Why astronauts swear by a breakfast that's linked to cancer and heart attacks

• READ MORE: NASA gives major update on stranded astronauts' rescue mission

By EMILY JOSHU STERNE HEALTH REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day - especially if you're headed into space. 

However, astronauts have revealed why their Breakfast of Champions is an American classic high in fat, low in fiber, and consistently linked to heart disease. 

In 1961, Alan Shepard made history as the first American in space, orbiting partly around the Earth. 

As the first US astronaut to go into outer space, he was also responsible for starting traditions, even when it came to his breakfast. 

Instead of traditionally healthier options like fruit and whole-grain toast, Shepard chose steak and eggs before launch.

Shortly after, in 1969, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins all followed suit before staking America's claim on the moon. 

But American tradition isn't the main reason astronauts pick steak and eggs. 

NASA picked the meal due because it's high in protein and low in fiber, which helps astronauts stay full longer without needing to go to the bathroom during a flight.

Alan Shepard, pictured here, made history in 1961 as the first American in space. He also pioneered the astronaut tradition of eating steak and eggs for breakfast

Astronauts have historically chosen steak and eggs because the dish is high in protein but low in fiber. This keeps them full for longer but limits bowel movements

Steak and eggs are two of the most protein-rich foods. 

One serving of steak, about three and a half ounces, contains 25 grams of protein, and one large eggs has an extra six grams.

Health officials recommend consuming 0.36 grams of protein per pound of weight. 

This means a person who weighs 140 pounds should eat about 53 grams of protein every day. 

Protein helps reduce levels of ghrelin, a hormone that controls hunger, and boosts levels of peptide YY, a hormone that increases satiety or fullness. 

This means protein-rich foods are more likely to keep people full for longer amounts of time.  

Astronauts have limited storage space for food in their aircrafts, so being able to eat fewer meals to stay full is likely ideal for them.

Additionally, neither steak nor eggs contain any fiber.

Fiber normally adds bulk to stools, making them easier to pass and leading to more frequent bowel movements. 

Not getting enough fiber leads to difficulty passing bowel movements.

This is ideal for astronauts not only because they may need to sit for long periods of time, but bathroom breaks are far from simple in space.

Pictured above are astronauts currently stranded on the International Space Station sharing a meal

On the International Space Station, for example, there are only three specialized toilets, which use a vacuum system to suck waste away. 

The ISS usually has anywhere from three to 13 astronauts on board at any given time, meaning there short and limited bathroom breaks can keep bathrooms from getting backed up. 

Steak and eggs have notoriously been linked to chronic diseases like heart disease due to high saturated fat content potentially blocking arteries. 

One study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), for example, found eating red meat every day truples the amount of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) in the gut, a chemical thought to increase cholesterol. 

However, astronauts largely rely on rehydrated and pantry foods while in space, so it's unlikely steak and eggs is everyday cuisine. 

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

11-02-2025 om 21:39 geschreven door peter  

As part of their ongoing mission to push the boundaries of space exploration, NASA’s cutting-edge robotic hand is bringing us one step closer to a future where machines can grab objects just like humans. The machine which has been designed for dexterity and precision, isn’t just about gripping objects—it’s about revolutionising how astronauts and robots work together in space. With applications ranging from spacecraft maintenance to cleaning up space junk, this high-tech hand is paving the way for a new era of spacecraft operations.

Satellites have revolutionised modern life, bringing us global communication and navigation to weather forecasting and scientific discovery. However, as space becomes increasingly crowded, a growing threat grows above us—space debris. Thousands of decommissioned or unused satellites, spent rocket stages, and fragments from past collisions now orbit Earth at high speeds, posing serious risks to spacecraft and future missions. As space agencies and private companies launch more satellites than ever before, finding solutions to manage and mitigate space debris has become a critical challenge for the future of space exploration.

Space debris is a particular problem that NASA’s new Astrobee system is ideally placed to address. With over 36,000 pieces of debris larger than 10cm and over 100 million smaller than 1cm, all orbiting Earth at speeds in excess of up to 28,000 km per hour it’s a problem we must start to deal with. 

Astrobee is a free-flying robotic system that has been initially designed to help astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS.) The system is composed of three cube shaped robots that have been named Bumble, Honey and Queen! The system could navigate around the ISS without human intervention using their sensors to see. The system also comprises of an arm that allows it to grab onto handrails on board to stabilise itself and conserve energy. 

The system, that was designed at the NASA’s Ames Research Centre has been on board the ISS since 2019 but it could go much further. It’s certainly been of great help around the ISS but deployed into orbit with a suitable propulsion system and power source, the sensor guided robotic arm could grab onto and manipulate pieces of debris. It could ultimately be used to collect debris like a space based road cleaner. 

Astrobee isn’t the only approach being taken to cleaning up the debris in space. The European Space Agency have also been experimenting with robotic arms and nets in their  ClearSpace-1 programme which aims to capture debris using robotic arms or nets and deorbit it safely. There is also talk of using harpoons to capture debris too but, and whilst I love the idea of harpoons around to grab debris it feels like it could be a dangerous option.

Lasers are another option that has been considered as has ground based tethers, the use of solar sails and other de-orbit technology. Whichever technique works, it’s great to see space agencies around the World taking space debris and its clean up seriously. Hopefully if Astrobee can prove itself it too can join the ranks of growing janitors to our Solar System. 

Source : 

• Robot Gets a Grip

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{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

11-02-2025 om 18:23 geschreven door peter  

Artist's impression of Mars billions of years ago when it had water and microbes could have survived.

Credit: ESO/M.Kornmesser

Yet, rover missions and satellite scans have uncovered undeniable evidence of ancient Martian lakes, rivers, and even massive oceans. This contradiction, often called the Mars climate paradox, has left planetary scientists searching for answers.

Earlier theories suggested that hydrogen and carbon dioxide in Mars’ atmosphere created a greenhouse effect strong enough to warm the planet. But hydrogen, a gas with a short atmospheric lifespan, should have vanished too quickly to maintain warmth over millions of years. So how did ancient Mars defy the odds?

A Missing Piece of the Puzzle

A team of researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) may have just cracked the case. Led by NASA Sagan Postdoctoral Fellow Danica Adams, the scientists used advanced atmospheric modeling to simulate how ancient Martian gases interacted with the planet’s crust.

Their findings? A hidden chemical process called crustal hydration may have kept Mars warm for millions of years.

Here’s how it works:

• Mars’ surface rocks absorbed vast amounts of water over time.
• This process locked hydrogen into the planet’s crust, preventing it from escaping into space.
• Later, geological shifts released hydrogen back into the atmosphere, triggering extended warm periods that lasted up to 40 million years at a time.

According to the study, these episodic bursts of warmth occurred multiple times between 4 billion and 3 billion years ago—precisely when Mars showed signs of liquid water.

NASA’s Perseverance Rover Could Prove the Theory—But There’s a Catch

While the Harvard team’s discovery is based on computer simulations, direct proof could soon be within reach. NASA’s Perseverance rover is currently collecting rock samples from the Martian surface, and scientists believe those samples could contain the chemical evidence needed to confirm the study’s predictions.

The problem? NASA’s long-delayed Mars Sample Return mission is struggling to stay on track.

This mission, which aims to bring Martian rocks back to Earth for analysis, has faced a series of budget cuts, scheduling delays, and redesigns. If successful, it could provide undeniable evidence of the processes that once kept Mars warm and wet for millions of years.

What This Means for the Search for Life on Mars

The discovery doesn’t just explain Mars’ ancient climate—it also has massive implications for astrobiology. If Mars had liquid water for millions of years at a time, it dramatically increases the chances that life may have once emerged on the Red Planet.

Since Mars lacks plate tectonics, its surface remains largely unchanged since its early days. This means ancient signs of life—if they exist—may still be preserved beneath its surface.

Now, with a combination of Perseverance’s ongoing mission and a potential Mars Sample Return breakthrough, scientists are closer than ever to solving one of the greatest mysteries of planetary science. Could this finally be the key to proving that Mars was once a living world?

Perseverance’s ‘Three Forks’ Sample Depot Map: This map shows where NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover dropped each of its 10 samples – one-half of every pair taken so far – so that a future mission could pick them up. After five weeks of work, the sample depot was completed on January 24, 2023, the 687th day, or sol, of the mission.

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

As part of its search for signs of ancient life on Mars, Perseverance is the first rover to bring a sample caching system to the Red Planet that packages promising samples for return to Earth by a future mission. This series of images shows NASA’s Perseverance rover inspecting and sealing a “witness” sample tube on June 21, 2021 (the 120th sol, or Martian day, of the mission), as it prepares to collect its first sample of Martian rock and sediment.
Witness tubes are similar to the sample tubes that will hold Martian rock and sediment, except they have been preloaded with a variety of materials that can capture molecular and particulate contaminants. They are opened on the Martian surface to “witness” the ambient environment near sample collection sites. With samples returned to Earth in the future, the witness tubes would show whether Earth contaminants were present during sample collection. Such information would help scientists tell which materials in the Martian samples may be of Earth origin.
The sampling system’s dedicated camera, the Cachecam, captured these images.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

{ https://curiosmos.com/ }

11-02-2025 om 18:23 geschreven door peter  

Scientists are AMAZED to discover a stunning 'Einstein Ring' hiding in our cosmic backyard

• READ MORE: Albert Einstein's atomic bomb letter could fetch $4 MILLION 

By VICTORIA ALLEN SCIENCE EDITOR FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Space rarely displays anything as near-perfect as this 'jaw-dropping' ring of light.

But astronomers have found an incredibly rare complete 'Einstein ring' - predicted by Albert Einstein more than 100 years ago.

