’s plan, Crew-11 will leave the ISS on the evening of January 14. The next day, the spacecraft will splash down in the Pacific Ocean, where it will be picked up by the Shannon ship. Overloads during re-entry into the atmosphere can create additional risks for the astronaut — but NASA has well-developed scenarios for this case and instructions for ground crews.

After the departure of Crew-11, for the first time in many years, the ISS crew will be reduced to just three people. NASA astronaut Christopher Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev will remain on board the station.

The launch of the next manned spacecraft to the ISS (Crew-12 mission) is currently scheduled for February 15. However, NASA is considering the possibility of postponing the date if possible.

• According to Space

• Posted in Launches, News

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12-01-2026 om 21:48 geschreven door peter  

The 'universal language' that could let us speak to aliens: Researchers reveal the best way to communicate with extraterrestrial life

• READ MORE: Scientist reveals what our first contact with aliens will look like

By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

A group of Australian scientists have revealed how we may be able to learn to speak with aliens, and the answer is found right here on Earth.

If we do make contact with extraterrestrial life, it will likely require sending messages across vast distances of interstellar space.

The question for astronomers looking out for distant civilisations is how this communication would even be possible if we don't share a language.

Now, scientists say we might be able to develop a 'universal language' with an unlikely inspiration: The humble honeybee.

With six legs, five eyes, and a radically different social structure, scientists say that bees are among the closest things we have to aliens here on Earth.

Although humans and bees have wildly different brains, we have both evolved complex methods of communication and cooperation.

More importantly, new research shows that bees also have another very important thing in common with humans, which is the ability to do maths.

Based on this surprising discovery, scientists believe that mathematics could be the basis of a universal language.

Scientists say we might learn how to communicate with aliens by studying the concepts that we share with honey bees 

One of the big problems for communicating with aliens is the enormous distances involved.

Given that the nearest star to the sun is 4.4 light-years away, it would take an absolute minimum of 10 years to send a message and get a reply.

This makes it impractical to try to learn an alien's language from scratch, like in the sci-fi movie Arrival.

Instead, scientists want to develop a universal language that can be understood by any species, regardless of how they communicate.

To find a solution to this puzzle, the researchers asked how we might communicate with one of the most alien-like species on Earth.

Co-author Dr Adrian Dyer, of Monash University, told the Daily Mail: 'Because bees and humans are separated by about 600 million years in evolutionary time, we developed very different physiology, brain size, culture.'

However, despite these enormous differences, both humans and bees seem to have a similar basic understanding of mathematics.

In previous studies, Dr Dyer and his co-authors found that bees have the ability to learn mathematical concepts.

Scientists have found that bees can learn to add and subtract in specialised tests, giving credence to the idea that mathematics might be a universal language 

The researchers set up experiments in which bees could participate in maths tests to receive a reward of sugar water.

During these trials, bees showed the ability to add and subtract, categorise quantities as odd or even, and even demonstrated an understanding of 'zero'.

Incredibly, bees even demonstrated an ability to link abstract symbols with numbers, in a very simple version of how humans learn the Arabic numerals.

The fact that such a different organism shares mathematical concepts with humans lends evidence to the theory that mathematics could be a universal language.

The idea that mathematics could be the basis of alien communication is not a new theory.

In fact, the covers of the Golden Records, which accompanied the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes launched into deep space in 1977, were carved with mathematical and physical quantities.

Likewise, when researchers broadcast the Arecibo radio message into space in 1974, it contained 1,679 zeros and ones, ordered to communicate the numbers 1 to ten and the atomic numbers of the elements that make up DNA.

However, scientists weren't sure whether aliens would have similar enough mathematical concepts to understand these messages.

If bees can understand maths, then aliens might share those same universal concepts. That means attempts to communicate with mathematics, such as the cover of the golden disks on Voyager One and Two, could be successful 

In their new paper, the researchers argue that their evidence from bees suggests that maths really is universal.

Dr Dyer says: 'When we tested bees on mathematical type problems, and they could build an understanding to solve the questions we posed, it was very interesting, and convincing that an alien species could share similar capabilities.'

Read More

• Scientists discover 26 new bacterial species in NASA's cleanrooms - 'stop and re-check everything' 

'Now we know maths can be solved by bees, we have a solid basis to think about how to try to communicate with alien intelligence.'

As to what that language might look like, Dr Dyer says it may be very similar to the mathematics most of us use every day.

'Mathematics, which was first developed by philosophers to communicate complex problems more efficiently, is already a language we humans use every day.

'At a simple level, binary coded information would be a start, then, like we humans learn language through many "baby steps", we learn with another species to build a commonly understood language framework.'

How the Drake Equation is used to hunt aliens

The Drake Equation is a seven-variable way of finding the chance of active civilizations existing beyond Earth.

It takes into account factors like the rate of star formation, the amount of stars that could form planetary systems, the number potentially habitable planets in those systems.

The equation includes recent data from Nasa's Kepler satellite on the number of exoplanets that could harbor life.

Researchers also adapted the equation from being about the number of civilizations that exist now, to being about the probability of civilization being the only one that has ever existed.

Researchers found the odds of an advanced civilization developing need to be less than one in 10 billion trillion for humans to be the only intelligent life in the universe.

Unless the odds of advanced life evolving on a habitable planet are astonishingly low, then humankind is not the only advanced civilization to have lived. 

