Is THIS where aliens are hiding? NASA discovers an exoplanet 146 light–years away that's 'remarkably similar to Earth' – and it could be habitable

• READ MORE: Scientists baffled by a LEMON-shaped planet

By SHIVALI BEST, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR 

It's one of the biggest unanswered questions in science: are there aliens out there, and if so, where are they hiding?

Now, a discovery by NASA raising the tantalising possibility that we're not alone after all. 

The US space agency has discovered an exoplanet 146 light–years away that is 'remarkably similar to Earth'. 

Dubbed HD 137010 b, the planet might fall just within the outer edges of its star's 'habitable zone', meaning there could be liquid water on its surface and a suitable atmosphere for life. 

However, any potential aliens living on this planet would need to be well adapted for cold weather. 

'Although of a stellar type similar to our Sun, the star, HD 137010, is cooler and dimmer,' NASA explained. 

'That could mean a planetary surface temperature no higher than –90°F (–68°C). 

'By comparison, the average surface temperature on Mars runs about –85°F (–65°C).'

Dubbed HD 137010 b, the planet might fall just within the outer edges of its star's 'habitable zone', meaning there could be liquid water on its surface and a suitable atmosphere for life

NASA's scientists discovered the rocky exoplanet using data gathered by the Kepler Space Telescope.

This discovery comes from a single 'transit' – the planet crossing its star's face – which was detected during Kepler's second mission, K2. 

While one transit doesn't sound like much, this was enough for the scientists to estimate the exoplanet's orbital period. 

By tracking the time it took for the planet's shadow to move across its sun's face, the team estimated that the planet has an orbital period of 10 hours, compared to Earth's 13 hours. 

Their calculations also suggest it's probably freezing, although there is a chance HD 137010 b could turn out to be a temperate or even a watery world, according to NASA. 

'It would just need an atmosphere richer in carbon dioxide than our own,' the team explained. 

Based on modelling of the planet's possible atmospheres, NASA says there is a 40 per cent chance that the planet falls within the 'conservative' habitable zone around the star, and a 51 per cent chance that it falls within the broader 'optimistic' habitable zone.

'The planet has about a 50–50 chance of falling beyond the habitable zone entirely,' the experts cautioned. 

To confirm whether or not the planet is habitable, the researchers will now conduct follow–up observations – although they admit this is going to be 'tricky'. 

'The planet's orbital distance, so similar to Earth's, means such transits happen far less often than for planets in tighter orbits around their stars (it's a big reason why exoplanets with Earth–like orbits are so hard to detect in the first place),' NASA explained. 

'With luck, confirmation could come from further observation by the successor to Kepler/K2, NASA's TESS (the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), the still–functioning workhorse for planetary detection, or from the European Space Agency's CHEOPS (CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite).

'Otherwise, gathering further data on planet HD 137010 b might have to wait for the next generation of space telescopes.'

KEY DISCOVERIES IN HUMANITY'S SEARCH FOR ALIEN LIFE

Discovery of pulsars

British astronomer Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was the first person to discover a pulsar in 1967 when she spotted a radio pulsar.

Since then other types of pulsars that emit X-rays and gamma rays have also been spotted.

Pulsars are essentially rotating, highly magnetised neutron stars but when they were first discovered it was believed they could have come from aliens.

'Wow!' radio signal

In 1977, an astronomer looking for alien life in the night sky above Ohio spotted a radio signal so powerful that he excitedly wrote 'Wow!' next to his data.

In 1977, an astronomer looking for alien life in the night sky above Ohio spotted a radio signal so powerful that he excitedly wrote 'Wow!' next to his data

The 72-second blast, spotted by Dr Jerry Ehman through a radio telescope, came from Sagittarius but matched no known celestial object.

Conspiracy theorists have since claimed that the 'Wow! signal', which was 30 times stronger than background radiation, was a message from intelligent extraterrestrials.

Fossilised Martian microbes

In 1996 Nasa and the White House made the explosive announcement that the rock contained traces of Martian bugs.

The meteorite, catalogued as Allen Hills (ALH) 84001, crashed onto the frozen wastes of Antarctica 13,000 years ago and was recovered in 1984. 

Photographs were released showing elongated segmented objects that appeared strikingly lifelike.

Photographs were released showing elongated segmented objects that appeared strikingly lifelike (pictured)

However, the excitement did not last long. Other scientists questioned whether the meteorite samples were contaminated. 

They also argued that heat generated when the rock was blasted into space may have created mineral structures that could be mistaken for microfossils. 

Behaviour of Tabby's Star in 2005 

The star, otherwise known as KIC 8462852, is located 1,400 light years away and has baffled astronomers since being discovered in 2015.

It dims at a much faster rate than other stars, which some experts have suggested is a sign of aliens harnessing the energy of a star.

The star, otherwise known as KIC 8462852, is located 1,400 light years away and has baffled astonomers since being discovered in 2015 (artist's impression)

Recent studies have 'eliminated the possibility of an alien megastructure', and instead, suggests that a ring of dust could be causing the strange signals.

Exoplanets in the Goldilocks zone in 2017 

In February 2017 astronomers announced they had spotted a star system with planets that could support life just 39 light years away.

Seven Earth-like planets were discovered orbiting nearby dwarf star 'Trappist-1', and all of them could have water at their surface, one of the key components of life.

Three of the planets have such good conditions, that scientists say life may have already evolved on them. 

Researchers claim that they will know whether or not there is life on any of the planets within a decade, and said: 'This is just the beginning.' 

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29-01-2026 om 21:25 geschreven door peter  

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope continues to reveal the secrets of the universe, three and a half decades after its launch, as a new AI technique from the European Space Agency (ESA) identifies more than 800 previously unreported space objects.

Launched in 1990 and still in operation, the Hubble Space Telescope has amassed a vast archive of data over its decades spent scanning the universe. Now, a recent paper in Astronomy & Astrophysics reports the identification of 1,300 unusual objects by AI in just two and a half days, many of which have never appeared in the astronomical literature.

Hubble Image Analysis

The astronomers behind the new research fed their AI neural network 100 million image cutouts from the Hubble Legacy Archive. These cutouts are tiny—only dozens of pixels wide—yet the AI was able to meaningfully determine what they contained.

Galaxies accounted for most of the anomalous cutouts, typically undergoing mergers or other unusual interactions that distorted their morphologies or left them trailing long streams of stars and gas. Other cutouts were identified as spacetime distortions that bent light from distant galaxies into arcs or rings before it reached Hubble.

Small image cutouts from the Hubble Legacy Archive revealed strange anomalies when analyzed by AnomalyMatch.

Credit: NASA, ESA, David O’Ryan (ESA), Pablo Gómez (ESA), Mahdi Zamani (ESA/Hubble)

More unusual cosmic features were also identified, including galaxies resembling jellyfish with strange tentacle-like streams of gas, and edge-on planet-forming disks that appear like hamburgers in the images (several of which can be seen above).

Perhaps most notably, dozens of the objects were so bizarre that they did not fit any existing classification.

Developing AnomalyMatch

The sheer scale of data amassed in the continually expanding archives of Hubble and other telescopes has become so large that it defies traditional human-led analysis. These advanced space observatories generate data at a rate far exceeding that of earlier eras in astronomy. Prior attempts to open the data to citizen scientists have met with some success, but the backlog has grown too large for those initiatives to fully address. Until now, astronomers have relied on manual analysis and the occasional fortunate discovery made while examining specific targets.

While Hubble was constructed by NASA, ESA researchers David O’Ryan and Pablo Gómez developed the solution leveraged by the team for its analysis of this torrent of data. Specifically, the pair created a neural network called AnomalyMatch, which is designed to examine collections of imagery far more quickly than humans can. Still, AnomalyMatch was trained to perform pattern recognition similar to that of humans, allowing it to “learn” to identify rare and unusual objects hidden in the data.

“Archival observations from the Hubble Space Telescope now span 35 years, offering a rich dataset in which astrophysical anomalies may be hidden,” said lead author David O’Ryan.

Among the objects discovered was a collision ring galaxy, a type of disrupted or bent ring-shaped galaxy.

Credit: NASA, ESA, David O’Ryan (ESA), Pablo Gómez (ESA), Mahdi Zamani (ESA/Hubble)

Exploring Hubble and Other Telescopes

Although the team’s initial paper focuses on data retrieved using the Hubble Space Telescope, the technique can be applied more broadly as well. Other platforms, such as ESA’s Euclid mission, are generating vast amounts of data that AnomalyMatch could help process. Crucially, O’Ryan and Gómez’s neural network results have been manually reviewed by astronomers, who have so far confirmed 1,300 of the anomalies flagged by AnomalyMatch.