The glimmering circle is formed by light from a faraway galaxy, hitting a second galaxy closer to Earth, called NGC 6505.

The gravitational pull of NGC 6505 appears to bend the light around itself like a halo.

There are only a handful of complete Einstein rings which have ever been seen from Earth, because two galaxies and our own planet have to align perfectly to show the full circle.

The image, revealed by the European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope, shows a phenomenon famously predicted by Albert Einstein in a letter from 1915, where he described how the gravitational field from a massive object like a galaxy could warp the fabric of space, so that light travelling towards it has to follow a curved path.

This is called 'gravitational lensing', and an Einstein ring is one of the most dramatic examples of it.

Stephen Serjeant, professor of astronomy at the Open University, who has co-authored a research paper on the Einstein ring, said: 'This Einstein ring is jaw-dropping, it is so perfect it looks like a simulation.

'It is pretty incredible that the galaxy NGC 6505 was discovered in 1884, but we have only just found this thrilling phenomenon which was staring us in the face for more than a century, waiting to be seen. 

Space rarely displays anything as near-perfect as this 'jaw-dropping' ring of light. But astronomers have found an incredibly rare complete 'Einstein ring' - predicted by Albert Einstein more than 100 years ago 

'It is such a perfect circle because of the alignment of the galaxies, and it's extremely bright and very sharp, with little fuzz around the image.

'This ring and other galaxies which warp light will help us to gain valuable insights about dark matter and dark energy in space.'

Most gravitational lensing has a very small effect, with one ray of light from a distant galaxy producing just a visible pinprick in the night sky.

But when the gravitational pull is strong enough, and the two galaxies involved line up properly together, multiple rays of light get through and appear as curved lines.

These curved lines join up to form a ring.

The newly discovered Einstein ring is a showstopper because it is so rare, so unusually bright, unusually close to us, and photographed in rare high-resolution, which was not possible before the current generation of high-tech telescopes.

But astronomers are also excited about the ring, and other examples of gravitational lensing in the universe, because they will help to better understand the 'dark universe'.

This dark universe is the mysterious 95 per cent of space which is not planets, stars, asteroids, dust or gas.

The newly discovered Einstein ring is a showstopper because it is so rare, so unusually bright, unusually close to us, and photographed in rare high-resolution, which was not possible before the current generation of high-tech telescopes

It is made up of dark matter - an unknown material which has a gravitational pull - and dark energy - an unknown force which is speeding up the rate at which the universe is expanding.

The newly discovered Einstein ring brings more confirmation that much of a typical galaxy - in this case the galaxy NGC 6505 - is made up of dark matter, based on the gravitational pull needed to warp light into the ring shape.

This information about dark matter will help the floating space telescope Euclid in its mission to create a 3D map of more than a third of the sky.

Gravitational lensing is also important for understanding how the universe - which has been expanding since the Big Bang - is expanding faster than expected.

Dark energy is believed to be the force speeding up the expansion, and pulling galaxies away from each other.

The distance between the two galaxies which produced the Einstein ring helps to understand the effect of dark energy.

And that matters because, many billions of years in the future, dark energy is the force which could cause the 'Big Rip' where the universe tears itself apart.

The light forming the Einstein ring comes from a galaxy an incredible 4.42 billion light-years away, which does not yet have a name because it had never been seen before.

Einstein Rings were first predicted by Albert Einstein more than 100 years ago

The gravitational lensing was the phenomenon which allowed it to be discovered - when light from it hit NGC 6505 and was distorted into a ring.

The lensing, named because it is similar to the lens in an eye, magnified the light from the distant galaxy, acting like a microscope, so it could be seen and investigated.

The light, which appears in the shape of the distant galaxy, should form an oval, but the gravitational pull of NGC 6505 flattens it into a ring.

That's because the gravity bends the fabric of space, called 'spacetime' by Einstein, so the light, which normally travels in a straight line, gets deflected.

NGC 6505 is around 590 million light-years from Earth, which is just a stone's throw away in cosmic terms.

Euclid blasted off on its six-year mission to explore the dark Universe on 1 July 2023.

Before the spacecraft could begin its mission, there was a testing phase to make sure it worked properly, which produced a set of images in September 2023.

This first revealed the Einstein ring, which had only a one in 2,000 chance of being seen, and was spotted by Euclid Archive Scientist Bruno Altieri.

He said: 'Even from that first observation, I could see it, but after Euclid made more observations of the area, we could see a perfect Einstein ring.

'For me, with a lifelong interest in gravitational lensing, that was amazing.'

Euclid will examine galaxies up to 10,000 billion light years away.

A light year is around six trillion miles.

The telescope is expected to find around 100,000 'strong' gravitational lenses, which form arcs or circles of light.

Euclid's main job is searching for the more subtle effects of weak gravitational lensing, where background galaxies appear only mildly stretched, to gradually create the most extensive 3D map of the Universe yet.

EINSTEIN'S GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY

Albert Einstein

In 1905, Albert Einstein determined that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and that the speed of light in a vacuum was independent of the motion of all observers - known as the theory of special relativity.

This groundbreaking work introduced a new framework for all of physics, and proposed new concepts of space and time.

He then spent 10 years trying to include acceleration in the theory, finally publishing his theory of general relativity in 1915.

This determined that massive objects cause a distortion in space-time, which is felt as gravity.

At its simplest, it can be thought of as a giant rubber sheet with a bowling ball in the centre.

Pictured is the original historical documents related to Einstein's prediction of the existence of gravitational waves, shown at the Hebrew university in Jerusalem

As the ball warps the sheet, a planet bends the fabric of space-time, creating the force that we feel as gravity.

Any object that comes near to the body falls towards it because of the effect.

Einstein predicted that if two massive bodies came together it would create such a huge ripple in space time that it should be detectable on Earth.

It was most recently demonstrated in the hit film film Interstellar.

In a segment that saw the crew visit a planet which fell within the gravitational grasp of a huge black hole, the event caused time to slow down massively.

Crew members on the planet barely aged while those on the ship were decades older on their return.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

11-02-2025 om 00:15 geschreven door peter  

This Revolutionary Telescope Could Be the Ultimate Exoplanet Hunter

Unlike its predecessors, HWO is specifically designed to search for habitable worlds.

Shutterstock.

• James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): Since its 2021 launch, JWST has provided groundbreaking insights into the earliest galaxies, the birth of stars, and the chemistry of exoplanet atmospheres.
• Euclid Space Telescope (2023): Designed to map the large-scale structure of the universe, Euclid is helping scientists understand the mysterious forces of dark matter and dark energy.
• SPHEREx & PLATO (2025–2026): SPHEREx will conduct an all-sky infrared survey of millions of galaxies, while PLATO will specialize in finding Earth-sized exoplanets orbiting distant stars.
• Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (2027): Known as the “Mother of Hubble”, Roman will revolutionize deep-space imaging with a field of view 100 times larger than Hubble’s.

Each of these missions plays a critical role in preparing for HWO, which will take exoplanet research to a whole new level.

What Makes the Habitable Worlds Observatory Different?

Unlike its predecessors, HWO is specifically designed to search for habitable worlds. While JWST and other telescopes have analyzed exoplanet atmospheres, they were not built primarily for detecting biosignatures—chemical signs of life. HWO will change that.

Key Features of HWO:

• Large Segmented Mirror: Expected to be 6 to 8 meters in diameter, allowing for extremely detailed observations.
• Advanced Coronagraph: This technology will block out the blinding light of stars, revealing the faint glow of planets in orbit.
• Multi-Wavelength Observations: HWO will study planets in visible, ultraviolet, and infrared light, providing a complete picture of their atmospheres.
• Biosignature Detection: The telescope will search for key gases like oxygen, ozone, and methane, which could indicate biological activity.

NASA astrophysicist Dr. Aki Roberge explains, “HWO will be capable of detecting planets that are not just Earth-sized, but truly Earth-like—worlds with atmospheres and conditions that could support life.”

A Super-Hubble for the 2030s

HWO is being designed to go far beyond exoplanet studies. Scientists expect it to redefine our understanding of the universe, tackling some of the biggest mysteries in cosmology:

• Dark Matter & Dark Energy: Studying the forces that shape the universe.
• Galactic Evolution: Observing how galaxies change over billions of years.
• Stellar & Planetary Formation: Analyzing how solar systems like ours emerge and evolve.

Although HWO is still in its early development phase, a significant milestone was achieved on August 1, 2024, when NASA established the Habitable Worlds Observatory Technology Maturation Project Office (HTMPO). This office will oversee the telescope’s design, technology testing, and mission planning.

By the late 2020s, NASA hopes to finalize the Mission Concept Review (MCR), moving HWO into Phase A development. If all goes as planned, the telescope could launch in the 2030s, ushering in a new era of space exploration.

The Habitable Worlds Observatory combines elements from the earlier LUVOIR and HabEx concepts.

What If HWO Finds Life?

The implications of this mission could be game-changing. If HWO detects a biosignature in an exoplanet atmosphere, it would mark one of the most profound discoveries in human history. As NASA researchers put it, “If life exists beyond Earth, HWO will be the telescope that finds it.”

Even if no biosignatures are detected, HWO will still provide invaluable insights into planetary diversity, helping scientists understand what makes a world truly habitable.

NASA is currently seeking scientists to join the HWO Community Science and Instrument Team (CSIT), a group tasked with refining the mission’s scientific goals. This is a crucial step toward defining what instruments the telescope will carry and how it will operate.

The next decade will be a defining moment for astrobiology. With JWST, Roman, and HWO working together, we may finally uncover the truth about life in the cosmos.