But Kepler data places those odds much higher, which means technologically advanced aliens are likely to have existed at some point.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

12-01-2026 om 18:43 geschreven door peter  

Humanity receives mysterious 10-second signal from unknown source in deep space

• MORE:  Stephen Hawking's chilling alien doomsday prediction spreads as scientist issues alarming warning

By CHRIS MELORE, US ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITOR

A 10-second signal from one of the most distant points in the universe has been detected by humanity, and scientists are still trying to understand its origins.

Two Earth satellites have confirmed that the mysterious signal came from a point 13billion light-years away from Earth, likely coming from an exploding supernova when the universe was only 730million years old.

The farther away something is in space, the longer its light (or signal) takes to reach us, so when humans see a very distant explosion or star, we're actually looking at what happened there billions of years ago, like a time machine showing us the past.

In this case, scientists believe this high-energy gamma-ray burst, which they've named GRB 250314A, came from the earliest supernova ever recorded from the dawn of time.

Gamma rays are invisible and ultra-powerful forms of light. They are the most energetic source of radiation known in the universe, which is produced by massive stellar explosions, appearing as super-bright flashes from our planet.

Scientists are still unsure why this ancient supernova from the early universe looks almost exactly like the exploding stars seen in our nearby modern universe today. 

If this explosion is the true source of the signal, researchers from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) expect early stars to be bigger, hotter, and produce much more volatile explosions than the mysterious signal suggested. 

Andrew Levan, lead author of a new study on the signal from Radboud University in the Netherlands, said: 'There are only a handful of gamma-ray bursts in the last 50 years that have been detected in the first billion years of the universe. This particular event is very rare and very exciting.'

A gamma-ray burst named GRB 250314A (Pictured) is believed to the be the source of a mysterious signal received from 13billion light-years away

An artist's impression of the supernova GRB 250314A as it was exploding during the first billion years after the Big Bang

The signal was first discovered on March 14, 2025, when the Space Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM) satellite picked it up as a sudden flash of high-energy light from deep space.

However, two studies on the possible source of this distant signal have just been released.

The probe is a joint project between scientists in France and China designed to spot these kinds of bursts throughout the cosmos.

The signal scientists recorded was a short, powerful burst of gamma rays, which are invisible waves of energy stronger than X-rays and capable of passing straight through the human body, damaging cells, DNA, and tissues.

Since this burst likely came from an exploding star 13billion light-years from Earth, however, the gamma rays that reached Earth were far too weak to pose any danger to people.

This burst lasted only about 10 seconds because gamma-ray bursts are like quick fireworks in space, releasing a huge amount of energy in a very short time before fading away.

Unlike random noise or background static in space, which is constant and weak, these gamma-ray bursts stand out as super-bright, focused beams with a unique pattern that human satellites have been built to recognize.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) confirmed the discovery about three and a half months later, during the summer of 2025, by taking detailed pictures and measurements of the fading glow of the explosion, which could still be seen in space.

The 10-second signal was recorded in 2025 by the Space Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM) satellite, operated by France and China

'Only Webb could directly show that this light is from a supernova — a collapsing massive star,' Professor Levan added in a statement from NASA. 

Other sources of mysterious space noise like this might include solar flares or cosmic rays, but gamma-ray bursts are much rarer and come from massive events like star explosions that scientists are able to track down billions of years after they take place.

Levan added that JWST is so advanced that scientists believe it'll be able to find more signals from when the universe was only five percent of its current age, which is roughly 14billion years old now.

To this point, scientists know very little about the first billion years of the universe, what was happening in space during this time, or how stars behaved and died throughout the cosmos.

Until now, it was thought that following the Big Bang, the massive explosion believed to have kickstarted everything in existence, early stars lived much shorter lives and contained fewer elements than stars like our sun do today. 

However, in December 2025, the new studies published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics analyzed detailed observations from the Webb Telescope and found that this supernova from 730 million years after the Big Bang had the same brightness and radiation signature as exploding stars billions of years later.

Nial Tanvir, a professor at the University of Leicester in the UK, added: 'Webb showed that this supernova looks exactly like modern supernovae.'

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12-01-2026 om 18:33 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers witnessed a cosmic explosion that released energy equivalent to 400 billion suns. It was caused by a supermassive star being torn apart by a black hole.

The event, officially designated AT2024wpp (and informally named Whippet), was first discovered by astronomers as part of the Zwicky Transient Facility sky survey. It immediately attracted attention due to its similarity to the cosmic explosion AT 2018cow, which was 10–100 times brighter than an average supernova.

Whippet also resembled another class of objects called “Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient” (LFBOT). This is an incredibly bright burst of light visible at distances of up to billions of light-years, which usually lasts for several days and emits high-energy radiation ranging from the blue end of the spectrum to ultraviolet and X-rays. Although several dozen such phenomena have been detected, LFBOTs remain poorly understood, although scientists associate them with the destruction of stars.

To solve the mystery of Whippet, researchers observed it using the Liverpool Telescope in the Canary Islands and the Swift spacecraft. They confirmed that its spectrum was shifted toward the blue end of the spectrum and that the object emitted X-rays, as expected from an LFBOT. This, combined with the fact that Whippet had an extremely high temperature, led to the conclusion that the event was caused by a black hole tearing apart a star with its gravity.

Further investigation by Whippet revealed a powerful shock wave propagating from the central source at about 20% of the speed of light, colliding with the surrounding gas. These shock waves dissipated in about six months when they reached the outer gas bubble left over from the destroyed star.