“This is a powerful demonstration of how AI can enhance the scientific return of archival datasets,” co-author Pablo Gómez said. “The discovery of so many previously undocumented anomalies in Hubble data underscores the tool’s potential for future surveys.”

Future advanced space observatories will also benefit from the implementation of AnomalyMatch. For instance, NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will provide a wider field of view than the James Webb Space Telescope, offering yet another enormous data set for astronomers to search through in the years ahead.

The paper, “Identifying Astrophysical Anomalies in 99.6 Million Source Cutouts from the Hubble Legacy Archive using AnomalyMatch,” appeared in Astronomy & Astrophysics on December 16, 2025.

• Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.

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28-01-2026 om 23:24 geschreven door peter  

Story by Gege L

Perseverance looks upstream along Neretva Vallis, the ancient river valley which once fed water into Jezero crater, over 3.5 billion years ago. The light-toned rocks in the foreground comprise fine-grained mudstones of the Bright Angel formation.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

New findings from NASA's Perseverance rover have revealed evidence of wave-formed beaches and rocks altered by subsurface water in a Martian crater that once held a vast lake—considerably expanding the timeline for potential habitability at this ancient site. In an international study led by Imperial College London, researchers uncovered that the so-called "Margin unit" in Mars's Jezero crater preserves evidence of extensive underground interactions between rock and water, as well as the first definitive traces of an ancient shoreline.

Perseverance views potential shoreline deposits in the Eastern Margin Unit with Mastcam-Z on Sol 934.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

These are compelling indicators that habitable, surface water conditions persisted in the crater (home to a large lake around 3.5 billion years ago) further back in time than previously thought. "Shorelines are habitable environments on Earth, and the carbonate minerals that form here can naturally seal in and preserve information about the ancient environment," said lead author Alex Jones, a Ph.D. researcher in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering (ESE) at Imperial.

"Our findings therefore have exciting implications for Mars's past climate and habitability, while providing new insights into a geologic unit which has long had a debated origin." The work is published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

From rock to beach

Deployed on Mars since 2021 to search for signs of past life, NASA's Perseverance rover spent nearly a year extensively exploring the "Margin unit," a geologic unit lining the inner rim of Jezero crater between 2023 and 2024. The unit was a critical target for exploration since it is rich in carbonate minerals; these precipitate from liquid water and often trap organic molecules on Earth, making them excellent at preserving any potential biosignatures that are present in the environment.

Before Perseverance's arrival, the origin of the unit was contested—some scientists proposed that it formed as a sedimentary deposit along the edge of the ancient Jezero lake, while others argued it was an igneous rock later altered by water.

The study analyzed a multitude of high-resolution outcrop and grain-scale images captured by Perseverance's cameras to confirm that both hypotheses are in fact true to some degree.

It showed that much of the unit's structure and grain-scale texture is consistent with an altered igneous rock, likely formed from a large magma chamber or lava lake in the crater. After it cooled and solidified, crystals of olivine within the unit were heavily altered by circulating carbon dioxide-rich subsurface water, transforming into iron- and magnesium-carbonates. These findings therefore offer exciting evidence of sustained water-rock activity deep beneath the surface.

"This transformation, which builds on recently published work we also contributed to, indicates that water circulated below the surface of the Margin unit, altering the rock over vast timescales," said study author Professor Sanjeev Gupta of Imperial's Department of Earth Science and Engineering. "On Earth, this kind of subsurface hydrothermal environment is known to support microbial life."

Revealing the shoreline

Perhaps the most intriguing discovery lay in the lower-elevation regions of the Margin unit. Here, the team identified clearly layered sandstones containing rounded, sand-sized grains of olivine and carbonate. These sedimentary rocks have structures that are textbook indicators of waves acting in a shoreline environment.

"We are looking at what was once a beach," said Jones, who carried out the work during the first year of his Ph.D., with Professor Gupta and Dr. Rob Barnes, a Research Associate in the Department. "The waves of the Jezero lake eroded and reworked the local, igneous bedrock, rounding the grains and depositing them as a sandy layer along the shore."

He added, "The fact that this ancient beach sits underneath the Jezero river delta also tells us that the calm lake conditions that are hospitable for life existed here even earlier than we previously thought."

Extending the habitability window at Jezero

The evidence of water-rich conditions extending further back into the history of Jezero crater builds on Jones's recent work which found evidence of a comparatively young, perched lake at Jezero crater.

The international study, led by the group at ESE, investigated a series of rocks (called the "Bright Angel" formation) in the upstream reaches of the dried-up river valley which once fed water into the former Jezero lake.

Surprisingly, rather than the sandy or gravelly deposits typically left behind by rivers, the team found thick layers of mudstone: evidence that this part of the valley was once underwater. Their work suggests that billions of years ago, the valley was blocked, forming a dammed lake upstream.

Both these studies drew on crucial skills that Jones first gained from his undergraduate degree in the Department, including geologic mapping, sedimentology, stratigraphy and igneous petrology. "This fittingly showcases how our core teaching is exploited on real space missions that are striving to answer some of life's most fundamental and pertinent questions," said Professor Gupta.

Return to Earth

Now, three core samples collected by Perseverance from the Margin unit, and one from the Bright Angel formation, are awaiting return to Earth by the forthcoming Mars Sample Return mission. Laboratory analyses of these samples will allow scientists to precisely date igneous and sedimentary events at the crater, decode the climate conditions from carbonate chemistry, and search for signs of any potential biosignatures preserved in the samples.

"These findings show that the history of water in Jezero crater was far more complex in both time and space than we imagined," said Jones, who is also a student collaborator on NASA's Mars 2020 mission. "Jezero crater continues to prove it is the ideal place to investigate past habitability on Mars, and to help answer the question of whether life ever emerged."

More information: 

• Alexander J. Jones et al, Stratigraphy of Carbonate‐Bearing Rocks at the Margin of Jezero Crater, Mars: Evidence for Shoreline Processes?, Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets (2026). DOI: 10.1029/2025je009111

• Provided by Imperial College London
• This story was originally published on Phys.org.
  

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28-01-2026 om 18:44 geschreven door peter  

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27-01-2026 om 23:56 geschreven door peter  

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27-01-2026 om 23:44 geschreven door peter  

High-resolution map shows dark matter's gravity pulled normal matter into galaxies

Scientists have created the highest resolution map of the dark matter that threads through the universe—showing its influence on the formation of stars, galaxies and planets.

The research, including astronomers from Durham University, UK, tells us more about how this invisible substance helped pull ordinary matter into galaxies like the Milky Way and planets like Earth.

The findings, using new data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (Webb), are published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The study was jointly led by Durham University, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and the École Polytechnique Fédéral de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland.

The new map confirms previous research and provides new details about the relationship between dark matter and the normal matter from which we—and everything we can touch or see—are made.

When the universe began, dark matter and normal matter were probably sparsely distributed.

Scientists think dark matter clumped together first and then pulled in normal matter, creating regions where stars and galaxies began to form.

How dark matter shaped the universe

In this way, dark matter determined the large-scale distribution of galaxies we see in the universe today.

By prompting galaxy and star formation to begin earlier than they would have otherwise, dark matter also played a role in creating the conditions for planets to eventually form. Without it we might not have the elements in our galaxy that allowed life to appear.

Research co-lead author Dr. Gavin Leroy, of the Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, Durham University, said, "By revealing dark matter with unprecedented precision, our map shows how an invisible component of the universe has structured visible matter to the point of enabling the emergence of galaxies, stars, and ultimately, life itself.

"This map reveals the invisible but essential role of dark matter, the true architect of the universe, which gradually organizes the structures we observe through our telescopes."

Understanding dark matter's elusive nature

Dark matter does not emit, reflect, absorb, or block light, and it passes through regular matter like a ghost.

However, it does interact with the rest of the universe through gravity, something the new map shows with a new level of clarity.

Evidence for this interaction lies in the degree of overlap between maps of dark matter and normal matter.

According to the research, Webb's observations confirm that this close alignment cannot be a coincidence. Instead, the astronomers say it is due to dark matter's gravity pulling normal matter toward it throughout cosmic history.