{ https://curiosmos.com/ }

09-02-2025 om 22:12 geschreven door peter  

Could This Simple Chemical Test Unlock the Mystery of Life on Mars?

The search for life beyond Earth has long focused on detecting biosignatures—chemical traces of biological activity.

Strange surface features on Mars.

Malin Space Science Systems/NASA/JPL-Caltech

“Our astrobiology research group is highly interdisciplinary, comprising biologists, aerospace engineers, medical engineers, chemists, geologists, and physicists,” Riekeles explained. “We often hold collaborative discussions to bring together diverse perspectives and brainstorm innovative solutions.”

Why L-Serine Could Be Key to Detecting Martian Microbes

L-serine is not just another amino acid—it has cosmic significance. Scientists have detected it in meteorites and on the asteroid Ryugu, suggesting that it has existed since before the formation of the Solar System. Since both Earth and Mars were bombarded by carbon-rich asteroids in their early history, it’s reasonable to assume L-serine is present on Mars as well.

“If life developed on Mars with a similar biochemistry to known life on Earth, it seems plausible that L-serine could also be a potent chemoattractant for hypothetical Martian microbes,” Riekes continued. “Additionally, the environmental conditions of early Mars, which were warmer and likely supported liquid water, resemble those of early Earth, making a similar biochemistry of putative Martian microbes plausible.”

To test this hypothesis, the researchers studied extremophiles—microbes that thrive in extreme environments similar to those found on Mars. They selected three species:

• Bacillus subtilis spores, capable of surviving extreme heat up to 100°C.
• Pseudoalteromonas haloplanktis, found in Antarctica and adapted to temperatures as low as -2.5°C.
• Haloferax volcanii, an archaeon that thrives in highly saline conditions, resembling environments that could exist on Mars.

Each of these microorganisms responded to L-serine by actively moving toward it, confirming its effectiveness in stimulating microbial motion.

A Simple, Space-Ready Life Detection Device

The team designed a minimalist, easy-to-use detection system that could be adapted for planetary missions. Their device consists of two chambers—one containing a microbial sample and the other filled with L-serine—separated by a thin membrane. If microbes are present and motile, they will swim toward the amino acid, providing a clear signal of life.

However, refining this device for real-world deployment poses additional challenges. Space missions require ultra-compact, resilient, and automated equipment. The researchers are now working to make their apparatus smaller, sturdier, and capable of functioning autonomously in space.

Beyond Mars: Expanding the Search for Life

While Mars remains the primary target, this technology could be used on other celestial bodies suspected to harbor life. Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, has a subsurface ocean beneath its icy crust, making it an ideal candidate for this type of microbial detection.

The Berlin-based team is also exploring applications beyond space exploration. Similar technology could be adapted for water quality testing on Earth, offering new ways to detect microbial contamination in drinking water and environmental monitoring.

“We are continuing to develop the device to improve its Technology Readiness Level,” Riekeles said. “Our focus is on making it smaller, more robust, and fully automated to meet the requirements of space exploration. While we are driving the development process internally, we plan to collaborate with third parties, like space agencies, to ensure it becomes flight-ready.”

{ https://curiosmos.com/ }

09-02-2025 om 21:45 geschreven door peter  

NASA’s Revolutionary LISTER Mission Could Unlock the Moon’s Secrets

LISTER aims to change that. By measuring the Moon’s internal heat flow, scientists can reconstruct its thermal history—shedding light on how the celestial body evolved over billions of years.

{ https://curiosmos.com/ }

09-02-2025 om 21:27 geschreven door peter  

Anatomy of an Impact and its Aftermath

The impactor probably slammed into the surface at nearly 55,000 kilometers per hour. The crash is what produced the enormous 320-kilometer-diameter Schrödinger impact basin. In the aftermath, the rocky debris scoured the deep canyons.

Schrödinger formed in the outer margin of the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin. At a diameter of about 2,400 km, it’s the largest and oldest impact basin on the Moon. The basin’s rim is about 300 km from the South Pole and within 125 km of the proposed exploration site for the Artemis mission.

The Schrödinger crater has a ~150-km diameter peak ring and the whole area is surrounded by a blanket of impact ejecta that splashed out in an irregular pattern up to 500 km away. The outermost crater ring resembles a circular mountain range and rises 1 to 2.5 km above the basin floor. It was produced by the collapse of a central uplift after the impact. After the impact, basaltic lava flows flooded the area. A large pyroclastic vent erupted more material onto the basin floor. That volcanic activity ended around 3.7 billion years ago.

Impact Anomalies

A careful analysis of the impact basin the canyons, and the ejecta surrounding the site by Kring and a team of scientists at the Lunar Planetary Laboratory, gives an idea of impact details. In a paper released about the site, the scientists discuss its features, plus some unusual finds. For example, the canyon rays don’t converge at the basin’s center as you might expect from typical impacts. They seem to come together in a different spot. That implies a point explosion impact.

The location of the converging rays suggests that the incoming asteroid’s trajectory was about 33.5 west of north. The evidence also points to a distributed impact. That could mean the impactor came in at a low angle. Or, it’s also possible that secondary ejecta from the impact also came in at low angles. There are many secondary craters in the area which help explain the possibilities. Continued analysis will help explain the huge amounts of energy released in the event. Gareth Collins, one of Kring’s team members, said, “The Schrödinger crater is similar in many regards to the dino-killing Chicxulub crater on Earth. By showing how Schrödinger’s km-deep canyons formed, this work has helped to illuminate how energetic the ejecta from these impacts can be.”

Future Exploration

Of course, these rays and the impact basin will end up as great exploration points for NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions. Right now, the evidence from the ejecta blanket points to the fact that there’s an uneven distribution, particularly in the area where the first missions are planned. That will allow astronauts and robotic probes to reach underlying samples of the Moon’s primordial crust without having to dig through rocks of a younger age.

Since the basin is the second-youngest basin on the Moon, the impact melted rocks will be a great way to test the actual age of the impact. The general understanding is that some 3.8 billion years ago, the Moon (and Earth) experienced a great many of these collisions. This epoch was the Late Heavy Bombardment, thought to have lasted up to 200 million years. The continual impacts during this time scarred the surfaces of the rocky planets and the Moon, as well as asteroids. Lunar rocks created as a result of lava flows at that time will open a window into their ages and mineralogy, especially compared to other, older rock formations. They should also improve our understanding of that period of solar system history. In particular, it can help scientists characterize the impacts on Earth that affected not just the surface, but its life forms.

For More Information

• Grand Canyons on the Moon (journal article)
  
• Grand Canyons on the Moon

{ https://www.universetoday.com }

09-02-2025 om 18:34 geschreven door peter  

Traditionally, the discussion of space junk and the Kessler Syndrome has focused on how debris in orbit will pose a hazard for future satellites, payloads, and current and future space stations. In 2030, NASA and its many partnered space agencies plan to decommission the International Space Station (ISS) after thirty years of continuous service. However, this situation will also mean that more debris will be deorbiting regularly, not all of which will completely burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

An illustration of a field of orbital debris, or space junk, circling Earth. 

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/JSC

While the chance of debris hitting an aircraft is very low (one in 430,000, according to their paper), the UBC team’s research highlights the potential for disruption to commercial air flights and the additional costs it will lead to. The situation of more launches and more hazards is illustrated perfectly by the “rapid unscheduled disassembly” (RUD) of the Starship on January 16th, during its seventh orbital flight test. The explosion, which happened shortly after the prototype reentered Earth’s atmosphere, caused debris to rain down on the residents of the Turks and Caicos. Said Wright in a UBC News release:

“The recent explosion of a SpaceX Starship shortly after launch demonstrated the challenges of having to suddenly close airspace. The authorities set up a ‘keep out’ zone for aircraft, many of which had to turn around or divert their flight path. And this was a situation where we had good information about where the rocket debris was likely to come down, which is not the case for uncontrolled debris re-entering the atmosphere from orbit.”

A similar situation happened in 2022 when the spent stages of a Chinese Long March 5B (CZ-5B) weighing about 20 metric tons (22 U.S. tons) prompted Spanish and French aviation authorities to close parts of their airspace. If spent stages and other payloads have a low enough orbit, they can reenter Earth’s orbit uncontrolled, and large portions may make it to the ground. In addition to the record number of launches last year, there were also 120 uncontrolled rocket debris re-entries while more than 2,300 spent rocket stages are still in orbit.

According to the International Air Transport Association, passenger numbers are expected to increase by almost 7% this year. With rocket launches and commercial flights increasing at their current rate, Wright and his colleagues say that action must be taken to mitigate the potential risks. As part of their study, the team selected the busiest day and location for air traffic in 2023, which was in the skies above Denver, Colorado – with one aircraft for every 18 square km (~7 mi²). They then paired this to the probability of spent rock stages reentering Earth’s atmosphere (based on a decade of data) above the flights.

With this as their peak, they calculated the probability of rocket debris reentering the atmosphere over different air traffic density thresholds. Their results showed that for regions experiencing 10% peak air traffic density or higher, there was a 26% chance of deorbited rocket debris entering that airspace. “Notably, the airspace over southern Europe that was closed in 2022 is only five percent of the peak,” said Wright. “Around the world, there is a 75-per-cent chance of a re-entry in such regions each year.”

At present, whenever orbital debris reenters the atmosphere around busy airspace, aviation authorities will respond by diverting flight paths, closing airspace, or taking the risk of allowing flights to continue. “But why should authorities have to make these decisions in the first place? Uncontrolled rocket body re-entries are a design choice, not a necessity,” said Dr. Boley. “The space industry is effectively exporting its risk to airlines and passengers.”