However, scientists have not yet fully understood all the circumstances surrounding Whippet. The team discovered helium moving away from the source at a speed of about 21 million km/h. This suggests that some densely bound structure survived tidal disruption and is moving at a speed of about 2% of the speed of light.

The team believes that this could be a stream of material ejected by the core of a doomed star when it was “spaghettified” by the black hole at the center of Whippet. Another possibility is that this stream of helium was generated by a third body in the system when it was exposed to particles and X-rays ejected by the black hole that had just “devoured” the star.

Earlier, we talked about how the black hole at the center of the Milky Way keeps its explosive past hidden.

• According to Space.com

• Posted in News, Science

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11-01-2026 om 21:20 geschreven door peter  

NASA’s Curiosity rover, which has been exploring the Red Planet for more than 13 years, has sent back a stunning new panorama. Taken from the summit of Mount Sharp, the image reveals a stark but breathtaking view of the landscape bathed in the rays of the setting sun.

Observation point

In November 2025, the rover’s navigation cameras captured black-and-white images over two Martian days (sols). Specialists combined them into a single composite panorama, using blue and yellow tones to highlight changes in lighting. This technique helps to better see the details of the terrain.

Curiosity took this image from the top of a ridge overlooking a unique area known as the Boxwork. This is a maze of mineral ridges created billions of years ago by underground waters flowing through cracks in the rock. Softer rocks eroded over time, leaving behind hard “veins.” Such structures are key evidence of Mars’ wet past.

Image taken by the Curiosity rover on July 25, 2025.

Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The rover recently drilled into this ridge to collect a rock sample for analysis. In the foreground of the panorama, you can see tracks from its wheels and traces of previous drilling. Curiosity’s goal is to study how the planet evolved from a wet environment, potentially suitable for microbial life, to a dry desert.

Maximum efficiency

Despite its age, the Mars rover has gained new autonomous capabilities thanks to software updates. This allows it to plan its research more effectively and collaborate with orbital spacecraft, optimizing the performance of its aging energy system.

The panorama from Mount Sharp is not only an impressive sight, but also a reminder of the persistent work of the research robot. Each new sample and photograph brings science closer to solving the main mystery: whether there was ever life on Mars.

Earlier, we reported on how the Perseverance and Curiosity rovers simultaneously faced severe challenges.

• According to Space

• Posted in News, Tech

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11-01-2026 om 20:29 geschreven door peter  

Deep-sea trenches are deep depressions at the bottom of the Earth’s oceans, which are unique features of our planet in the Solar System. They were formed as a result of the movement of tectonic plates and can reach depths of 10-11 km, creating one of the most amazing landscapes on our planet – the hadal zone.

Space at the bottom

There are places on our planet whose gloomy mystery can rival the darkness of space itself. Usually, these include Antarctic glaciers, where life is almost impossible, or the polar deserts on some islands of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, which are often compared to Mars.

However, there are places on Earth that are almost as inaccessible to humans as outer space, even though they are as far away from it as possible. These are deep-sea trenches – narrow and long depressions at the bottom of the world’s oceans, whose bottoms are never reached by sunlight. Their landscape resembles that of a celestial body, and their few inhabitants resemble aliens.

However, to truly understand the depth of the trenches, you need to observe what happens when you gradually walk along the seabed, going deeper and deeper.

First, they determine the area between the highest point that gets underwater during high tide and the one that remains dry during low tide. This is called the littoral zone, and it is usually a narrow strip along the coast that sometimes gets a few kilometers wide. A great example of a littoral zone is a bunch of Ukrainian estuaries: looking at them, it is clear that the littoral zone is an area that makes any other part of the seabed seem deep.

Next comes the continental shelf – a section of the seabed where the depth slowly decreases to 200 m. The northern part of the Black Sea or the English Channel area, where the depth may not exceed hundreds of meters, tens of kilometers from the coast, are typical example. In essence, the shelf is part of the continental mass submerged by the ocean. Between the sedimentary rocks and basalt, as in much drier places, there is a layer of granite.

If you continue further, you will reach the continental slope, where the bottom descends at a much greater angle and quickly reaches a depth of 2-3 km. The continental slopes are particularly pronounced. For example, off the coast of North America.

Further down, the angle of the seabed decreases again, and abyssal plains stretch to depths of 4-5 km. These are huge depressions, comparable in size to entire countries, bounded by continental slopes. Sunlight rarely reaches their bottom, and despite the fact that bathyscaphes have repeatedly descended there, we still know less about these areas than we do about the surface of the Moon.

Deep-sea trenches are located even deeper than abyssal plains. The term “hadal zone” is used to describe the fauna of this landscape. There is no need to talk about flora, as it is practically non-existent at depths greater than 5 km. These are truly abysses, where the bottom slopes steeply downward and no light penetrates.

Formation of oceanic trenches

The fact that all the deepest areas of the ocean are shaped like narrow, elongated strips stretching along the coasts of continents or island arcs can be explained by the peculiarities of their formation. As is well known, the Earth’s crust consists of large blocks – tectonic plates. They move along the viscous, relatively plastic outer layer of our planet’s mantle, and it is this movement that causes earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

The crust of plates can be continental, i.e., contain the aforementioned layer of granite, or oceanic, i.e., consist only of basalt and sedimentary rocks. Some plates consist of both types, while others consist only of oceanic crust.