Research co-author Professor Richard Massey, in the Institute for Computational Cosmology, Department of Physics, Durham University, said, "Wherever you find normal matter in the universe today, you also find dark matter.

"Billions of dark matter particles pass through your body every second. There's no harm, they don't notice us and just keep going.

"But the whole swirling cloud of dark matter around the Milky Way has enough gravity to hold our entire galaxy together. Without dark matter, the Milky Way would spin itself apart."

Mapping the universe with Webb

The area covered by the new map is a section of sky about 2.5 times larger than the full moon, in the constellation Sextans.

Webb peered at this region for a total of about 255 hours and identified nearly 800,000 galaxies, with many detected for the first time.

The scientific team then looked for dark matter by observing how its mass curves space itself, which in turn bends the light traveling to Earth from distant galaxies—as if the light of those galaxies has passed through a warped windowpane.

The map contains about 10 times more galaxies than maps of the area made by ground-based observatories and twice as many as the Hubble Space Telescope.

It reveals new clumps of dark matter and captures a higher-resolution view of the areas previously seen by Hubble.

Sharper images and future research

Research co-lead author Dr. Diana Scognamiglio, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, "This is the largest dark matter map we've made with Webb, and it's twice as sharp as any dark matter map made by other observatories.

"Previously, we were looking at a blurry picture of dark matter. Now we're seeing the invisible scaffolding of the universe in stunning detail, thanks to Webb's incredible resolution."

To refine measurements of the distance to many galaxies for the map, the team used Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).

Durham University's Center for Extragalactic Astronomy was involved in the development of MIRI, which was designed and managed through launch by JPL.

The wavelengths detected by MIRI make it adept at detecting galaxies obscured by cosmic dust clouds.

The team next plans to map dark matter throughout the entire universe, using the European Space Agency's (ESA) Euclid telescope and NASA's upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

They will learn more about dark matter's fundamental properties and how dark matter might have changed over cosmic history.

However, that patch of sky studied in this latest research will be the reference on which all future mapping will be fine-tuned and compared.

More information: 

• Diana Scognamiglio, An ultra-high-resolution map of (dark) matter, Nature Astronomy (2026). 

DOI: 10.1038/s41550-025-02763-9. www.nature.com/articles/s41550-025-02763-9

• Provided by Durham University

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27-01-2026 om 20:53 geschreven door peter  

Story by Nicolae Bochis

The NASA sign at the Kennedy Space Center

© SNEHIT PHOTO/Shutterstock

In 2026, NASA will move from long-running development and testing into a phase defined by action, readiness, and progress. After years shaped by delays, redesigns, and risk reductions, many of NASA's most ambitious programs are finally lining up for execution. The result will be a year that could redefine how humans explore space and how science missions are delivered. Human spaceflight is once again the central focus.

After more than 50 years, humans are planning to return to the Moon. At the same time, the agency is testing new ways to communicate across deep space, manage crews, and operate complex systems from Earth. Meanwhile, the next-generation Nancy Grace Roman telescope is finished and preparing to launch, while NASA continues to build strong partnerships with commercial companies to improve its means to search for life outside Earth. Together, these efforts make 2026 more than just another year of planning. It represents a moment when planning turns into progress.

Read more: What's Happening To Earth Right Now Can't Be Explained By Climate Models

1. Artemis II is going back to the Moon

Photo of the Artemis II crew shown at the space center in Houston, Texas

© Tada Images/Shutterstock

In 2026, NASA plans to take a major step in returning humans to the Moon with the Artemis II mission. This flight will be the first time astronauts reach the moon since the final Apollo mission concluded in 1972. A crew of four astronauts aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft will leave Earth from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission is planned to launch no later than April 2026, but NASA is actually aiming for a possible launch even sooner.

• Moon After 54 Years!

The trip will last only 10 days, during which the spacecraft will loop around the Moon and return to Earth. The astronauts won't land on the Moon because the true purpose of the Artemis II mission is to test life support, navigation, communication, and other systems with humans aboard in a deep-space environment. That said, Artemis II is more than just a technical tryout. It's a confidence builder for the later Artemis missions planned to take astronauts to the lunar surface, Mars' surface, and beyond. The excitement for Artemis II is global. NASA invited the public to sign up and have their names fly around the Moon during the mission. Projects like this can help people around the world feel more connected to space exploration in 2026.

2. NASA hones in on search-for-life missions

Artist's concept of the Habitable Worlds Observatory

© NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio - KBR Wyle Services, LLC/Jonathan North, KBR Wyle Services, LLC/Walt Feimer, NASA/GSFC/Claire Andreoli

In early January 2026, NASA announced that it was hearing proposals from companies who could help advance technology on the successor to James Webb, the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). NASA plans to have HWO serve as a space telescope designed to image Earth-like planets orbiting distant suns and analyze their atmospheres for signatures of life. This new flagship telescope will push beyond what Hubble and James Webb can do. While these existing telescopes also have coronagraphs, or devices that block starlight so that scientists can get a better look at orbiting planets, HWO is expected to have one that is thousands of times more powerful.

NASA awarded three-year contracts to seven companies to build the technical foundations for HWO. Among these are some major players including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and BAE Systems. In a statement, NASA administrator Jared Isaacman  said humanity is ready to find life beyond Earth and that he believes developing such technology is a matter of urgency. HWO is NASA's boldest step yet in answering the question: Are we alone in the universe? 

3. Laser-based communication is implemented

Illustration depicting transmits between NASA's Psyche spacecraft and Earth-based observatories

© NASA/JPL-Caltech

In recent years, NASA has been pushing the limits of how space communication works. Until now, spacecraft were using traditional radio waves to communicate with Earth. Now, new technologies are laser-based. They use pulses of light to send information, packing far more data in each transmission. This breakthrough could transform how missions share high-definition images, video, and scientific data across millions of kilometers.

NASA already successfully demonstrated how Deep Space Optical Communication (DSOC) works. The Psyche spacecraft, launched in October 2023, is equipped with this new technology, and it already received laser-encoded data over record-breaking distances. The first stream was, funnily enough, a video of a cat chasing a laser pointer. Throughout 2024 and 2025, the DSOC onboard Psyche continued to beat distance records.

This successful demonstration lays the groundwork for the operational use of laser communication in crew-supported missions like Artemis II. NASA will fly the Orion Artemis II Optical Communication System (O2O) aboard the Orion spacecraft. The Artemis crew will be able to send 4K ultra-high definition video, voice, procedures, images, and science data for the duration of the mission.

The Nancy Grace Roman telescope finishes its final tests

An engineer inspecting the primary mirror for NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

© NASA/Chris Gunn

NASA's next great space telescope, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has officially moved from construction to completion. After years of development, the spacecraft's physical build is finished, and all major components have been assembled and integrated. Roman is NASA's next flagship telescope that combines Hubble-like resolution with a field view 100 times larger. That means it's capable of capturing huge cosmic areas in a single image.

The next step is to launch this space telescope. Final testing and preparations are ongoing as engineers simulate the launch vibrations, cold of space, and long-term operations far from Earth to make sure this next-generation telescope will be fully operational before the launch. The telescope is scheduled to go online in May 2027, but as the work progresses fast, there are indications that the launch could be moved to September 2026. While the launch preparations continue, the scientific community is already gearing up. In 2025, NASA ca }ed for research proposals using the Ronan telescope. It could be that 2026 sees some of these come to life.

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26-01-2026 om 22:30 geschreven door peter  

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26-01-2026 om 22:02 geschreven door peter  

Moisture in Mars atmosphere could provide water for future human inhabitants, research finds

By ELEANOR MANN, JUNIOR NEWS REPORTER

Moisture extracted from the atmosphere of Mars could provide a valuable alternative water supply if humans are ever to inhabit the red planet, a study has found. 

However, the research from a Strathclyde University academic found that ice located beneath the surface of Mars would provide the most viable long-term solution. 

Dr Vassilis Inglezakis examined the various ways of obtaining water on Mars in a paper in the Advances In Space Research journal. 

The planet has several potential sources of H2O - including underground ice, soil moisture, and atmospheric vapour.

While underground ice could provide a long-term solution, Dr Inglezakis's research noted there are unlikely to be any accessible deposits near locations where explorers would land.

Harvesting water from the atmosphere is challenging as it requires more power and energy - but he suggested it could provide an alternative in areas were subsurface ice is inaccessible, or as a backup supply.