One possibility is to design rocket stages to reenter the atmosphere in a controlled way so they can crash into the ocean far away from busy air traffic lanes. However, this solution requires collective international action. “Countries and companies that launch satellites won’t spend the money to improve their rocket designs unless all of them are required to do so,” said Dr. Byers. “So, we need governments to come together and adopt some new standards here.”

Further Reading: 

• UBC, 
• Scientific Reports

{ https://www.universetoday.com }

09-02-2025 om 18:21 geschreven door peter  

Scientists reveal what would happen if an astronaut ejaculated in space - and it suggests the '220-mile-high club' could be off the cards

• READ MORE: Sex in space 'dolphin-style' is the new frontier 

By SHIVALI BEST FOR MAILONLINE 

During their stints on the International Space Station (ISS) - lasting for months at a time - astronauts spend their spare time doing many of the same things people do on Earth.

This raises the question: do astronauts masturbate or have sex in zero-gravity?

NASA has not issued any strict guidelines around 'alone time', although commanders have stated that they do not allow sexual intercourse on the ISS. 

Now, two scientists have revealed what would happen if an astronaut ejaculated in space. 

Sex historian, Dr Esme Louise James, and AI expert, Dr Matt Agnew, turned to the concept of conservation of momentum to understand what would happen if a 'man's rocket blasted off in space'. 

According to the pair's calculations, ejaculation would propel the astronaut backwards at a speed of around two metres/hour. 

This could throw a spanner in the works for astronauts hoping to get frisky on future missions to Mars. 

Dr Adam Watkins, Associate Professor in reproductive and developmental physiology, at the University of Nottingham previously told MailOnline: 'Sex in space is physically possible, but would not be as easy as it is here on Earth.' 

Sex historian, Dr Esme Louise James, and AI expert, Dr Matt Agnew , turned to the concept of conservation of momentum to understand what would happen if a 'man's rocket blasted off in space'

Dr James and Dr Agnew posted a video on TikTok, exploring what would happen if a male astronaut ejaculated in space.

'I'm here with Matt Agnew to finally answer the question we're sure has also plagued your mind for many years,' Dr James wrote in the video's caption. 

To work it out, the pair used a fundamental concept of physics known as the 'conservation of momentum'.

Dr Agnew explained: 'The conservation of momentum says that the total momentum of two or more bodies in a system will remain the same. 

'This means that the mass multiplied by the velocity of the ejaculate will equal the mass multiplied by the velocity of the man.'

The pair estimate that the average volume of ejaculate would be around one teaspoon, while its density would be around one gram per millilitre. 

Meanwhile, the average speed of ejaculation is an impressive 45km/hr (27mph), according to the scientists.  

'We multiply the mass by velocity, and that gives us the momentum of the ejaculate,' Dr Agnew said. 

No human has ever officially had sex in space (that they've admitted to...), and the lack of gravity could make it difficult

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

08-02-2025 om 21:45 geschreven door peter  

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Contents

• Floods and Avalanches
• A Hole in 41
• More About the Mission
• News Media Contacts

Among several recent findings, the rover has found rocks made of pure sulfur — a first on the Red Planet.

Scientists were stunned on May 30 when a rock that NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover drove over cracked open to reveal something never seen before on the Red Planet: yellow sulfur crystals.

Since October 2023, the rover has been exploring a region of Mars rich with sulfates, a kind of salt that contains sulfur and forms as water evaporates. But where past detections have been of sulfur-based minerals — in other words, a mix of sulfur and other materials — the rock Curiosity recently cracked open is made of elemental, or pure, sulfur. It isn’t clear what relationship, if any, the elemental sulfur has to other sulfur-based minerals in the area.

While people associate sulfur with the odor from rotten eggs (the result of hydrogen sulfide gas), elemental sulfur is odorless. It forms in only a narrow range of conditions that scientists haven’t associated with the history of this location. And Curiosity found a lot of it — an entire field of bright rocks that look similar to the one the rover crushed.

“Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert,” said Curiosity’s project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting.”

It’s one of several discoveries Curiosity has made while off-roading within Gediz Vallis channel, a groove that winds down part of the 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) Mount Sharp, the base of which the rover has been ascending since 2014. Each layer of the mountain represents a different period of Martian history. Curiosity’s mission is to study where and when the planet’s ancient terrain could have provided the nutrients needed for microbial life, if any ever formed on Mars.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured this view of Gediz Vallis channel on March 31. This area was likely formed by large floods of water and debris that piled jumbles of rocks into mounds within the channel.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Floods and Avalanches

Spotted from space years before Curiosity’s launch, Gediz Vallis channel is one of the primary reasons the science team wanted to visit this part of Mars. Scientists think that the channel was carved by flows of liquid water and debris that left a ridge of boulders and sediment extending 2 miles down the mountainside below the channel. The goal has been to develop a better understanding of how this landscape changed billions of years ago, and while recent clues have helped, there’s still much to learn from the dramatic landscape.

Since Curiosity’s arrival at the channel earlier this year, scientists have studied whether ancient floodwaters or landslides built up the large mounds of debris that rise up from the channel’s floor here. The latest clues from Curiosity suggest both played a role: some piles were likely left by violent flows of water and debris, while others appear to be the result of more local landslides.

While exploring Gediz Vallis channel in May, NASA’s Curiosity captured this image of rocks that show a pale color near their edges. These rings, also called halos, resemble markings seen on Earth when groundwater leaks into rocks along fractures, causing chemical reactions that change the color.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Those conclusions are based on rocks found in the debris mounds: Whereas stones carried by water flows become rounded like river rocks, some of the debris mounds are riddled with more angular rocks that may have been deposited by dry avalanches.

Finally, water soaked into all the material that settled here. Chemical reactions caused by the water bleached white “halo” shapes into some of the rocks. Erosion from wind and sand has revealed these halo shapes over time.

“This was not a quiet period on Mars,” said Becky Williams, a scientist with the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, and the deputy principal investigator of Curiosity’s Mast Camera, or Mastcam. “There was an exciting amount of activity here. We’re looking at multiple flows down the channel, including energetic floods and boulder-rich flows.”

A Hole in 41

All this evidence of water continues to tell a more complex story than the team’s early expectations, and they’ve been eager to take a rock sample from the channel in order to learn more. On June 18, they got their chance.

While the sulfur rocks were too small and brittle to be sampled with the drill, a large rock nicknamed “Mammoth Lakes” was spotted nearby. Rover engineers had to search for a part of the rock that would allow safe drilling and find a parking spot on the loose, sloping surface.

After Curiosity bored its 41st hole using the powerful drill at the end of the rover’s 7-foot (2-meter) robotic arm, the six-wheeled scientist trickled the powderized rock into instruments inside its belly for further analysis so that scientists can determine what materials the rock is made of.

Curiosity has since driven away from Mammoth Lakes and is now off to see what other surprises are waiting to be discovered within the channel.

More About the Mission

Curiosity was built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more about Curiosity, visit:

science.nasa.gov/mission/msl-curiosity

News Media Contacts

Andrew Good
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-2433
andrew.c.good@jpl.nasa.gov

Karen Fox / Alana Johnson
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600 / 202-358-1501
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

{ https://www.nasa.gov/ }

08-02-2025 om 18:47 geschreven door peter  

NASA Just Discovered the Oldest Martian Rock With a Texture Unlike Anything Ever Seen

Adding to the excitement, Perseverance also detected serpentine minerals—a group of greenish rocks that likely formed when molten magma encountered water.

by Ivan Petricevic

 

A Critical Find on a Limited Path

What makes this discovery even more significant is that Blue Hill is the only known outcrop of its kind along Perseverance’s current route. This means the opportunity to study its composition is limited. Recognizing its scientific value, mission controllers directed the rover to extract a 2.9-centimeter (1.1-inch) core sample, ensuring that a piece of this ancient Martian history would be preserved for further study.

“My 26th sample, known as ‘Silver Mountain,’ has textures unlike anything we’ve seen before,” the official Perseverance account shared in a post on X.

The Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission aims to bring Perseverance’s collected samples back to Earth for detailed laboratory analysis. However, the mission has faced significant delays due to funding challenges and shifting priorities at NASA. With a new presidential administration on the horizon, the future of MSR is uncertain, raising concerns among planetary scientists eager to examine these invaluable specimens.

Despite these setbacks, Perseverance’s ongoing discoveries continue to deepen our understanding of Mars’ complex history.

RELATED VIDEO

{ https://curiosmos.com/ }

08-02-2025 om 18:41 geschreven door peter  

Monsterlijke radiojet in het piepjonge heelal ontdekt die alle records verbreekt

Vivian Lammerse

 

Deze gigantische jet, die zich over minstens 200.000 lichtjaar uitstrekt, ontstond toen het heelal nog geen 10 procent van zijn huidige leeftijd had.

Astronomen hebben met behulp van de Gemini North-telescoop – een van de twee telescopen van het International Gemini Observatory – de grootste radiojet ooit in het vroege heelal opgespoord. Tot nu toe bleven zulke grote radiojets grotendeels onzichtbaar in het verre heelal. Dankzij deze waarnemingen krijgen astronomen waardevolle nieuwe inzichten in wanneer de eerste jets ontstonden en hoe ze de evolutie van sterrenstelsels beïnvloedden.

Radiojets
Uit decennia aan astronomische waarnemingen weten wetenschappers dat de meeste sterrenstelsels een superzwaar zwart gat in hun hart hebben. Wanneer gas en stof erin vallen, komt er door de wrijving enorm veel energie vrij, wat resulteert in heldere galactische kernen – quasars – die krachtige jets van energierijke materie de ruimte in schieten. Deze jets zijn met radiotelescopen over enorme afstanden te detecteren. In ons lokale heelal zijn zulke radiojets niet zeldzaam en worden ze in een handvol nabije sterrenstelsels gevonden. Maar in het verre, vroege heelal waren ze tot nu toe wel een zeldzaamheid.