In most cases, the transition from the continental slope to the ocean depths involves the same tectonic plate. However, sometimes two different lithospheric blocks are encountered here: one with a continental crust and the other with an oceanic crust. In this case, the oceanic plate begins to subduct beneath the continental plate and partially melts. As a result, a deep depression is formed.

Its slopes are always gentler on the side of the subducting oceanic plate and steeper on the continental side. This is the structure we call a deep-sea oceanic trench. At the same time, the plate subducts very slowly, so from the outside it may seem like a completely calm place.

The way deep-sea trenches are formed determines their extremely uneven distribution across the surface of our planet. They are always located in tectonically active zones, mainly in the so-called Pacific Ring of Fire, which surrounds the largest ocean on our planet.

Mariana Trench

In fact, all ten of the deepest ocean trenches are located in the Pacific Ocean. There are more than thirty of them in total. For comparison, there are only three large trenches in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, and none at all in the Arctic Ocean.

However, the most famous of the Pacific trenches is the Mariana Trench, which is also considered the deepest in the world. Its depth is estimated differently, but usually the value of 11,022 m is given. It is located in the western part of the Pacific Ocean, near the islands of the same name. Its bottom is so inaccessible that humans first reached it only in 1960, just a year before they first set foot on the surface of the Moon. Until recently, the number of people who had visited the bottom of this trench was smaller than the number who had visited our natural satellite.

The water pressure at this depth is 108.6 MPa, which is 1,072 times greater than normal atmospheric pressure at sea level. However, microorganisms, crustaceans, and even fish have been found there. None of them is found anywhere else except this place, and they have never seen the light of the sun or stars. Their living conditions resemble those in space.

In addition, despite its inaccessibility, the Mariana Trench already bears the negative traces of human activity. Heavy toxic waste settles there and, together with river water, flows into the oceans.

Other trenches

Everyone knows about the Mariana Trench. However, the rest are no less amazing than it. Tonga, Philippine, Kermadec, Izu Ogasawara, Kuril-Kamchatka, North New Hebridean, Bougainville, and Japan – all of them are deep enough to completely submerge Mount Everest.

Although the Mariana Trench is the deepest, the title of the longest on Earth belongs to another Pacific structure – the Peru-Chile Trench. It stretches along the coast of South America for 5,900 km, where the Nazca Plate dives under the South American Plate.

The deepest and largest trench in the Indian Ocean is the Sunda Trench, which stretches for 4-5 thousand km along the coast of Indonesia. Its maximum depth is 7,729 m near the island of Bali.

The ocean trenches of the Atlantic Ocean are generally relatively short in length, as they are formed by small tectonic plates. The deepest of these is the Puerto Rico Trench, with a maximum depth of 8,742 m. This is only slightly less than the height of Mount Everest.

It would seem that ocean trenches have nothing to do with astronomy. However, when considering the planets of the Solar System, among the unique phenomena available only on Earth, along with the biosphere, it is worth mentioning them. After all, nowhere else do lithospheric plates move, and even more so, there are no places where they collide under a layer of liquid.

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11-01-2026 om 20:10 geschreven door peter  

To Keep Water Liquid, the Red Planet Needed to Freeze

By Andy Tomaswick 

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

10-01-2026 om 23:47 geschreven door peter  

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10-01-2026 om 23:37 geschreven door peter  

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10-01-2026 om 23:28 geschreven door peter  

After years of delays and debate, the United States Congress has passed a NASA budget that omits any plan to retrieve several rock and soil samples collected and stored by the Perseverance Rover, including Martian rocks that may contain signs of past or present extraterrestrial life on the Red Planet.

According to the new compromise spending bill for the current fiscal year, it appears Congress has given in to the White House’s demands that resources needed to complete the planned Mars Sample Return (MSR) program be explicitly excluded from any approved budget. While the bill still awaits a final vote in Congress and the President’s signature, NASA officials are sending signals that the MSR program is effectively dead.

“The agreement does not support the existing Mars Sample Return program,” the bill states.

Victoria Hamilton, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and chair of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, described the death of MSR as “deeply disappointing” while also questioning the veracity of the current administration’s stated goals.

“When we’ve got memos coming out saying we want to be the dominant power in space, I wonder how we leave something this ambitious behind,” Hamilton said.

Escalating Cost of Retrieving Martian Rocks has Haunted the MSR Program

Before NASA launched Perseverance in July 2020, mission planners had struggled with the concept of retrieving the samples the rover was tasked with collecting through its mission. Since then, the interplanetary explorer has collected dozens of samples and stored them for the planned future return.

Artist’s concept of the Mars ascent rocket, one component of the effort to collect and send samples of Martian rock back to Earth

(NASA/Public Domain).

During that time, the cost for MSR has continued to rise, with 2024 estimates reaching $11 billion. Regardless of the potential scientific value, the extraordinarily large share of NASA’s science budget that the single mission was projected to consume left planetary scientists working on other stalled or underfunded projects wondering whether the MSR was worth the broader scientific cost.

Repeated threats from Congress to scrap the ambitious yet costly program altogether resulted in a new, stripped-down plan released in January 2025 that came closer to the original $7 billion estimate. Now, it appears even that plan was still too rich for the current administration’s taste, resulting in its explicit exclusion from the new bill.