Dr Inglezakis, from the university's Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, said: 'Reliable access to water would be essential for human survival on Mars, not only for drinking but also for producing oxygen and fuel, which would reduce dependence on Earth-based supplies.

'This study is one of the first to compare the various technologies that could be deployed to recover water in a Martian environment.

Mars has several potential sources of H20 - including underground ice, soil moisture, and atmospheric vapour

'It also puts forward new ideas for atmospheric water harvesting, offering potentially valuable alternatives where other sources are inaccessible.'

The paper discusses each method in terms of energy demands, scalability, and suitability for different Martian conditions.

The analysis suggests subsurface ice is the most viable long-term water source.

The study examined ways of obtaining water on Mars

Nasa/ESA

Dr Inglezakis added: 'While the search for water continues and much of Mars remains unexplored, a clear understanding of available technologies and their realistic applications will be key to supporting sustained missions and eventual settlement.

'The research offers insights for future space exploration missions, supporting efforts to make them more self-sufficient and sustainable.'

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26-01-2026 om 21:50 geschreven door peter  

See dark matter like NEVER before: NASA reveals one of the most detailed maps of the elusive substance yet – confirming its vital influence on the universe

• READ MORE: Image shows elusive substance that makes up 25% of universe

By SHIVALI BEST, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR 

NASA has revealed one of the most detailed maps of dark matter yet.

Taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, the map suggests the elusive substance acts as a hidden framework on which entire galaxies are built. 

According to researchers from Durham University, it could help to unravel the mystery of the formation of our Milky Way – as well as planet Earth. 

'Wherever you find normal matter in the Universe today, you also find dark matter,' explained Professor Richard Massey, co–author of the study. 

'Billions of dark matter particles pass through your body every second. 

'There's no harm, they don't notice us and just keep going.

'But the whole swirling cloud of dark matter around the Milky Way has enough gravity to hold our entire galaxy together. 

'Without dark matter, the Milky Way would spin itself apart.'

NASA has revealed one of the most detailed maps of dark matter yet. Taken by the James WebbSpace Telescope, the map suggests the elusive substance acts as a hidden framework on which entire galaxies are built

Dark matter is described as the 'glue' that holds the universe together. 

However, because it's invisble, understanding exactly what it is or what is does has proved difficult. 

Scientists have previously suggested that when the universe began, dark matter and normal matter were sparsely distributed.

Dark matter clumped together first, before pulling in normal matter, creating regions where stars and galaxies began to form.

By prompting this formation, dark matter also played a role in creating the conditions for planets to form – eventually allowing life to appear. 

To prove this is the case, the research team turned to NASA's James Webb – the largest and most powerful telescope ever launched to space.

This allowed them to map dark matter with 'unprecedented precision'.

Because dark matter is invisible, the team looked for it by observing how its mass curves space itself, which in turn bends the light travelling to Earth from distant galaxies.

Because dark matter is invisible, the team looked for it by observing how its mass curves space itself, which in turn bends the light travelling to Earth from distant galaxies

The research team turned to NASA's James Webb – the largest and most powerful telescope ever launched to space

The map shows that dark matter interacts with the rest of the universe through gravity – seen by the degree of overlap between maps of dark and normal matter. 

'By revealing dark matter with unprecedented precision, our map shows how an invisible component of the Universe has structured visible matter to the point of enabling the emergence of galaxies, stars, and ultimately life itself,' explained Dr Gavin Leroy, co–author of the study. 

'This map reveals the invisible but essential role of dark matter, the true architect of the Universe, which gradually organises the structures we observe through our telescopes.'

In total, the area covered by the map is a section of sky about 2.5 times larger than the full moon, in the constellation Sextans. 

It includes nearly 800,000 galaxies – about 10 times more than Webb's predecessor, Hubble, was able to observe.  

Dr Diana Scognamiglio, co–author of the study from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said: 'This is the largest dark matter map we've made with Webb, and it's twice as sharp as any dark matter map made by other observatories.

'Previously, we were looking at a blurry picture of dark matter. 

'Now we're seeing the invisible scaffolding of the Universe in stunning detail, thanks to Webb's incredible resolution.'

The team now plans to map dark matter through the entire universe, using the European Space Agency's Euclid telescope alongside NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.

Dark matter: The mysterious substance that makes up 85% of the universe that scientists cannot confirm

Dark matter is a hypothetical substance said to make up roughly 85 per cent of the universe.

The enigmatic material is invisible because it does not reflect light, and has never been directly observed by scientists.

Astronomers know it to be out there because of its gravitational effects on known matter.

The European Space Agency says: 'Shine a torch in a completely dark room, and you will see only what the torch illuminates.

Dark matter is a hypothetical substance said to make up roughly 27 per cent of the universe. It is thought to be the gravitational 'glue' that holds the galaxies together (artist's impression)

'That does not mean that the room around you does not exist.

'Similarly we know dark matter exists but have never observed it directly.'

The material is thought to be the gravitational 'glue' that holds the galaxies together.

Calculations show that many galaxies would be torn apart instead of rotating if they weren't held together by a large amount of dark matter.

Just five per cent the observable universe consists of known matter such as atoms and subatomic particles.

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

26-01-2026 om 21:24 geschreven door peter  

The super-heavy Space Launch System rocket is what allows the Orion spacecraft not only to go into space, but also to fly to the Moon. The history of their creation was not easy, and the design deserves to be described in detail.

The dream of returning to the Moon

Soon, four astronauts may embark on a journey around the Moon as part of the Artemis II mission. If this happens, it will be a great success not only for the United States but for all of humanity. But most of all, it will be a success for the NASA engineers who created the super-heavy Space Launch System rocket and the Orion spacecraft, as well as their European colleagues who developed the service module for the latter.

All these devices are true works of engineering genius. However, their path to space flight was extremely difficult and long. It all began in 2003, when the Columbia shuttle disaster forced the US to reconsider how and by what means it planned to explore space in the future. At that time, the main focus was on returning to the Moon. However, the giant Saturn-V rocket, which was used to send the Orion spacecraft there in the 1960s and 1970s, was no longer available, and it proved impossible to resume its production.

The response to this was the Constellation program, adopted in 2004. It involved the creation of two rockets: Ares I and Ares V. The first was larger and two-stage. With a height of 94 m, it was designed to carry 25.4 tons of payload into orbit. It was intended to carry the Orion manned spacecraft together with the Altair landing module.

Ares V was supposed to be smaller, also two-stage, and was supposed to launch the Orion upper stage into orbit. In space, both parts were supposed to connect and fly to the Moon. Outwardly, everything looked quite realistic, but in 2010, it was acknowledged that the program had failed due to underfunding, and of all the above, only the Orion spacecraft is at some stage of readiness.

Constellation was canceled, but plans to return to the Moon were not abandoned. In 2011, a new program called Artemis was adopted, in which only the Orion spacecraft remained from Constellation. Only now, instead of two large rockets, one giant rocket was to send it to the Moon. It was named the Space Launch System, or SLS.

SLS design

The Space Launch System is a three-stage rocket that can exist in several variants, depending on the tasks assigned to it. For the first three missions carried out under the Artemis program, a smaller variant called Block 1 is used. Its height is 98 m, and its mass when fueled is 2,610 tons.

The “zero” stage in SLS is a pair of solid-fuel boosters. They are a modification of similar accelerators that were used for the Space Shuttle program. However, while the space shuttle used four segments connected in series, each with a diameter of 3.71 m, the lunar rocket has five, so each booster is actually over 50 m long.

A mixture of ammonium perchlorate, aluminum, and iron oxide enclosed within plastic is used as fuel. Segments containing this material burn out sequentially, propelling the SLS away from Earth and providing its initial acceleration.

After they have worked and separated, the main stage begins to operate. It is a huge metal tank with a diameter of 8.4 meters and a height of 65 meters. For comparison, this is equivalent to two nine-story residential buildings placed one on top of the other. Inside are tanks of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, a cryogenic unit for their maintenance, and four RS-25 engines at the bottom. These were also used on the shuttle.

The upper stage of the rocket is called the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS). It is essentially a modified upper stage of the Delta III rocket.

It is 8.8 m high and 4 m in diameter. Inside are tanks containing liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. There is only one engine. In the Artemis I mission, it was an RL10B-2. In the second mission, it was replaced with a more powerful RL10C-2. The engine is designed for launch in the upper layers of the atmosphere.

Above all, this is the Orion spacecraft. It consists of two parts: a command module built by Lockheed Martin and a service module built in Europe by Airbus Defence and Space.