Jacht
Onderzoekers besloten echter de uitdaging aan te gaan en de jacht te openen op vroege radiojets. “We zochten naar quasars met krachtige radiojets in het vroege heelal, omdat dit ons inzicht geeft in hoe en wanneer de eerste jets werden gevormd en op welke manier ze de evolutie van sterrenstelsels hebben beïnvloed”, verklaart Anniek Gloudemans, postdoctoraal onderzoeker bij NOIRLab en hoofdauteur van de nieuwe studie.

Grootste ooit
En nu komen ze met groot nieuws. In de nieuwe studie, gepubliceerd in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, onthullen ze namelijk de ontdekking van een verre radiojet met twee ‘lobben’, die zich uitstrekt over maar liefst 200.000 lichtjaar – twee keer zo breed als de Melkweg. Dit is de grootste radiojet die ooit zo vroeg in de geschiedenis van het heelal is gevonden.

De jet werd voor het eerst opgespoord met de internationale Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), een indrukwekkend netwerk van radiotelescopen verspreid over heel Europa. Vervolgwaarnemingen in het nabij-infrarood met de Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS) en in het optische bereik met de Hobby Eberly Telescope gaven een compleet beeld van de radiojet en de quasar die hem aandrijft. Deze ontdekkingen zijn essentieel voor een dieper begrip van het ontstaan en de processen achter de eerste grootschalige jets in ons heelal.

Om de eigenschappen van de quasar – zoals zijn massa en de snelheid waarmee hij materie opslokt – te achterhalen, onderzocht het team een specifieke lichtgolflengte die door quasars wordt uitgezonden: de MgII (magnesium) brede emissielijn. Dit signaal komt normaal gesproken in het ultraviolet voor, maar door de uitdijing van het heelal wordt het licht van de quasar ‘uitgerekt’ naar langere golflengten. Hierdoor bereikt het magnesiumsignaal de aarde in het nabij-infrarood, waar het met GNIRS kan worden gedetecteerd.

J1601+3102
De quasar, die de naam J1601+3102 heeft gekregen, ontstond toen het heelal nog geen 1,2 miljard jaar oud was – slechts 9 procent van zijn huidige leeftijd. Hoewel quasars soms massa’s hebben die miljarden keren groter zijn dan die van onze zon, is deze relatief klein en weegt hij ‘slechts’ 450 miljoen keer de massa van de zon. De dubbelzijdige jets vertonen een asymmetrie in zowel helderheid als lengte, wat suggereert dat een extreem omgevingseffect hen beïnvloedt.

Zwart gat
De resultaten verschaffen interessante nieuwe inzichten in de vorming van krachtige radiostraling in het vroege heelal. “Opmerkelijk genoeg heeft de quasar die deze gigantische radiojet aandrijft geen extreem zwaar zwart gat, in vergelijking met andere quasars”, vertelt Gloudemans. “Dit suggereert dat een superzwaar zwart gat of een uitzonderlijk hoge accretiesnelheid niet per se 

Ruis
De eerdere schaarste aan grote radiojets in het vroege heelal werd vaak verklaard door de ruis van de kosmische microgolfachtergrond – de straling die is overgebleven van de oerknal. Deze achtergrondstraling dempt doorgaans het radiolicht van zulke verre objecten. “Maar omdat dit object zo extreem is, kunnen we het vanaf de aarde waarnemen, ondanks de enorme afstand”, legt Gloudemans uit. “Dit object toont aan wat we kunnen ontdekken door de krachten van verschillende telescopen, die op uiteenlopende golflengten werken, te bundelen.”

Wetenschappers hebben nog talloze vragen over hoe radiogheldere quasars zoals J1601+3102 zich onderscheiden van andere quasars. Het is bijvoorbeeld nog onduidelijk welke omstandigheden nodig zijn om zulke krachtige radiojets te creëren en wanneer de eerste radiojets in het heelal precies zijn ontstaan. Maar dankzij de combinatie van verschillende telescopen zijn astronomen nu in elk geval wel weer een stap dichter bij het begrijpen van deze mysterieuze kosmische fenomenen.

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

07-02-2025 om 22:31 geschreven door peter  

It’s a new year on Mars, and while New Year’s means winter in Earth’s northern hemisphere, it’s the start of spring in the same region of the Red Planet. And that means ice is thawing, leading to all sorts of interesting things. JPL research scientist Serina Diniega explains.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

While New Year’s Eve is around the corner here on Earth, Mars scientists are ahead of the game: The Red Planet completed a trip around the Sun on Nov. 12, 2024, prompting a few researchers to raise a toast.

But the Martian year, which is 687 Earth days, ends in a very different way in the planet’s northern hemisphere than it does in Earth’s northern hemisphere: While winter’s kicking in here, spring is starting there. That means temperatures are rising and ice is thinning, leading to frost avalanches crashing down cliffsides, carbon dioxide gas exploding from the ground, and powerful winds helping reshape the north pole.

“Springtime on Earth has lots of trickling as water ice gradually melts. But on Mars, everything happens with a bang,” said Serina Diniega, who studies planetary surfaces at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.

Mars’ wispy atmosphere doesn’t allow liquids to pool on the surface, like on Earth. Instead of melting, ice sublimates, turning directly into a gas. The sudden transition in spring means a lot of violent changes as both water ice and carbon dioxide ice — dry ice, which is much more plentiful on Mars than frozen water — weaken and break.

“You get lots of cracks and explosions instead of melting,” Diniega said. “I imagine it gets really noisy.”

Using the cameras and other sensors aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which launched in 2005, scientists study all this activity to improve their understanding of the forces shaping the dynamic Martian surface. Here’s some of what they track.

Frost Avalanches

In 2015, MRO’s High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured a 66-foot-wide (20-meter-wide) chunk of carbon dioxide frost in freefall. Chance observations like this are reminders of just how different Mars is from Earth, Diniega said, especially in springtime, when these surface changes are most noticeable.

“We’re lucky we’ve had a spacecraft like MRO observing Mars for as long as it has,” Diniega said. “Watching for almost 20 years has let us catch dramatic moments like these avalanches.”

Martian spring involves lots of cracking ice, which led to this 66-foot-wide (20-meter-wide) chunk of carbon dioxide frost captured in freefall by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2015.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Gas Geysers

Diniega has relied on HiRISE to study another quirk of Martian springtime: gas geysers that blast out of the surface, throwing out dark fans of sand and dust. These explosive jets form due to energetic sublimation of carbon dioxide ice. As sunlight shines through the ice, its bottom layers turn to gas, building pressure until it bursts into the air, creating those dark fans of material.

But to see the best examples of the newest fans, researchers will have to wait until December 2025, when spring starts in the southern hemisphere. There, the fans are bigger and more clearly defined.

As light shines through carbon dioxide ice on Mars, it heats up its bottom layers, which, rather than melting into a liquid, turn into gas. The buildup gas eventually results in explosive geysers that toss dark fans of debris on to the surface.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Spiders

Another difference between ice-related action in the two hemispheres: Once all the ice around some northern geysers has sublimated in summer, what’s left behind in the dirt are scour marks that, from space, look like giant spider legs. Researchers recently re-created this process in a JPL lab.

Sometimes, after carbon dioxide geysers have erupted from ice-covered areas on Mars, they leave scour marks on the surface. When the ice is all gone by summer, these long scour marks look like the legs of giant spiders.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Powerful Winds

For Isaac Smith of Toronto’s York University, one of the most fascinating subjects in springtime is the Texas-size ice cap at Mars’ north pole. Etched into the icy dome are swirling troughs, revealing traces of the red surface below. The effect is like a swirl of milk in a café latte.

“These things are enormous,” Smith said, noting that some are a long as California. “You can find similar troughs in Antarctica but nothing at this scale.”

Fast, warm wind has carved the spiral shapes over eons, and the troughs act as channels for springtime wind gusts that become more powerful as ice at the north pole starts to thaw. Just like the Santa Ana winds in Southern California or the Chinook winds in the Rocky Mountains, these gusts pick up speed and temperature as they ride down the troughs — what’s called an adiabatic process.

As temperatures rise, powerful winds kick up that carve deep troughs into the ice cap of Mars’ north pole. Some of these troughs are as long as California, and give the Martian north pole its trademark swirls. This image was captured by NASA’s now-inactive Mars Global Surveyor.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Wandering Dunes

The winds that carve the north pole’s troughs also reshape Mars’ sand dunes, causing sand to pile up on one side while removing sand from the other side. Over time, the process causes dunes to migrate, just as it does with dunes on Earth.

This past September, Smith coauthored a paper detailing how carbon dioxide frost settles on top of polar sand dunes during winter, freezing them in place. When the frost all thaws away in the spring, the dunes begin migrating again.

Each northern spring is a little different, with variations leading to ice sublimating faster or slower, controlling the pace of all these phenomena on the surface. And these strange phenomena are just part of the seasonal changes on Mars: the southern hemisphere has its own unique activity.

Surrounded by frost, these Martian dunes in Mars northern hemisphere were captured from above by NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter using its HiRISE camera on Sept. 8, 2022.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

More About MRO

The University of Arizona, in Tucson, operates HiRISE, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., in Boulder, Colorado. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

For more information, visit:

• https://science.nasa.gov/mission/mars-reconnaissance-orbiter

{ https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ }

07-02-2025 om 22:12 geschreven door peter  

Mars in lentelicht: spectaculaire veranderingen op de rode planeet

Yorick La Rivière

Recente beelden tonen dramatische veranderingen op Mars tijdens de overgang naar lente, met lawines, gasgeisers en ‘Mars-spinnen’ aan het noordelijke oppervlak.