Funding Could Aid Other Missions and Keep Hopes of MSR Alive

As advocates of the MSR program try to regroup and seek other alternatives to bring the Martian rocks back to Earth to study, NASA’s proposed $7.25 billion science budget offers some hope that a future mission may not be completely off the table.

For example, the bill, which cuts roughly 1% from the 2025 budget, allocates $110 million for a “Mars Future Missions” program to continue developing the key technologies needed for any future sample-return mission. These include further development of landing systems that can survive the thin atmosphere during descent, which has proven challenging and costly for previous missions.

Assuming the bill is signed into law, other missions that have waited patiently for MSR to run its course may see new signs of life. For example, recent discoveries on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn and in the atmosphere of Venus have led to plans for missions to further explore those tantalizing findings. These include plans to explore potential subsurface oceans on Enceladus and Europa for extraterrestrial life.

Is the Search for Extraterrestrial Life on Mars Dead?

Although the newly proposed NASA science budget adds hope to the search for life on other moons and planets, proponents of MSR note the tantalizing cache of samples already collected by the rover since its 2021 arrival.

In 2024, mission operators spotted a surface feature containing mineral deposits called “leopard spots” in a dry riverbed that leads to Jezero crater. NASA scientists note that on Earth, these types of leopard spots are often left by microbial organisms interacting with the rock, making the Chevaya Falls sample arguably the best candidate for containing signs of past life on Mars.

Bethany Ehlmann, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, said scientists eagerly await the opportunity to examine these samples in Earth labs equipped to determine if they do hold signs of extraterrestrial life. Elhman also pointed to the potential for other scientific discoveries that the dozens of samples gathered by Perseverance may hold.

“A rock with a potential biosignature is awaiting return now, and other rocks hold breakthrough discoveries,” the UC Boulder scientist explained.

Unless Congress has an unexpected last-minute change of heart, the new budget has left mission planners wondering about the fate of the samples, as the rover has nearly finished filling its collection tubes.

“We’d really like to hear from NASA sooner than later that they will work with the community on a plan to get these samples,” Hamilton said.

• Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.

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10-01-2026 om 21:58 geschreven door peter  

The object’s unique appearance offers astronomers a unique look at the evolution of galaxies early in their formation process and could provide new insights into the mysterious nature of nonluminous dark matter.

“A Tale of a Failed Galaxy”

The absence of stars within Cloud-9 served as a key observation, according to principal investigator Alejandro Benitez-Llambay of the Milano-Bicocca University in Milan, Italy.

“In science, we usually learn more from the failures than from the successes,” Benitez-Llambay said in a statement. “In this case, seeing no stars is what proves the theory right.”

Characterizing Cloud-9 as the cosmic remnant that conveys “a tale of a failed galaxy,” Benitez-Llambay said the discovery offers astronomers a rare glimpse of “a primordial building block of a galaxy that hasn’t formed.”

A Cosmic “RELHIC”

Cloud-9 represents a new class of objects known as Reionization-Limited H I Clouds (RELHICs), where “H I” represents neutral hydrogen. Combined, the term was devised by astronomers to convey the presence of a hydrogen cloud that formed early in the universe, and which had not yet produced any stars.

Like cosmic phantoms, these kinds of objects were long hypothesized, but had never been directly observed until now. Before the recent Hubble observations, astronomers may have mistaken Cloud-9 for a faint dwarf galaxy invisible to telescopes on Earth, as they lack the sensitivity required to detect any stars that might have been lurking in its gaseous body.

“With Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys, we’re able to nail down that there’s nothing there,” said Gagandeep Anand of STScI, the lead author of a new study detailing the discovery.

A Window to the Dark Side

“We know from theory that most of the mass in the universe is expected to be dark matter, but it’s difficult to detect this dark material because it doesn’t emit light,” according to Andrew Fox, a member of the discovery team with the European Space Agency’s Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy/Space Telescope Science Institute (AURA/STScI).

Comparing the cosmic relic to “a window into the dark universe,” Fox said that Cloud-9 has offered he and his international colleagues behind the discovery “a rare look at a dark-matter-dominated cloud.”

A New Theory Emerges

According to current theories, RELHICs may represent clouds composed of dark matter that have failed to accumulate the amount of gas required to form stars. Based on its presence alone, astronomers now hypothesize that Cloud-9 may be the first detection of a variety of small, dark matter-rich failed galaxies that are likely found throughout the universe.

These unique structures have likely evaded detection in the past because traditional observation methods make them very difficult to spot, as they are void of bright objects like stars.

Another unique feature about Cloud-9 is that the clouds it possesses are smaller and more uniform when compared to hydrogen cloud formations observed closer to the Milky Way. Cloud-9 is also closer to possessing a perfect spherical shape, which also contributes to its unique appearance.

With a neutral hydrogen core approximately 4,900 light-years in diameter, based on radio signals emanating from the object. This leads astronomers to conclude that Cloud-9 has a mass roughly one million times greater than that of our Sun. If this estimate is correct, that would mean that the dark matter the object possesses would be equivalent to five billion solar masses.

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/astronomy/ }

10-01-2026 om 21:37 geschreven door peter  

A staggering 250,000 kilometers per hour was the speed at which the comet had rushed through the inner solar system near the Sun–a reminder of how extreme velocities set interstellar visitors apart from homegrown comets. That velocity set the stage for NASA’s newly released close‑up views of 3I/ATLAS, captured by three spacecraft at Mars as the object swept just 18 million miles from the planet, a very unusually intimate pass for an object born around another star.