The command module is a truncated cone with a diameter of 5.03 m and a height of 3.3 m. Inside, there is room for a crew of four astronauts, control systems, and scientific equipment. Attached to the bottom is a service module in the form of a cylinder with a diameter of 4 m and a height of 4 m. Its main purpose is to propel the spacecraft through space and supply its systems with electricity. To do this, it is equipped with an engine, its own fuel tanks, and folding solar panels. All of this is an adaptation of the systems used on the European ATV cargo spacecraft.

The long road to space

As you can easily see, most of the SLS components are not new, but are already used versions. This was done to make its creation cheaper and faster.

However, it was still not possible to complete everything on time. The Artemis program was supposed to begin with an unmanned flight around the Moon. Initially, it was planned that this would happen in 2017. But as time went on, it became increasingly clear that there would simply not be enough time to quickly assemble and test this most complex puzzle in the world.

Many components could not even be manufactured on time. Therefore, the Artemis I mission dates kept getting pushed back. First to 2019, then to 2020. At the same time, the rest of the plans had to be changed as well.

The SLS and Orion, designed for the Artemis I mission, were first transported to the launch pad in March 2022. But that was not the end of the horror that accompanied its first launch. The rocket was refueled several times, a launch simulation was conducted, technical problems were found, and it was returned to the assembly shop. This continued until November, when it was finally launched.

Overall, the Artemis I mission was successful in terms of the flight to the Moon itself. There were problems with the spacecraft that were launched together with Orion as an additional payload, but this did not interfere with the plans to explore the Moon.

Much more attention was paid to the Orion spacecraft, which, upon returning to Earth, was found to have problems with its heat shield, designed to protect it from atmospheric friction. The problem was not unsolvable, but it did require attention.

But then it turned out that while the first SLS was being prepared for launch, the schematics used to manufacture its components were compromised, and many things had to be redesigned. Therefore, it will not be possible to launch the second mission as quickly as possible.

At one point, delays in the Artemis II launch schedule led to fears that it would never happen. Criticism reached its peak in February 2025, when Elon Musk himself joined in. He stated that the SLS should be recognized as a non-viable concept and that instead of the Moon, it should fly to Mars.

For a while, it seemed as if this idea would prevail. But then Starship, which was supposed to fly to the fourth planet from the Sun, suffered several accidents, and the technical staff of the Artemis project managed to solve the problem and complete the assembly of the rocket.

And now it has been delivered to the launch pad. This means that at least this launch will not be canceled due to technical problems. Another issue is that the procedure that took everyone involved six months of work and a lot of nerves in 2022 may now begin. Before launch, engineers must ensure that everything is working properly, and to do this, they will fuel the rocket and carry out all the procedures that will take place during launch. Except for the actual ignition of the engines.

Everything may work as it should the first time around. However, it is more likely that it will not. And then, the rocket will have to be brought back, and the launch postponed. After all, no one promised that it would be easy. But the rocket will only fly when everyone is confident that the technology is working as it should and the people on board are safe.

• Posted in Articles

{  https://universemagazine.com/en/news-en/science-en/ }

25-01-2026 om 20:41 geschreven door peter  

In less than two weeks, NASA is scheduled to launch its Artemis 2 mission, the first crewed journey to the Moon in over half a century. The Space Launch Rocket has already been rolled out to the launch pad, setting the stage for a historic mission.

While the crew won’t be attempting to land on the lunar surface this time around — that milestone is reserved for Artemis 3 — it’s an extremely ambitious and highly complex mission.

And as CNN reports, some experts aren’t convinced of NASA’s reassurances that the Orion spacecraft that will carry the astronauts is safe to use.

Specifically, NASA has spent years since its successful uncrewed Artemis 1 mission studying how the extreme temperatures during reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere affect Orion’s heat shield.

The Orion capsule sustained major damage after making its return in 2022. It cracked and chipped as a result of the extreme conditions during reentry.

Over two years after the mission concluded, NASA said it had identified the root cause, with engineers determining that the “gases generated inside the heat shield’s ablative outer material called Avcoat were not able to vent and dissipate as expected.”

“This allowed pressure to build up and cracking to occur, causing some charred material to break off in several locations,” the agency wrote in a December 2024 statement.

Yet instead of making major material changes to the heat shield itself after the fact — the Artemis 2 heat shield was assembled and installed even before the Artemis 1 mission — NASA opted to adjust the Artemis 2 mission’s flight path instead, to ensure a gentler reentry.

“Based on the data, we have decided — NASA unanimously and our decision-makers — to move forward with the current Artemis II Orion capsule and heat shield, with a modified entry trajectory,” former NASA administrator Bill Nelson announced at the time.

But not everybody is convinced that the space agency has sufficiently addressed the issue ahead of its first crewed Moon mission.

“What they’re talking about doing is crazy,” former NASA astronaut and heat shield expert Charlie Camarda told CNN.

Camarda has since teamed up with several other NASA research scientists, calling on the agency to heed their warnings.

“We could have solved this problem way back when,” he told the broadcaster. “Instead, they keep kicking the can down the road.”

NASA made changes to the way it applied the special Avcoat material to the Orion capsule from a honeycomb-like structure, as applied during Apollo missions, to larger blocks in order to simplify manufacturing, testing and installing it.

The material is designed to char and erode during “skip reentry,” a maneuver that NASA uses in which the spacecraft skips over the atmosphere like a stone before diving in. However, when it dipped back in during Artemis 1, gases built up below the heat shield, causing it to crack and break off.

The space agency is adamant that its new reentry path for Artemis 2 won’t result in gases building up in a similar manner.

“We won’t go as high on that skip, it’ll just be a loft,” Artemis flight director Rick Henfling told CNN.

Still, Camarda and other former NASA astronauts and engineersare warning that there could still be danger.

“The reason this is such a big deal is that when the heat shield is spalling — or you have big chunks coming off — even if the vehicle isn’t destroyed, you’re right at the point of incipient failure now,” thermal protection materials expert and NASA veteran Dan Rasky told CNN. “It’s like you’re at the edge of the cliff on a foggy day.”

How much of a danger a cracked heat shield poses remains a subject of debate.

“Will the heat shield crack? Yes, it’s going to crack,” former NASA astronaut Danny Olivas, who worked on the heat shield investigation, told CNN.

Nonetheless, Olivas is convinced that NASA did enough. Even if it were to crack, he says, the space agency built in redundancies in the form of several layers of defense below the Avcoat layer that will keep astronauts safe.

“I think in my mind, there’s no flight that ever takes off where you don’t have a lingering doubt,” he added. “But NASA really does understand what they have. They know the importance of the heat shield to crew safety, and I do believe that they’ve done the job.”

NASA’s recently sworn-in administrator, Jared Isaacman, is equally convinced.

“We have modified our reentry profile,” he told CNN affiliate WESH last week. “We have regained margin to safety, and I feel very good about that with Artemis 2.”

More on Artemis 2: 

• NASA Says It’s Hitting the Gas, Speedrunning Next Moon Mission

{ https://futurism.com/category/astronomy  }

23-01-2026 om 21:25 geschreven door peter  

Soon, people may not only fly to Mars, but also stay there to live. And if that happens, they will have to find a way to obtain water there. Recently, scientists have compiled all the recipes for how this can be done.

Water extraction on Mars

A new study examines how future human missions to Mars could obtain one of the planet’s most important resources: water. The article, “Martian aqua: occurrence of water and appraisal of acquisition technologies,” published in the journal Advances in Space Research, presents a comparative analysis of potential water extraction technologies for use on the Red Planet.

It also assesses the feasibility of extracting water from various Martian sources, including underground ice, wet soil, and atmospheric vapor, based on the results of previous studies that identified these sources.

Human habitation

Despite the documented widespread presence of water in various forms on Mars, most of it remains inaccessible to early explorers. This new analysis brings these discoveries together and focuses on assessing how effectively water can be collected to support human habitation.

The author, Dr. Vassilis Inglezakis from the Department of Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Strathclyde, said: “Reliable access to water would be essential for human survival on Mars, not only for drinking but also for producing oxygen and fuel, which would reduce dependence on Earth-based supplies.”

This study is one of the first to compare different technologies that can be used to collect water on Mars. It also offers new ideas for collecting atmospheric water, which could be a valuable alternative where other sources are unavailable.