In dit artikel belichten we aan de hand van enkele recente foto’s van Mars’ oppervlak de zich nu voltrekkende overgang naar lente op Mars’ noordelijke halfrond. Dankzij de langdurige observaties van de Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) komen dramatische veranderingen in het landschap aan het licht. We bekijken verschillende fenomenen, waaronder afbrokkelende stukken droogijs, explosieve gasgeisers en de vorming van spin-achtige structuren aan het oppervlak, die samen een dynamisch beeld geven van de Marslente.

Lawines in Mars’ lente
De overgang naar lente op Mars brengt aanzienlijke structurele veranderingen met zich mee. In 2015 legde de HiRISE-camera een 20-meter groot brok droogijs in vrije val vast. Deze afbrokkelende ijsmassa’s illustreren hoe door invloed van toenemende temperaturen abrupte gevolgen zoals we die ook kennen op aarde, heftige gevolgen teweegbrengen. JPL-onderzoeker Serina Diniega merkt op: “we zijn blij dat we bijna 20 jaar lang een waarnemingsplatform als MRO hebben, waarmee we deze dramatische gebeurtenissen kunnen zien voltrekken, in plaats van alleen de gevolgen van smelt.”

Gasgeisers, explosieve uitbarstingen en ‘Mars-spinnen’
Opwarming van de grond door toedoen van de groter wordende zonnekracht op het noorden zorgt ervoor dat onder het oppervlak gelegen reservoirs van droogijs sublimeren naar gasvormig koolstofdioxide, waardoor er actief spuwende geisers ontstaan. MRO heeft dit bijzondere proces weten vast te leggen:

Afhankelijk van de kenmerken van de grond kan er veel druk opbouwen voordat de geiser losbarst en explosief wordt. Het verschijnsel van actieve geisers en explosies van onder het oppervlak komt elk Martiaans jaar weer ten einde in de zomer en laat dan donkere spin-achtige afzettingen van zand en stof, verspreid over het oppervlak, achter; ‘Mars-spinnen’:

Winderige troggen bij de noordpool
De opwarming van Mars’ noordpool leidt tot lokaal krachtige winden die diepe troggen klieft in de ijsbedekking van Mars’ noordpool. Deze troggen kunnen een lengte bereiken die vergelijkbaar is met de doorsnede van pool zelf; zo’n 1.000 km.

De beelden van Mars’ oppervlak onthullen de dynamische processen die optreden tijdens de overgang naar lente. IJslawines, explosieve gasgeisers en de ontwikkeling van Mars-spinnen tonen hoe de rode planeet onder invloed van veranderende temperaturen en sublimatie in een korte tijd drastisch verandert. Deze observaties, ondersteund door bijna 20 jaar aan hoge resolutie opnamen, bieden een unieke kans voor wetenschappers om de evoluerende krachten op Mars te bestuderen.

New Year, New Mars: Red Planet Gets Active as Spring Begins

(Mars Report)

• De afgelopen decennia zijn er prachtige foto’s gemaakt van interstellaire nevels, sterrenstelsels, planeten, andere hemellichamen en in de ruimtevaart. Ieder weekend halen we een indrukwekkende ruimtefoto uit het archief. Genieten van alle foto’s? Bekijk ze op deze pagina. Heb je zelf bijzondere (astro)foto’s die je wil delen met ons? Stuur ze in via ons mailadres o.v.v. ‘Ruimtefoto’!

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

07-02-2025 om 22:00 geschreven door peter  

Stunning, rainbow-colored object spotted by James Webb telescope could be an alien solar system in the making

"These grains are only one millionth of a metre across — about the size of a single bacterium," the researchers wrote in a blog post accompanying the image. "While the large dust grains are concentrated in the densest parts of the disc, the small grains are much more widespread."

Where star systems are born

Stars take tens of millions of years to form, growing from dense, billowing clouds of turbulent dust and gas to gently glowing protostars, before materializing into gigantic orbs of fusion-powered plasma like our sun.

Related: 

• James Webb telescope spots a dozen newborn stars spewing gas in the same direction — and nobody is sure why

Scientists think that planets form around young stars when dust and gas particles collide and stick together, snowballing over millions of years until they reach their final forms.

To study HH 30's edge-on disk (meaning JWST sees only the disk’s side from its vantage point near Earth), the researchers combined infrared data captured by JWST with longer-wavelength observations made by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope. These data enabled the researchers to capture dust particles from millimeter down to micrometer scales.

The result is a breathtakingly detailed view of the dust's movement across the disk, showing it migrating within the disk and settling in a dense layer, where it is clumping to form the beginnings of planets. Nested alongside this are several layers of gas. One of these layers originates from the jet spat out by the star, while others are from a broader cone-shaped outflow enveloped by a nebula reflecting the star's light.

"Together, these data reveal HH 30 to be a dynamic place, where tiny dust grains and massive jets alike play a role in the formation of new planets," the researchers wrote.

{ https://www.livescience.com/space }

07-02-2025 om 20:42 geschreven door peter  

New research published in The Planetary Science Journal digs deeper into the issue to try and understand what processes could create Ariel’s surface features. Its title is “Ariel’s Medial Grooves: Spreading Centers on a Candidate Ocean World.” The lead author is Chloe Beddingfield from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL).

“Ariel is a candidate ocean world, and recent observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) confirmed that its surface is mantled by a large amount of CO2 ice mixed with lower amounts of CO ice,” Beddingfield and her co-researchers write in their paper. These materials should be unstable on Ariel, though, and should sublimate away into space. “Consequently, the observed constituents on Ariel are likely replenished, possibly from endogenic sources,” the authors write.

The research is centred on Ariel’s chasma-medial groove systems and how they formed. These are trenches that cut straight through the moon’s huge canyons. While previous research has suggested that the trenches are tectonic fractures, this research arrives at a different hypothesis. “We present evidence that Ariel’s massive chasma-medial groove systems formed via spreading, where internally sourced material ascended and formed new crust,” the paper states.

This is similar to ocean-floor spreading on Earth, which is where new crust forms. If true, it can account for Ariel’s surface deposits of carbon dioxide ice and other carbon-bearing molecules.

“If we’re right, these medial grooves are probably the best candidates for sourcing those carbon oxide deposits and uncovering more details about the moon’s interior,” Beddingfield said in a press release. “No other surface features show evidence of facilitating the movement of materials from inside Ariel, making this finding particularly exciting.”

Ariel’s surface is dominated by three main terrain types: plains, ridged terrain, and cratered terrain. The cratered terrain is the oldest and most extensive type of terrain. The ridged terrain is the second main terrain type and is made of bands of ridges and troughs that can extend for hundreds of kilometres. The plains are the third type and are the youngest of the terrains. They’re on canyon floors and in depressions in the middle of the cratered terrain.

As far as scientists can tell, the grooves that intersect the canyons are the youngest surface features on Ariel. Previous research suggested that they result from the interplay between volcanic and tectonic processes. However, this research says otherwise: spreading could be responsible.

In the 1960s, scientists validated the idea of seafloor spreading on Earth, which led to the acceptance of plate tectonics. One of the main pieces of evidence for plate tectonics is the way the edges of continents like Africa and South America fit together if you “remove” the Atlantic Ocean and the intervening seafloor.

The same thing happened when Beddingfield and her colleagues “removed” the chasm floors on Ariel.

The researchers showed that when they removed the floors of the chasms, the margins lined up. This is strong evidence of spreading. “The margins of Brownie, Kewpie, Korrigan, Pixie, and Sylph Chasmata closely align when the Intermediate Age Smooth Materials (orange unit in Figure 1), which make up the chasma floors, are removed and the Cratered Plains (green unit in Figure 1) are reconstructed,” they write.

According to the research, spreading centers develop above convention cells underneath Ariel’s crust, and heat forces material upward to the crust. The material cools at the surface, forming new crust. The entire process is driven by tidal forces as Ariel orbits the much larger Uranus. This heats the moon’s interior, creating the convection. Some of the moon’s interior cycles between heating as the moon follows its orbit. It’s possible that internal material continuously melts and then refreezes.

“It’s a fascinating situation — how this cycle affects these moons, their evolution and their characteristics,” Beddingfield said.

Like other Solar System moons that experience tidal heating, Ariel may have an ocean under its surface. In a 2024 study, researchers proposed that another of Uranus’ moons, Miranda, could have a subsurface ocean maintained by tidal heating.

However, Beddingfield is skeptical about drawing a connection between Ariel’s grooves and a potential ocean.

“The size of Ariel’s possible ocean and its depth beneath the surface can only be estimated, but it may be too isolated to interact with spreading centers,” she said. “There’s just a lot we don’t know. And while carbon oxide ices are present on Ariel’s surface, it’s still unclear whether they’re associated with the grooves because Voyager 2 didn’t have instruments that could map the distribution of ices.”

The connection between the grooves and the materials deposited on Ariel’s surface is stronger though. “These new results suggest a possible mechanism for emplacing fresh material and short-lived compounds, including carbon monoxide and perhaps ammonia-bearing species on the surface,” said Tom Nordheim, a co-author of this research and the 2024 paper.

“Our results indicate that medial grooves in large chasmata on Ariel are spreading centers, resulting from the exposure of subsurface material, creating new crust,” the authors summarize in their conclusion. “Thus, these features are likely geologic conduits to Ariel’s interior and could be the primary source of CO2, CO, and other volatiles detected on its surface.”