The sharpest imaging came from the HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which resolved a compact coma appearing as a bright, pixelated sphere at about 19 miles per pixel. While modest in appearance, these data provided crucial constraints on both nucleus size and dust environment. MAVEN’s ultraviolet instrument added a layer of chemical insight to the campaign, as its design for probing tenuous atmospheric gases lent itself to detecting hydrogen signatures tied to water breakdown, thus providing an upper limit on the comet’s deuterium‑to‑hydrogen ratio, an important tracer of the comet’s formation region. Composition-sensitive ultraviolet data of this sort are extremely rare for interstellar objects.

This multi‑spacecraft campaign corresponds to an unprecedented solar system–wide effort. Per ESA, twelve NASA assets have imaged 3I/ATLAS since July, including heliophysics missions that could observe the comet near the Sun when Earth-based telescopes couldn’t track it through the intense glare. Those vantage points allowed for continuous monitoring as 3I/ATLAS passed behind the Sun, enabling high‑cadence studies of its evolving tail geometry. Newly processed images from SOHO and NASA’s PUNCH mission showed the dust tail in late September and early October, capturing distinct jets that intensified after perihelion in late October.

3I/ATLAS as seen from Mars.

Photo shared by NASA Photograph: (NASA)

The pace of the observations then quickened when the James Webb Space Telescope joined the campaign. Its infrared spectrograph measured an unexpected chemical signature: the coma contains nearly eight times as much CO₂ as water vapor. This inversion of the typical cometary ratio is unlike almost every well‑studied solar system comet. “I have never seen such a strong CO2 peak in a comet spectrum,” said Martin Cordiner of NASA Goddard. Because Earth’s atmosphere blocks the relevant infrared wavelengths, only Webb could uncover this composition, hinting that 3I/ATLAS may preserve ice chemistry inherited from a star-forming environment very different from the Sun’s.

Such chemical fingerprints are complemented by orbital analyses that suggest great age. As NASA’s Tom Statler pointed out, the comet may have originated in a system older than the solar system itself: “gives me goose bumps to think about.” Its hyperbolic trajectory confirms that it is indeed an interstellar visitor, and integrations backward in time of its motion indicate it approached from the constellation Sagittarius with a heliocentric velocity in excess of 58 km/s. Investigations using the stellar data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft demonstrate that the distribution of the velocity of the comet is indicative of objects that have been ejected from the Milky Way thin disk-a stellar population which contains long‑lived, moderately metal‑poor systems. These results support early theoretical predictions that 3I/ATLAS may have formed billions of years ago.

Amateur astronomers have seized the moment as the comet moves through the predawn sky. Observers say small telescopes can capture a faint, fuzzy glow-an accessible signpost of cosmic material that spent eons drifting between stars before its brief appearance near Earth. Indeed, as NASA’s acting astrophysics director Shawn Domagal‑Goldman put it, “Everyone that is in control of a telescope wants to look at it because it’s a fascinating and rare opportunity.”

Meanwhile, the scientific race goes on, as ESA’s Juice spacecraft conducts its own observations. The main antenna is now serving as a heat shield near the Sun, delaying data return until February, but its unusual geometry also means it will provide some of the highest‑quality post-perihelion measurements. When those data do arrive, they will be joining a rapidly growing archive of multi-wavelength studies and form the most complete portrait ever assembled of an interstellar comet during one solar system passage.

{ Modern Engineering Marvels }

10-01-2026 om 20:07 geschreven door peter  

An artist’s illustration of the massive, fast-spinning asteroid 2025 MN45, discovered in the first data from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. 

(Image credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory/NOIRLab/SLAC/AURA/P. Marenfeld)

Scientists analyzing the first images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory have discovered the fastest-spinning asteroid in its size class yet.

The record-breaking space rock, called 2025 MN45, is larger than most skyscrapers on Earth at about 2,300 feet (710 meters) wide. The massive rock completes a rotation in about 113 seconds — making it the fastest-spinning known asteroid over 1,640 feet (500 meters) in diameter.

The research, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters Wednesday (Jan. 7), is part of an asteroid survey aimed at improving our understanding of how these small bodies formed and evolved.

The study is the first peer-reviewed paper from the Rubin Observatory's LSST Camera — the largest digital camera in the world — which will repeatedly scan the Southern Hemisphere's night sky over 10 years to create an unprecedented time-lapse movie of the universe.

Rocks that roll

Asteroids are essentially large space rocks, and many are remnants of how our solar system appeared early in its 4.5 billion-year-old history, before the evolution of planets and moons. Therefore, by studying asteroids, scientists can figure out how our solar system changed over the eons.

Scientists found 2025 MN45 using the preliminary data release from the Rubin Observatory, which has already revealed thousands of previously unknown asteroids around the solar system after just seven nights of observations. (The 10-year LSST survey has yet to formally begin, but is expected to start in the next few months.)

The asteroid's remarkably fast spin excited the team, as it provides clues about the ancient rock’s composition.

"Clearly, this asteroid must be made of material that has very high strength in order to keep it in one piece," Sarah Greenstreet, an assistant astronomer at the National Science Foundation's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, said in a statement. "It would need a cohesive strength similar to that of solid rock."