The most promising sources of water

The article discusses each method in terms of energy costs, scalability, and suitability for different conditions on Mars. The analysis shows that subsurface ice is the most promising long-term source of water, while soil moisture and atmospheric vapor can provide additional reserves, especially in emergency situations or remote locations.

While the search for water continues and much of Mars remains unexplored, a clear understanding of available technologies and their realistic application will be key to supporting long-term missions and future colonization. The study provides insight for future space missions, supporting efforts to make them more self-sufficient and sustainable.

• According to phys.org

• Posted in News, Science

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/news-en/science-en/ }

23-01-2026 om 21:13 geschreven door peter  

NASA has revealed a terrifying glimpse into our solar system's grizzly fate.

In five billion years, scientists believe the sun will collapse, leaving behind a shell of gas and dust.

When this happens, Earth will be consumed by the expanding sun or torn apart by powerful gravitational forces, before fresh planets are spat back out. 

Now, in stunning new images, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) shows exactly what this might look like.

Located 650 light–years from Earth, the Helix Nebula is a shell of dust and gas left behind by a sun–like star that ran out of fuel thousands of years ago.

Astronomers have revealed incredible structures inside the three–light–year–wide ring of gas shed by this dying star. 

According to the space agency, these images offer an 'up–close view of the possible eventual fate of our own Sun and planetary system.'

The situation is not entirely bleak, as these strange structures could contain the raw materials for new worlds capable of supporting complex life. 

NASA has revealed the most detailed images yet of the Helix Nebula, the remains of a dying star 650 light–years from Earth (pictured)

Throughout most of a star's life, the crushing weight of gravity is balanced by the force of nuclear fusion as hydrogen is converted into helium inside the stellar core.

Stars like our sun can remain in this stable 'main sequence' phase for billions of years as they work through massive reserves of atomic hydrogen.

But as the hydrogen starts to run out, the star can't sustain these fusion reactions and the outer layers begin to collapse inwards.

The pressure from this collapse creates such intense heat that it can fuse helium atoms into carbon, releasing a surge of energy that kickstarts nuclear fusion in the outer layers.

That reaction causes the star's outer layers to balloon outwards, becoming 100 to 1,000 times larger and cooling into an enormous Red Giant.

Eventually, the core collapses into a hot, Earth–sized star called a White Dwarf, leaving the outer layers to drift into space and form a planetary nebula like the Helix Nebula.

The intense radiation from the White Dwarf at the nebula's heart lights up the expanding shell of gas, allowing us to see the details of the stellar transformation.

In the JWST image, although the White Dwarf is out of frame, NASA reveals how the star's radiation continues to sculpt remarkable structures in its surroundings.

NASA says that these images of the distant Helix Nebula offer a vision of what might happen to our sun and planetary system when the sun dies in around five billion years 

Scientists say that the material jettisoned into space by the nebula will eventually go on to form new planets in other solar systems 

While previous images from the Hubble Space Telescope only rendered this region as a hazy blur, the NIRCam shows the stark transition between hot and cool gas.

In the picture, the touches of blue light mark the hottest regions, where gases are energised by the ultraviolet light from the White Dwarf.

Farther out, yellow regions show cooler areas where hydrogen atoms can form into molecules, while red indicates the coolest areas where the gas thins and dust starts to form.

Scientists believe that our own sun will begin this transformation in around five billion years, likely destroying Earth in the process.

As the sun expands, Earth will either be vaporised by the intense heat or torn to pieces and pulled in by the powerful gravitational tidal forces.

In a paper published last year, scientists found that stars which had already expanded into red giants were much less likely to host large, close–orbiting planets like Earth.

Overall, 0.28 per cent of stars surveyed were home to a giant planet, with the youngest stars in the sequence having planets more frequently.

But for stars that had already grown enough to be classed as red giants, just 0.11 per cent were home to planets.

In about five billion years, scientists say that the sun will burn the last of its hydrogen fuel. When this happens, it will expand to about 200 times its current size to become a red giant and destroy Earth (artist's impression)

Although the sun would be destroyed, the material released into space could go on to make new planets capable of supporting carbon–based life. Pictured: The outer edge of the Helix Nebula as seen by Hubble 

However, Professor Janet Drew, an astronomer from University College London who was not involved in the study, says that this process is really about 'creation, rather than destruction'.

The JWST images show the cloud of hydrogen and dust that was formed in the 'envelope' of the extreme red giant before it was sloughed off to form the nebula.

Inside the nebula, Professor Drew says that this chemically enriched material is 'fed into the interstellar medium, where that material can become available for the next generation of stars and planets.'

Read More

• Is this how the world will end? Earth could be VAPORISED by the sun as it expands, scientists warn 

NASA highlights cooler protective pockets inside the dust cloud, marked by dark patches amid the red and orange, where complex molecules can form.

It is that material which will eventually make its way back into the galaxy and seed the next generation of complex structures.

'So this is really about where the material comes from that is needed to form a rocky planet and sustain carbon–based life,' says Professor Drew.

So, when our planet is destroyed by the sun in five billion years' time, it might provide the raw materials needed to give rise to another generation of life.

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO EARTH WHEN THE SUN DIES?

Five billion years from now, it's said the Sun will have grown into a red giant star, more than a hundred times larger than its current size. 

Eventually, it will eject gas and dust to create an 'envelope' accounting for as much as half its mass.

The core will become a tiny white dwarf star. This will shine for thousands of years, illuminating the envelope to create a ring-shaped planetary nebula.

Five billion years from now, it's said the Sun will have grown into a red giant star, more than a hundred times larger than its current size

While this metamorphosis will change the solar system, scientists are unsure what will happen to the third rock from the Sun.

We already know that our Sun will be bigger and brighter, so that it will probably destroy any form of life on our planet.

But whether the Earth's rocky core will survive is uncertain. 

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

23-01-2026 om 20:21 geschreven door peter  

Scientists have discovered over 6,000 planets that orbit stars other than our sun, known as exoplanets. More than half of these planets were discovered thanks to data from NASA's retired Kepler mission and NASA's current TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission. However, the enormous treasure trove of data from these missions still contains many yet-to-be-discovered planets. All of the data from both missions is publicly available in NASA archives, and many teams around the world have used that data to find new planets using a number of techniques.

In 2021, a team from NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley created ExoMiner, a piece of open-source software that used artificial intelligence (AI) to validate 370 new exoplanets from Kepler data. Now, the team has created a new version of the model trained on both Kepler and TESS data, called ExoMiner++.

The new algorithm, which is discussed in a recent paper published in The Astronomical Journal, identified 7,000 targets as exoplanet candidates from TESS on an initial run. An exoplanet candidate is a signal that is likely to be a planet but requires follow-up observations from additional telescopes to confirm.

ExoMiner++ can be freely downloaded from GitHub, allowing any researcher to use the tool to hunt for planets in TESS's growing public data archive.

"Open-source software like ExoMiner accelerates scientific discovery," said Kevin Murphy, NASA's chief science data officer at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "When researchers freely share the tools they've developed, it lets others replicate the results and dig deeper into the data, which is why open data and code are important pillars of gold-standard science."

ExoMiner++ sifts through observations of possible transits to predict which ones are caused by exoplanets and which ones are caused by other astronomical events, such as eclipsing binary stars. "When you have hundreds of thousands of signals, like in this case, it's the ideal place to deploy these deep learning technologies," said Miguel Martinho, a KBR employee at NASA Ames who serves as the co-investigator for ExoMiner++.

23-01-2026 om 18:09 geschreven door peter  

De geheimen van de reuzenplaneet Saturnus

©The Daily Digest

De bewaker van het buitenste zonnestelsel
Als zesde planeet vanaf de zon en het meest in het oog springende hemellichaam van het zonnestelsel, overstijgt Saturnus zijn eenvoudige omschrijving. Zijn ringen, bestaande uit stukken ijs en gesteente die in perfecte banen zweven, hebben generaties astronomen gefascineerd, van Galileo tot moderne ruimtesondes, en onthullen een wereld vol gigantische stormen, bijzondere manen en raadselachtige zwaartekrachtverschijnselen.

©The Daily Digest

Een gasreus van immense omvang
Met een doorsnee van ongeveer 120.500 kilometer is Saturnus negen keer breder dan de aarde. National Geographic benadrukt dat het een ‘gasreus’ is, die voornamelijk uit waterstof en helium bestaat. Zijn massa is 95 keer zo groot als die van de aarde, maar door de lage gemiddelde dichtheid zou hij in theorie kunnen drijven in een enorme oceaan.