Richard Cartwright from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory led the 2024 study that used the JWST to identify CO ice and CO2 deposits on Ariel. To find more answers about this intriguing moon, Cartwright says we need a dedicated mission to Uranus and its moons. “We need an orbiter that can make close passes of Ariel, map its medial grooves in detail, and analyze their spectral signatures for components like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide,” he said. “If carbon-bearing molecules are concentrated along these grooves, then it would strongly support the idea that they’re windows into Ariel’s interior.”

The authors agree that only a dedicated mission can provide answers. “The medial grooves are some of the youngest geologic features observed on Ariel, and close flybys of these features by a future Uranus orbiter are imperative to gain insight into recent geologic events and the geologic and geochemical properties of this candidate ocean world,” they write.

There’ve been many proposed missions to Uranus. NASA, the ESA, JAXA, and the CNSA (China National Space Administration) have all had proposals. NASA’s Uranus Orbiter and Probe mission would study Uranus and its moons from orbit by conducting multiple flybys of each major moon. The probe would enter Uranus’ atmosphere. However, even if selected, a plutonium shortage means the mission wouldn’t launch until the mid or late 2030s.

So far, only China has firm plans to send a spacecraft to the ice giant. It will be part of their Tianwen-4 mission to Jupiter and would perform a single flyby of Uranus. The next launch windows for a mission to Uranus are between 2030 and 2034, but China’s mission isn’t scheduled until 2045.

Press Release: 

• New Study Suggests Trench-Like Features on Uranus’ Moon Ariel May Be Windows to Its Interior

Research: 

• Ariel’s Medial Grooves: Spreading Centers on a Candidate Ocean World

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

07-02-2025 om 18:38 geschreven door peter  

New research suggests an impact recently rattled Mars deeper than thought.

Something really rang the Red Planet’s bell. Research involving two NASA missions—the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the late InSight lander—has shed light on meteorite impacts and the seismic signals they produce. In a crucial finding, these signals may penetrate deeper inside Mars than previously thought. This could change how we view the interior of Mars itself.

The study comes from two papers published this week in the journal of Geophysical Research Letters. The primary data comes from NASA’s InSight mission, the first dedicated geodesy mission to Mars. Insight landed in the Elysium Planitia region of Mars on November 26^th, 2018, and carried the first ever dedicated seismometer to the Red Planet. During its four years of operation, Insight detected over 1,300 ‘marsquakes,’ until the mission’s end in 2022. Most were due to geologic activity, while a few were due to distant meteorite impacts. Occasionally, InSight would even see ‘land tides’ due to the passage of the moon Phobos overhead.

A Distant Mars Impact

As on Earth, the detection of seismic waves gives us the opportunity to probe the interior of Mars, providing clues as to the density, depth and thickness of the crust, mantle and core. To be sure, impacts have been correlated to seismic waves captured by InSight in the past. A fresh crater seen by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) in 2022 was correlated to an impact in the Amazonis Planitia region. But this was the first time an impact in the quake-prone Cerberus Fossae area was linked to InSight detections. The find is especially intriguing, as the area is quarter of a world away from the InSight landing site, at 1,640 kilometers (1,019 miles) distant.

The discovery of the 21.5-meter (71 foot) crater about the length of a semi-truck immediately presented scientists with a mystery. The smoking gun impact crater was more distant than thought. Typically, the Martian crust was thought to have a dampening effect on distant impacts. This means that the impact-generated waves took a more direct route via a ‘seismic highway,’ through the deeper mantle of the planet itself.

This discovery has key implications for what we generally think about the interior of Mars. This may also imply that our understanding and model for the planet’s interior may be due for an overhaul.

“Composition of the crust and how seismic waves from impacts travel through them is one factor,” Andrew Good (NASA-JPL) told Universe Today. “No current plans for follow-on seismometers on Mars, but there is a seismometer planned for the Moon in the near future,” says Good, in reference to the Farside Seismic Suite planned for 2026.

A New View of the Interior of Mars?

InSight team member Costantinos Charalambous of Imperial College London explains the finding in more detail, in an email to Universe Today:

The detection of this impact changes our understanding of Mars’ interior, particularly its crust and upper mantle, both immediately and in the longer term. However, in the latter case, it will take further work to know quite how!

The immediate shift in our understanding is that many more of the seismic events we detected at InSight have penetrated much deeper into the planet than we thought. Previously, we had thought that the crust would trap most of the high-frequency seismic energy, guiding it around the planet from the point of impact to InSight’s seismometer. We thought any high-frequency energy that penetrated more deeply into the mantle was quickly lost. But it now appears the Martian mantle is much better at propagating this seismic energy than we thought, allowing it to travel more quickly and farther. This tells us that the mantle has a different elemental composition that previously assumed, likely with a lower iron oxide content than earlier models predicted.

Additionally, because this impact was detected in Cerberus Fossae – a region where many recorded marsquakes likely originate – it provides a unique opportunity to distinguish seismic signatures generated by seismic activity driven by deeper, internal (tectonic) forces versus shallower, external (impact) sources.

Therefore, in the longer term, we will be re-examining the data from seismic events that we had previously assumed didn’t penetrate deeper into Mars. This work is ongoing, but these findings suggest new features of Mars’ upper mantle that we are seeking to confirm. Watch this space!

MRO’s Hunt For Impacts

Just how researchers imaged the tiny crater is the amazing second part of the story. NASA’s venerable MRO generates tens of thousands of images of the surface of Mars. These come mainly via the spacecraft’s onboard Context Camera. For years, researchers have used a machine learning algorithm to sift through the images. This looks for fresh impact sites that do not appear in previous frames. These areas are in turn flagged for closer scrutiny with the mission’s 0.5-meter High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. The AI program was developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

To date, the team has found 123 new craters within 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) of the InSight landing site. 49 of these (including the Cerberus Fossae impact) are potential matches with InSight seismology data.

“Done manually, this would be years of work,” says InSight team member Valentin Bickel (University of Bern, Switzerland) in a recent press release. “Using this tool, we went from tens of thousands of images to just a handful in a matter of days.”

InSight’s Legacy

InSight provided a wealth of seismology and geological information about Mars. The Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument worked as planned. The Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP^3) failed, however, to reach its target depth for returning useful science about the planet’s interior. Unfortunately, no dedicated follow on geology mission is set to head to Mars. This sort of exciting science will probably have to wait until the hoped for crewed missions of the 2030s.

InSight was a collaborative effort between NASA, the German Space Agency (DLR) and the French Space Agency (CNES). Other international partners also participated in the ground-breaking mission.

Still, it’s great to see missions like InSight still generating scientific results, long after they’ve fallen silent.

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

07-02-2025 om 18:07 geschreven door peter  

Terrifying simulation reveals exactly what will happen if asteroid Bennu crashes into Earth in 2182

• READ MORE: NASA video captures first look at 'city-destroying' asteroid 

By WILIAM HUNTER

Of the thousands of space rocks whizzing through the solar system, there is one that has astronomers more worried than any other.

Astronomers predict that the 500-metre-wide asteroid Bennu has a one in 2,700 chance of hitting the planet in 2182 - similar odds to flipping a coin 11 times and getting the same outcome each time.

While the chances of an impact are slim, a terrifying new simulation has revealed exactly what would happen if this deadly asteroid crashed into Earth.

Researchers found that, in addition to a huge blast triggering earthquakes and tsunamis, Bennu's impact would kick up enough dust to trigger a two-year-long 'impact winter'.

Using a supercomputer and cutting-edge climate simulations, researchers from Pusan National University in South Korea predicted what would happen as Bennu injected millions of tonnes of dust into the atmosphere.

As dust blocks out light from the sun, the world would become cold and dry with temperatures falling 4˚C (7.2˚F) and global rainfall reducing by 15 per cent.

In some areas, including North America, precipitation would plummet between 30 and 60 per cent, making it nearly impossible to grow crops.

Lead author Dr Lan Dai, says: 'This would likely cause massive disruptions in global food security.'

Scientists have calculated what would happen if the asteroid Bennu hit the Earth. Their simulations show that the world would become colder, darker, and drier in a years-long 'impact winter' (stock image) 

The 500-metre wide asteroid Bennu (pictured) has a one in 2,700 chance of hitting the planet in 2182 - similar odds to flipping a coin 11 times and getting the same outcome each time.

Unlike the Chicxulub asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs, a collision with Bennu wouldn't necessarily trigger a mass extinction event.

Asteroids the size of Bennu are believed to hit Earth every 100,000-200,000 years, so it is likely that our early ancestors have already survived one of these impacts.

But what both Chicxulub and Bennu's impact would have in common is the massive disruption of global climate patterns.

Just like the theorised 'nuclear winter' that would follow a thermonuclear war, the explosion of an asteroid impact would eject a vast column of dust into the atmosphere.

If Bennu hit Earth, Dr Dai and his co-authors estimate that 100 to 400 million tonnes of dust would linger above Earth for around two years.

Those dust particles would act like a vast planet-wide umbrella, shading Earth from the sun's radiation and reflecting heat energy back out into space.

At its peak, the amount of shortwave radiation reaching Earth would fall by 28 per cent in the worst-case scenario.

Likewise, global temperature averages would fall by 1.6°C (2.9°F), 2.7°C (4.9°F), 3.4°C (3.1°F), and 4.0°C (7.2˚F) for dust injections of 100, 200, 300, and 400 million tonnes of dust respectively.

If Bennu (illustrated) hit Earth it would first cause an explosion big enough to trigger earthquakes and tsunamis. However, the more lasting impact would come from the 100-400 million tonnes of dust that would be ejected into the atmosphere 

The simulations show that the dust would banket Earth, blocking out the sun and leading to massive reductions in light (purple graph), surface temperature (pink graph), and precipitation (green graph)

Eurasia and North America would experience the most severe and rapid cooling as the dust concentrates in the northern hemisphere during the winter.