"This is somewhat surprising," added Greenstreet, who also leads a Rubin working group about near-Earth objects and interstellar objects, "since most asteroids are believed to be what we call 'rubble pile' asteroids, which means they are made of many, many small pieces of rock and debris that coalesced under gravity during solar system formation or subsequent collisions."

Thousands more to come

In general, fast-spinning asteroids could have reached that state after a collision with another space rock, the study team said. It is also possible that 2025 MN45 is a remnant of a much larger asteroid that was shattered by a cosmic crash.

Most asteroids in the solar system are in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. But most fast-spinning asteroids that astronomers have observed are much closer to Earth, simply because they are easier to see, the study authors noted. 2025 MN45 is a main-belt object, where most asteroids (as they are loose piles of rubble) must take at least 2.2 hours to rotate in order to avoid fragmentation. Anything that rotates faster than that "must be structurally strong," they wrote.

That said, 2025 MN45 is not the only fast spinner in the main asteroid belt. In addition to 2025 MN45, Rubin's first dataset includes 16 "super-fast" rotators, each of which has a rotational period of between 13 minutes and 2.2 hours, as well as two "ultra-fast" rotators with spins of less than two minutes each. All of these asteroids are also longer than 100 yards (90 m), and all but one of the newfound asteroids lives in the main belt.

The commissioning data from Rubin, which was released last June, underwent a deeper look in the new paper, which was also discussed Wednesday at a news conference at the 247th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Phoenix.

The huge set of observations has about 1,900 never-before-seen asteroids, according to the statement. There will be many more to come when Rubin formally begins its 10-year survey of the sky in the coming months.

In particular, the initial results suggest that crashes may not be the only way asteroids reach extreme speeds, perhaps pressing astronomers to develop new explanations.

{ https://www.livescience.com/space }

09-01-2026 om 21:24 geschreven door peter  

{ https://scientias.nl/nieuws/astronomie-ruimtevaart/ }

09-01-2026 om 20:52 geschreven door peter  

The smell of space has been described as similar to the smell of something cooking on a charcoal grill. 

Rbkomar/Getty Images

{ https://science.howstuffworks.com/ }

09-01-2026 om 20:41 geschreven door peter  

CIA makes shocking statement about mysterious interstellar visitor that upends NASA's comet story

• MORE: The five unsolved mysteries of 2025 that captivated the world 

By CHRIS MELORE, US ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITOR

A shocking admission by the CIA has just reopened the mystery surrounding 3I/ATLAS, the interstellar object speeding through our solar system.

Although NASA has claimed the object is an ordinary comet, an icy rock with a long tail of gas and dust, intelligence officials have refused to answer whether they investigated the possibility that 3I/ATLAS is an extraterrestrial craft. 

In response to a November 2025 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request regarding the supposed comet, the CIA said it could 'neither deny nor confirm the existence or nonexistence of records' regarding 3I/ATLAS.

The federal government had maintained that the object showed no signs of harboring alien life or that it was an artificially constructed spacecraft since it was detected in July 2025.

However, the CIA still decided to provide what is known as a 'Glomar response.' It's a way for the government to say, 'We're not going to tell you if we have information or not, because even admitting that could reveal sensitive secrets.' 

Harvard professor Avi Loeb has continued to challenge NASA's claims, highlighting that 3I/ATLAS has exhibited at least 12 strange behaviors that scientists have not been able to explain as natural occurrences.

Those anomalies include the object having a bright 'anti-tail' pointing in the opposite direction of a normal comet, course changes that defy the laws of gravity, and a nickel shell, which is a metal typically used by spacecraft to deflect heat.

'That this information is treated as sensitive enough to be classified by the CIA is surprising, given that NASA officials stated decisively at a press conference on November 19, 2025, that 3I/ATLAS is definitely a comet of natural origin,' Loeb said.

Amateur stargazers have taken clear images of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS (Pictured) using common telescopes during its journey through the solar system

The CIA has released a statement neither confirming nor denying any investigations into 3I/ATLAS, complying with a November 2025 FOIA request

As 3I/ATLAS nears Jupiter on March 16, the Harvard physicist said the new revelations by the US intelligence community suggest the government has secretly investigated the possibility that the object is a hostile threat, as he theorized last year. 

The Daily Mail has requested comment from both the CIA and NASA and is awaiting a response.

The FOIA request was submitted by UFO and government conspiracy researcher John Greenewald Jr, who noted in a post on X that he was filing an appeal to get a clearer answer from the CIA.

Greenewald Jr added that he has filed the same request for information regarding 3I/ATLAS with NASA and other US agencies and is still waiting for them to reply.

FOIA requests are part of US law that lets anyone, including citizens, journalists, and researchers, ask government agencies for documents or records on a specific topic.

The agency must give a response, but it can withhold revealing details if the information is classified for national security reasons or falls under certain exemptions.

'Very interesting, apparently CIA [director John] Ratcliffe knows something,' one person on social media alleged. 

The new revelations have come months after NASA completely dismissed the possibility of 3I/ATLAS being extraterrestrial in origin, with space agency administrator Nicky Fox saying they've found nothing 'that would lead us to believe it was anything other than a comet.'

However, NASA's November announcement created more doubt about the object's origins than it solved, as the agency was widely mocked for the blurry images it released of 3I/ATLAS.

Many critics quickly pointed out that amateur astronomers with common telescopes had been taking much clearer photographs of the alleged comet as it approached Earth in December, despite being over 200million miles from the object.