©The Daily Digest

De planeet met de beroemde ringen
De ringen van Saturnus zijn niet massief. Volgens NASA bestaan ze uit ‘miljarden stukjes ijs, steen en stof’. Ze reiken tot 280.000 kilometer vanaf de planeet, maar hun gemiddelde dikte bedraagt slechts enkele honderden meters. Deze kwetsbaarheid maakt ze tot een schitterende, maar vergankelijke structuur.

©The Daily Digest

Het raadsel van het ontstaan
Jarenlang hebben wetenschappers gediscussieerd over het ontstaan van de ringen. National Geographic meldt dat het mogelijk overblijfselen zijn van manen die door de zwaartekracht van Saturnus zijn vernietigd. Gegevens van Cassini wijzen erop dat de ringen tussen 100 en 400 miljoen jaar oud zijn, relatief jong op astronomische schaal.

©The Daily Digest

Een korte dag en een lang jaar
Op Saturnus duurt een dag slechts 10,7 uur. Zijn baan om de zon is echter traag: een Saturnusjaar duurt ongeveer 29,5 aardse jaren. Deze combinatie zorgt voor krachtige winden en hardnekkige atmosferische patronen die decennia standhouden.

©The Daily Digest

Extreme winden en heftig weer
De atmosfeer van Saturnus kent winden tot wel 1800 km/u, aldus NASA. Gele, gouden en bruine wolkenbanden trekken over de planeet. National Geographic wijst op enorme stormen die de hele planeet kunnen omspannen en zelfs vanaf de aarde zichtbaar zijn met telescopen.

©The Daily Digest

De beroemde zeshoek op de noordpool
Een van de opvallendste verschijnselen is de zeshoekige structuur op de noordpool. Ontdekt door Voyager en verder onderzocht door Cassini, heeft dit stabiele geometrische patroon een breedte van zo’n 30.000 kilometer. NASA beschrijft het als een ‘zeszijdige straalstroom’, uniek in het zonnestelsel.

©The Daily Digest

Een planeet zonder vaste bodem
In tegenstelling tot de aarde heeft Saturnus geen vast oppervlak om op te landen. National Geographic geeft aan dat de druk en temperatuur toenemen naarmate men afdaalt in zijn atmosfeer, tot de gassen veranderen in dichte vloeistoffen. Elke sonde zou worden verpletterd lang voordat een denkbare kern wordt bereikt.

©The Daily Digest

Het verborgen binnenste
Wetenschappers vermoeden dat Saturnus een vaste kern heeft van gesteente en ijs. NASA schat dat deze een massa heeft van 10 tot 20 keer die van de aarde. Rondom deze kern bevindt zich metallic waterstof, die verantwoordelijk is voor het sterke magnetische veld.

©The Daily Digest

Een opmerkelijk magneetveld
Het magneetveld van Saturnus is minder krachtig dan dat van Jupiter, maar bijzonder symmetrisch. Volgens NASA is het bijna perfect uitgelijnd met de rotatieas van de planeet. Deze bijzonderheid vormt een uitdaging voor klassieke modellen van het ontstaan van magnetische velden bij planeten.

©The Daily Digest

Meer dan 140 bekende manen
Saturnus vormt een waar miniplanetenstelsel. Tot 2023 waren er meer dan 140 manen bevestigd. National Geographic merkt op dat sommige manen nauwelijks meer zijn dan grillige rotsblokken, terwijl andere, zoals Titan, qua complexiteit met planeten kunnen wedijveren.

©The Daily Digest

Titan, een maan met een atmosfeer
Titan is het pronkstuk onder de manen van Saturnus. Het is de op een na grootste maan in het zonnestelsel en de enige met een dikke atmosfeer. NASA verklaart dat ‘Titan een van de meest aardachtige werelden is’, hoewel de chemie wordt gedomineerd door koolwaterstoffen.

©The Daily Digest

Meren van methaan en ethaan
Op Titan komen zeeën en meren voor, maar deze bestaan niet uit water. National Geographic beschrijft dat ze gevormd worden door vloeibaar methaan en ethaan. Deze vloeistoffen maken deel uit van een klimaatsysteem dat vergelijkbaar is met de waterkringloop op aarde, maar werkt bij temperaturen rond de −180 °C.

©The Daily Digest

Enceladus en zijn geisers
Een andere belangrijke maan is Enceladus. Cassini ontdekte geisers van zout water die de ruimte in worden gespoten. NASA meldt dat deze uitbarstingen essentiële bouwstenen voor leven bevatten. Onder het ijs zou zich een wereldwijde oceaan kunnen bevinden.

©The Daily Digest

Een natuurlijk laboratorium voor de wetenschap
Saturnus biedt mogelijkheden om fundamentele processen te onderzoeken: planeetvorming, atmosferische dynamiek en de evolutie van ringen. National Geographic geeft aan dat waarnemingen van deze planeet inzicht bieden in het verleden van het zonnestelsel, toen de reuzenplaneten het jonge systeem domineerden.

©The Daily Digest

De Cassini-Huygens missie
Tussen 2004 en 2017 veranderde Cassini ons beeld van Saturnus volledig. NASA omschrijft deze missie als een ‘spectaculair succes’. Meer dan 450.000 beelden en waardevolle data over de ringen, manen en atmosfeer werden verzameld.

©The Daily Digest

Het geplande einde van een ruimtesonde
Cassini beëindigde zijn missie door zichzelf in Saturnus te storten, om te voorkomen dat mogelijk bewoonbare manen besmet zouden raken. Volgens NASA was dit de ‘grand finale’. Tijdens deze afdaling werden nooit eerder verkregen gegevens over de bovenste atmosfeer verzameld.

©The Daily Digest

Een planeet zichtbaar vanaf aarde
Saturnus is met het blote oog te zien vanaf onze planeet. Zijn heldere gloed en geelachtige kleur maakten hem al in de oudheid herkenbaar. National Geographic geeft aan dat oude beschavingen hem al kenden als een dwalende ster, lang voordat de pracht van zijn ringen werd ontdekt.

©The Daily Digest

Een reus die nog steeds raadsels biedt
Ondanks decennia van onderzoek zijn er nog steeds onbeantwoorde vragen over Saturnus. Hoe lang blijven zijn ringen bestaan? Wat gebeurt er precies in het binnenste? National Geographic benadrukt dat elke ontdekking weer nieuwe raadsels oproept, waardoor deze ringplaneet ons blijft fascineren.

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23-01-2026 om 17:19 geschreven door peter  

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Network of Home Computers Detected 100 Potential Alien Signals

{ https://futurism.com/ }

22-01-2026 om 22:35 geschreven door peter  

NASA Scientist Proposes Theory of Alien Civilizations Throughout Milky Way

By Frank Landymore

Assuming our solar system’s newest interstellar object isn’t an alien mothership sent here to menace us, humankind still hasn’t spotted any signs of extraterrestrial life, let alone intelligence — which, given how incalculably vast the universe is, is strange. With all the potential homes for potential alien civilizations, why aren’t we seeing any evidence of them?

You’ve probably heard of the name for this conundrum: the Fermi Paradox. And you’ve probably heard of more than a few solutions to it, too.

There’s the infamous zoo hypothesis, which supposes that advanced aliens know about our planet but stay away to let us evolve naturally. 

Or maybe you subscribe to spookier ones like the vulnerable worlds hypothesis, which holds that there may be a certain type of ominous technological innovation that humankind doesn’t even know about yet which always destroys any civilization advanced enough to develop it.

Or perhaps the universe is a kind of dark forest, with plenty of alien civilizations, but all too scared to show themselves out of fear of being annihilated by an even more advanced and bloodthirsty interstellar species. 

But here comes the party pooper. In a new yet-to-be-peer-reviewed paper, NASA astrophysicist Robin Corbet proposes an outlook of “radical mundanity” that basically banishes these fun ideas back to the realm of speculative scifi. The Milky Way actually contains a modest amount of civilizations, according to this hypothesis, which was spotlighted by The Guardian — but the aliens aren’t busy tunneling wormholes or probing singularities. Instead, they’re only slightly more technologically advanced than we are, get bogged down by the same limitations when trying to look for fellow intelligent beings, and eventually give up on exploring the cosmos.

“The idea is that they’re more advanced, but not much more advanced. It’s like having an iPhone 42 rather than an iPhone 17,” Corbet, a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told the newspaper. “This feels more possible, more natural, because it’s not proposing anything very extreme.”