The simulation shows that global cooling will persist for up to four years after the impact, with a slow recovery starting after 24 months.

In the worst-case scenario, the rapid 'impact winter' would be equivalent to the disastrous global cooling caused by the Toba eruption which occurred around 74,000 years ago.

Believed to be the worst natural disaster in the past 2.5 million years, the Toba supervolcano triggered a six-year winter which led to mass die-offs and the near extinction of the human species.

Additionally, the researchers predict that the disruption to patterns of evaporation over the oceans will lead to 'massive drying' in many parts of the world.

Six months after the impact, global mean precipitation will be 0.46mm per day less, a reduction of around 15 per cent.

However, this will be accompanied by large increases in precipitation in some areas of the subtropics and severe droughts in others.

To make matters worse, the Bennu dust cloud would also cause rapid erosion of the ozone layer as radiation and heat become trapped in the upper atmosphere.

These maps show the predicted reductions in temperature (top) and precipitation (bottom) for the first two years after an impact. These show that the temperatures would fall by 4˚C (7.2˚F) and global rainfall would reduce by 15 per cent

These conditions would trigger huge reductions in the productivity in land (top) and marine (bottom) ecosystems. That would lower crop yields and destabilise global agriculture. On these maps darker regions show areas of greater reduction. 

The researchers predict that the global ozone column could be depleted by 32 per cent.

Although it would be offset by the blanketing dust, this could lead to dangerous increases in levels of UV radiation which causes sunburns, blindness, and cancer.

In their paper, published in Science Advances, the researchers say these changes would 'severely reduce the habitat suitability for humans'.

Dr Dai says: 'The abrupt "impact winter" would provide unfavourable climate conditions for plants to grow, leading to an initial 20–30 per cent reduction of photosynthesis in terrestrial and marine ecosystems.'

During the first summer after the impact, the rate at which ecosystems grow and store biomass, known as net primary productivity, would fall by 36 per cent on land and 25 per cent in the oceans.

Meanwhile, crop yields in East Asia could fall by as much as 50 per cent, potentially triggering widespread starvation.

However, some of Earth's ecosystems could actually stand to benefit from such a disaster.

Although they initially take a hit, the simulation shows that marine ecosystems would not only survive but thrive in the years after the impact.

If Bennu contains a large amount of iron, it could actually help marine ecosystems flourish by effectively fertilising the oceans. Pictured: A sample of Bennu prepared for testing

As the iron enters the ocean it would lead to an algae bloom, like this one seen over a tropical reef, which would support support the marine ecosystem. The researchers say this could help humanity feed itself during the years of impact winter 

After just six months, plankton in the ocean would have already recovered and would continue to increase to levels not even seen under normal climate conditions.

This unexpected bloom would be caused by a high proportion of iron in the asteroid's dust.

Iron is a key nutrient for plankton's growth but many areas such as the Southern Ocean and the eastern tropical Pacific are naturally iron-poor.

As the dust from the asteroid settles it would trigger a bloom of photosynthesising diatoms which in turn would attract zooplankton, small predators which feed on the diatoms.

'The simulated excessive phytoplankton and zooplankton blooms might be a blessing for the biosphere and may help alleviate emerging food insecurity related to the longer-lasting reduction in terrestrial productivity,' says Dai.

KILLING OFF THE DINOSAURS: HOW A CITY-SIZED ASTEROID WIPED OUT 75 PER CENT OF ALL ANIMAL AND PLANT SPECIES

Around 66 million years ago non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out and more than half the world's species were obliterated.

This mass extinction paved the way for the rise of mammals and the appearance of humans.

The Chicxulub asteroid is often cited as a potential cause of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.

The asteroid slammed into a shallow sea in what is now the Gulf of Mexico.

The collision released a huge dust and soot cloud that triggered global climate change, wiping out 75 per cent of all animal and plant species.

Researchers claim that the soot necessary for such a global catastrophe could only have come from a direct impact on rocks in shallow water around Mexico, which are especially rich in hydrocarbons.

Within 10 hours of the impact, a massive tsunami waved ripped through the Gulf coast, experts believe.

Around 66 million years ago non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out and more than half the world's species were obliterated. The Chicxulub asteroid is often cited as a potential cause of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event (stock image)

This caused earthquakes and landslides in areas as far as Argentina. 

While investigating the event researchers found small particles of rock and other debris that was shot into the air when the asteroid crashed.

Called spherules, these small particles covered the planet with a thick layer of soot.

Experts explain that losing the light from the sun caused a complete collapse in the aquatic system.

This is because the phytoplankton base of almost all aquatic food chains would have been eliminated.

It's believed that the more than 180 million years of evolution that brought the world to the Cretaceous point was destroyed in less than the lifetime of a Tyrannosaurus rex, which is about 20 to 30 years.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

06-02-2025 om 18:48 geschreven door peter  

BREAKING NEWS - NASA gives major update on stranded astronauts' rescue mission after Trump demanded they be brought home

By ELLYN LAPOINTE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

NASA is bringing forward a new rescue mission for stranded astronauts after mounting political pressure.

Insiders say the space agency will bring Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore home around March 19 — about two weeks earlier than the original early April return.

By that date, they will have spent 286 days in space. 

Williams and Willmore have been stuck on the International Space Station (ISS) since June 2024, bringing them close to eight months on the orbiting laboratory when they were originally scheduled for an eight-day stay.

The new plan should allow the spacecraft that will bring Williams and Wilmore home to depart from the ISS earlier than previously scheduled. 

The move comes less than one week since President Donald Trump told Elon Musk to 'go get' the pair after they were 'virtually abandoned by the Biden administration.'

Thus, Musk and Trump may see this scheduling change as a political win. 

But NASA sources told Ars Technica that this contingency plan was set into motion before Trump took office and was just recently greenlit. 

NASA is expected to announce a new return date for astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been stuck on the ISS for more than eight months

The Space X Crew-10 mission was initially scheduled to launch in February, but a technical issue with the new Dragon capsule SpaceX intended to use prompted NASA to push the launch back to March. 

This decision also delayed Williams and Wilmore's flight back to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS), with NASA giving an estimated return date of early April. 

That's because the stranded astronauts are planning to hitch a ride home on the SpaceX Crew-9 return flight. The Crew-9 astronauts and their spacecraft have been at the ISS with Williams and Wilmore since September 29.

But they cannot depart from the space station until the Crew-10 astronauts arrive to replace them. 

That is because NASA protocol necessitates a 'handover period,' or a window of time where the previous ISS crew overlaps with the incoming crew to share information with them and ensure a smooth transition between the two teams. 

Therefore, getting the Crew-10 mission off the ground sooner would also allow Williams and Wilmore to come home earlier. 

The Dragon capsule SpaceX was originally planning to use for this mission — called C213 — is still under development, and the Crew-10 mission was supposed to be its maiden voyage.

But SpaceX and NASA are currently working to resolve a technical issue with C213 Dragon, which may be related to batteries on the spacecraft, Ars Technica reported. 

As a result, NASA decided that C213 would not be ready to launch until late April. 

At first, NASA opted to push back the Crew-9 return date in order to accommodate the Crew-10 mission delay. 

But at this point, if NASA waited for C213 to be ready to launch the Crew-10 mission, the astronauts currently on board the ISS 'would start to approach "redlines" on food, water and other supplies,' Ars Technica reported.  

So, in the interest of returning NASA's stranded astronauts to Earth 'as soon as possible' (as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently promised to do) NASA and SpaceX have reportedly decided to replace C213 with the C210 vehicle, which was used for the Crew-7 mission that returned to Earth in March 2024. 

Known as 'Endurance,' this spacecraft will now be used to launch the Crew-10 mission no earlier than March 12, sources told Ars Technica. 

If Crew-10 launches on time, Williams, Wilmore and the Crew-9 astronauts could return to Earth on March 19. 

By that date, Williams and Wilmore will have spent 286 days in space, which is far longer than their mission was originally intended to be. 

One June 5, these two NASA astronauts flew to the ISS for what was supposed to be an eight-day aboard the floating laboratory. 

But their spacecraft, Boeing's Starliner, was mired by technical issues before, during and after the launch, prompting NASA to delay the astronauts' return while the agency worked with Boeing to resolve the issues.

Ultimately, Starliner was deemed unfit to carry Williams and Wilmore home, and thus the spacecraft returned to Earth uncrewed in September. 

Since then, the two astronauts have been waiting to come home aboard the Crew-9 spacecraft, which arrived at the ISS later that same month. 

On January 28, Elon Musk made a post on his social media platform, X, stating: 'The [President of the United States] has asked [SpaceX] to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the as soon as possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.'

President Donald Trump confirmed the plan in a post on his own social media site, Truth Social: 'I have just asked Elon Musk and [SpaceX] to “go get” the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration. 

'They have been waiting for many months on [the ISS]. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!'

The statements spurred confusion as they seemed to convey that Musk himself would be flying to the ISS (which is not the case) and undermined the fact that SpaceX had already been tasked with bringing Williams and Wilmore home. 

With NASA now moving to bring the Starliner crew home two weeks earlier just days after these statements were made, it may appear as though the schedule change was politically motivated. 

But Ars Technica reported that the scheduling change was made spurred by 'pragmatism,' not politics.

Prior to the Crew-10 spacecraft swap, Endurance was not scheduled to fly again until later this spring, when it would launch the private Axiom-4 mission to the space station.

As a result, Axiom-4's will be delayed, sources said. 

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

06-02-2025 om 18:16 geschreven door peter