In comparison, NASA Mars orbiters were less than 20million miles away from 3I/ATLAS in early October 2025, but still only returned heavily pixelated images of the visitor, which caused some to claim it was a cover-up.

'NASA officials were encouraged to deliver the likely scientific interpretation, while at the same time, the serious consideration of a black swan event by the CIA was hidden from public view to prevent panic from taking hold for no good reason,' Loeb speculated in a statement published Monday.

A black swan event is a rare, totally unexpected happening that's highly unlikely but could have huge, world-changing consequences for the Earth.

In the case of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, Loeb said if the tiny chance that the object was artificial alien technology turned out to be true, it would be a massive shock with enormous implications for humanity, including proving aliens exist.

The cryptic response from the CIA adds another layer to the eight-decade conspiracy theory UFO believers have had, claiming that the US government has been concealing what it knows about extraterrestrial life.

Just days after Greenewald Jr's FOIA request was submitted in November, the hit documentary 'The Age of Disclosure' was released, interviewing 34 US government, military, and intelligence officials about their knowledge of an alleged UFO cover-up.

Despite the speculation, the US military and federal government have said there has never been any physical proof that UFOs or beings from other planets exist.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

09-01-2026 om 18:34 geschreven door peter  

Astronomers spot record-breaking asteroid the size of seven football pitches - and it could be nudged towards Earth

• READ MORE:  NASA finds essential sugars on ancient asteroid Bennu

By XANTHA LEATHAM, EXECUTIVE SCIENCE EDITOR

Out in the depths of space, somewhere in between Mars and Jupiter, is a newly discovered asteroid that’s breaking records.

Astronomers have spotted a celestial rock the size of seven football pitches that is spinning faster than they’ve ever seen before.

The asteroid, named 2025 MN45, is 710 metres in diameter and completes a full rotation every 1.88 minutes.

The fact that it spins so rapidly has baffled experts, who say it must consist of solid rock in order to maintain its shape.

‘Clearly, this asteroid must be made of material that has very high strength in order to keep it in one piece as it spins so rapidly,’ Sarah Greenstreet, who leads the Rubin Observatory’s Solar System Science Collaboration’s Near-Earth Objects and Interstellar Objects working group, said.

‘We calculate that it would need a cohesive strength similar to that of solid rock.

‘This is somewhat surprising since most asteroids are believed to be what we call “rubble pile” asteroids, which means they are made of many, many small pieces of rock and debris that coalesced under gravity during Solar System formation or subsequent collisions.’

While it is currently out in the asteroid belt, hundreds of millions of kilometres away, asteroids and comets have previously been ‘nudged’ into Earth’s neighbourhood by the gravity of nearby planets.

This artist’s illustration depicts 2025 MN45 — the fastest-rotating asteroid with a diameter over 500 meters that scientists have ever found

The lightcurve of the asteroid - the y-axis shows the asteroid’s brightness, and the x-axis shows its phase, or where it is in its rotation

The sighting forms part of a much larger discovery, as scientists have detected 1,900 new asteroids cruising about our Solar System that have never been seen before.

Within this flurry are 19 super and ultra-fast rotating asteroids – with 2025 MN45 taking the new record for the fastest-spinning asteroid with a diameter over 500 meters that astronomers have found.

For their study, researchers collected data over the course of about 10 hours across seven nights in April and May of last year.

They used the Rubin Observatory’s LSST Camera – the largest digital camera in the world – to capture the night sky.

‘Discoveries like this exceptionally fast-rotating asteroid are a direct result of the observatory's unique capability to provide high-resolution, time-domain astronomical data, pushing the boundaries of what was previously observable,’ Regina Rameika, from the US Department of Energy, said.

As asteroids orbit the Sun, they also rotate at a wide range of speeds, the researchers explained.

These spin rates not only offer clues about the conditions of their formation billions of years ago but also tell us about their internal composition and evolution over their lifetimes.

In particular, an asteroid spinning quickly may have been sped up by a past collision with another asteroid, suggesting that it could be a fragment of an originally larger object.

Most asteroids can be found orbiting our Sun between Mars and Jupiter within the main asteroid belt

An illustration of the main asteroid belt, orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter, where asteroid 2025 MN45 can be found

This image, one of the first released by Rubin Observatory, exposes a Universe teeming with stars and galaxies — transforming seemingly empty, inky-black pockets of space into glittering tapestries for the first time

‘Fast rotation also requires an asteroid to have enough internal strength to not fly apart into many smaller pieces, called fragmentation,’ the team said in a release.

‘Most asteroids are ‘rubble piles’, which means they are made of many smaller pieces of rock held together by gravity, and thus have limits based on their densities as to how fast they can spin without breaking apart.

‘For objects in the main asteroid belt, the fast-rotation limit to avoid being fragmented is 2.2 hours; asteroids spinning faster than this must be structurally strong to remain intact.

‘The faster an asteroid spins above this limit, and the larger its size, the stronger the material it must be made from.’

Within the main asteroid belt are space rocks ranging in size from 530km (329 miles) to just 10 metres (33 feet) in diameter.

‘Sometimes, asteroids and comets are nudged into Earth’s neighbourhood by the gravity of nearby planets,’ NASA says.

However, they explained that it is ‘highly unlikely’ an asteroid large enough to cause widespread damage will impact Earth for the next 100 years or more.

The new findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

09-01-2026 om 18:09 geschreven door peter