This mundane view explains why we aren’t seeing any technosignatures, or evidence of alien technology from afar. The aliens just don’t have what it takes to build huge megastructures that we could see with our telescopes, like a Dyson swarm that enshrouds a star to harvest its energy.

And while they might have the technological capability to travel to other stars, perhaps even with robotic probes, it’d be a painstakingly slow and enormously expensive undertaking, just like it would be for us. And so, finding no other civilizations along the way, they decide it’s not worth the cost. Ditto for powering a huge beacon for beaming a “we’re here!” signal out into the cosmos.

“They don’t have faster-than-light, they don’t have machines based on dark energy or dark matter, or black holes,” Corbet told The Guardian. “They’re not harnessing new laws of physics.”

It’s a sobering rebuff to some of our more fantastical theories of life in the cosmos. But not everyone’s a fan. Michael Garrett, the director of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, told The Guardian he liked the “fresh perspective,” but not much else.

“It projects a very human-like apathy on to the rest of the cosmos,” Garrett said. “I find it hard to believe that all intelligent life would be so uniformly dull.”

In fact, his personal hypothesis, detailed in a study accepted for publication in Acta Astronautica, couldn’t be more diametrically opposed to Corbet’s.

“I lean towards a more adventurous explanation of the Fermi paradox: that other, post-biological civilisations advance so rapidly that they slip beyond our capacity to perceive them,” Garrett told The Guardian. “I hope I’m right, but I could very well be wrong. Nature always has some kind of surprise for us around the corner.”

More on space:

• Scientist Says Galaxies Shining With Radio Signals Could Indicate Numerous Advanced Civilizations

{ https://futurism.com/ }

22-01-2026 om 22:25 geschreven door peter  

Soon we will witness a truly spectacular event. For the first time since 1972, a rocket carrying four astronauts will embark on a journey to the Moon. We will explain when the Artemis II flight is scheduled to take place and how it will proceed.

Launch windows for the flight to the Moon

NASA cannot launch a mission to the Moon at any given time. The launch date is determined by orbital mechanics and the relative positions of celestial bodies, which allows the Moon’s gravity to be used to return the spacecraft with astronauts to Earth without using its main engine (this reduces the risks for the expedition).

The closest launch windows for the Artemis II flight to the Moon will be open from February 6 to 8 and February 10 to 11. If the SLS rocket cannot be launched within these time frames, the next launch windows will be open on the following dates:

• March – 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 11th.
• April – 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 30th.

It is interesting to note that almost all of the upcoming ballistic windows suggest that Artemis II will only be launched at night. Theoretically, the mission could be launched at dawn at the end of the ballistic window on April 1. The window on April 30 provides an opportunity to launch shortly before sunset.

The exact launch date will depend not only on the technical readiness of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, but also on several external factors, such as weather conditions, wind speed, and cloud cover. Solar activity will also be taken into account. The Artemis II flight will take place outside the Earth’s magnetic field. If, during the launch period, the Sun produces powerful flares or there is a high probability of them occurring, NASA will almost certainly postpone the flight.

Artemis II launch

Now let’s talk in more detail about how the Artemis II flight itself will proceed. Approximately 3.5 hours before launch, the four astronauts will board the Orion spacecraft, after which technicians will close the spacecraft hatch. The first stage engines of the SLS rocket will be activated 6 seconds before launch – at this stage, the launch can still be canceled. Once the side solid rocket boosters ignite, this will no longer be possible.

The separation of the SLS solid rocket boosters will occur at 129 seconds into the flight, when the rocket will be at an altitude of 47.5 km. Approximately one minute after that, the “tower” – a solid rocket motor installed at the top of the nose cone – will be jettisoned. It is used as an emergency rescue system: in the event of an emergency, the rocket must “pull out” the capsule with the astronauts and take it away from the SLS. The separation will occur at an altitude of 87 km, which is slightly below the Kármán line, accepted as the boundary of outer space.

At 495 seconds into the flight, the first stage will separate. At this point, Orion will still be on a suborbital trajectory. When the spacecraft reaches apogee, the upper stage of the SLS will be activated. An hour later, another altitude increase maneuver will be performed. They will bring Orion into an elongated near-Earth orbit with a perigee altitude of 185 km and an apogee altitude of 70,000 km. For comparison, the ISS is in a circular orbit at an altitude of approximately 415 km.

In orbit around Earth

Upon completion of the maneuvers, Orion will separate from the upper stage, after which the next stage of the flight will begin, lasting 23 hours. Initially, the astronauts will switch the spacecraft to manual control and perform a series of approaches to the upper stage of the SLS. These operations will provide a unique experience that cannot be gained on Earth and will yield valuable data that will be useful in planning future missions involving docking and undocking in lunar orbit.

After completing the rendezvous, the crew will return control of Orion to mission controllers and spend the remaining time checking the functionality of all spacecraft components. Key attention will be paid to the life support system. The astronauts will also test communications and navigation. Orion will briefly leave the coverage area of GPS and TDRS satellites, which will allow NASA to test the technical capabilities of its Deep Space Network.

At this stage, a payload will also be deployed – several CubeSats provided by countries that are parties to the Artemis Accords.

If the checks do not reveal any significant problems, NASA will give the green light to the next stage of the mission – the flight to the Moon. On the second day, Orion will activate its main engine and perform a maneuver that will send it towards our planet’s satellite. The spacecraft will follow a trajectory resembling a giant figure eight. As for the upper stage of the SLS, NASA will also activate its engine and direct it into the atmosphere above an uninhabited area of the Pacific Ocean to prevent it from becoming space debris.

Flight to the Moon and back

During the flight to the Moon, the spacecraft will perform three minor course corrections. Before the crew goes to sleep on the fifth day of the flight, Orion will enter the Moon’s sphere of influence, where its gravitational pull will become stronger than Earth’s gravitational pull.

The exact distance at which the Artemis II crew will fly past the Moon will depend on the launch date. In each of the possible ballistic windows, the Moon will be in a different location, and the flyby distance will vary accordingly: it can range from 6,500 to 13,000 km. This is hundreds of thousands of kilometers closer than any human has come to our planet’s satellite since 1972. At this distance, the Moon will appear to the crew to be the size of a basketball held at arm’s length.

The closest approach will occur when Orion flies over the far side of the Moon. At that moment, depending on the launch time, the crew will lose contact with Earth for 30 to 50 minutes. During this interval, the astronauts will take photographs and videos of the far side of the Moon, as well as conduct observations. At approximately this time, the Artemis II crew is expected to break the record for distance from Earth, set by Apollo 13.

The Artemis II flight path is designed so that the crew will not need to perform any maneuvers using the main engine, eliminating the risk of an accident and the possibility of them getting “stuck” near the Moon. When the spacecraft rounds the Moon and leaves its sphere of influence, Earth’s gravity will “catch” it and direct it toward our planet. As during the flight to the Moon, the crew will perform three small course corrections during this leg for more accurate guidance. The last maneuver will be performed on the 10th day of the flight, five hours before landing.

Shortly before entering the atmosphere, the astronauts will separate the Orion service module. This will expose the heat shield of the crew capsule. At its peak, it will be exposed to temperatures of up to 2,800 °C. This is about a thousand degrees higher than missions returning from the ISS. This difference is because Orion will enter the Earth’s atmosphere at a much higher second cosmic velocity. As the heated plasma completely envelops the spacecraft, NASA will lose all contact with it for several minutes.

If everything goes well, Orion will first deploy two brake parachutes, followed by three main parachutes. The capsule with four astronauts will splash down in the Pacific Ocean, after which it will be picked up by ships.

After returning

The Artemis II mission is largely a test mission. It is intended to demonstrate the reliability of Orion and its ability to support interplanetary missions. The flight will also have enormous symbolic significance. For the first time in more than half a century, humans will leave the vicinity of our planet. The Artemis II mission could help to increase the popularity of space exploration.

Artemis II will pave the way for the next mission, Artemis III, which plans to land two astronauts on the south pole of the Moon. It is currently scheduled for 2027. However, in reality, the date will almost certainly change, as many elements of the expedition are not yet ready – from the Starship HLS spacecraft to the lunar spacesuits. However, the success of Artemis II may serve as a significant stimulus to accelerate its preparation.

• Posted in Articles, Questions

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22-01-2026 om 21:23 geschreven door peter