The celebrity comet 3I/ATLAS is showing itself out of our solar system for good — but not before the cosmic paparazzi at Earth's space agencies snap some of the clearest photos of it yet.

Discovered in late June and confirmed to be the third known interstellar object in July, 3I/ATLAS has spent the past several months zooming through the inner solar system at an estimated 130,000 mph (210,000 km/h). The massive, jet-spewing snowball made its closest approaches to Mars and the sun in October. It is due for its closest encounter with Earth on Dec. 19, when it will be about 170 million miles (270 million kilometers) away — nearly twice the distance between our planet and the sun.

As the comet careens toward this astronomical milestone, spacecraft managed by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are snagging as many close-up observations as possible. This week, both agencies shared new images of the comet — proving that its recent flyby of the sun has left it very bright and active as it spews large amounts of sublimated gas and dust into space.

Hubble doubles down

On Thursday (Dec. 4), NASA shared the latest image of 3I/ATLAS taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. The glowing white dot at the center of the image shows the comet's nucleus (its main body) and coma, the bright atmosphere of gas and dust that wraps around the comet before getting funneled into its tail. In the background, stars are stretched into long streaks as Hubble's camera stays fixed on the fast-moving comet.

Comets typically brighten as they approach the sun, when the ice within them heats up and sublimates. Solar radiation pushes this gas into a tail that stretches away from the sun. Meanwhile, the warmest, sun-facing side of the comet may erupt with jets of gas and dust angled toward our star. Both of these features are faintly visible in the new Hubble image.

NASA snapped this image on Nov. 30, when Hubble was about 178 million miles (286 million km) from the comet. This is considerably closer than when Hubble first imaged the comet in late July. Although that first view showed little more than a blue blur, it nevertheless allowed scientists to constrain 3I/ATLAS' size to somewhere between 1,400 feet (440 meters) and 3.5 miles (5.6 km) wide — likely the largest interstellar object seen to date.

New data from this image, including details of the coma's composition, has yet to be released but is likely on the way.

ESA juices up

Also on Thursday, ESA shared its latest view of the comet, taken by the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) orbiter on its way to study Jupiter's moons for signs of life. Juice snapped the image Nov. 2, just days after 3I/ATLAS' close approach to the sun.

Located even closer to its target than Hubble (only 41 million miles, or 66 million km, away), Juice shows us a comet brimming with activity.

"Not only do we clearly see the glowing halo of gas surrounding the comet known as its coma, we also see a hint of two tails," an ESA spokesperson wrote in a statement. "The comet's 'plasma tail' — made up of electrically charged gas, stretches out towards the top of the frame. We may also be able to see a fainter 'dust tail' — made up of tiny solid particles — stretching to the lower left of the frame."

Earth gets ready

Juice observed 3I/ATLAS with five scientific instruments on two days. But besides this teaser image, we don't yet know what those instruments saw; the full data set won't reach Earth until late February 2026, according to ESA. That's because Juice is currently using its main antenna as a heat shield to protect it during its close pass of the sun, and relying on its smaller, less efficient antenna to beam its observations back to us.

While there's little we can learn from NASA's and ESA's new images without the full complement of scientific data, it's a good reminder that human space exploration pays off in unexpected ways. Hubble and Juice number among a dozen spacecraft that have observed 3I/ATLAS from around the solar system, including Mars rovers, solar orbiters, asteroid trackers and space telescopes that were never intended to track comets.

And there's more to come: As 3I/ATLAS draws closer to Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope will take another look at it, while countless scientific observatories and amateur astronomers will have their chance to watch it as well. When you're dealing with a mysterious intruder from parts unknown, every observation matters.

{ Live Science }

08-12-2025 om 21:53 geschreven door peter  

Parts of the Lassen Volcanic National Park in California’s Cascade Range resemble the gateway to a hellish underworld, with pools of boiling water and bubbling mud where almost nothing can live, due to scalding temperatures that can reach a blistering 464 degrees Fahrenheit.

That’s enough to kill a human, obviously, which rangers and ample signage helpfully point out to visitors throughout the park. And yet: a team of scientists in America and Europe have discovered one remarkable organism that can survive and even thrive in these hellish waters: a tiny single-cell “fire amoeba.”

This humble critter, a gooey-looking blobunder the microscope, has set a “new record for the upper temperature limit” for all complex organisms on Earth because it can divide at a burning-hot 145.4 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the scientists who laid out their findings in a yet-to-be-peer-reviewed study published last week.

In reporting by Nature, the researchers said the existence of the once-unknown amoeba — now called Incendiamoeba cascadensis, meaning “fire amoeba from the cascades” — also challenges the notion that certain organisms called prokaryotes, which includes all bacteria, are the only lifeforms on Earth that can survive extreme temperatures that kill almost everything else.

Prokaryotes, which have no distinct nucleus, are still the reigning champs of biological toughness, as they can persist in temps between 149 and 221 degrees Fahrenheit — and they can theoretically be viable up to 392 degrees, above which nucleotides and amino acids start to break down.

Prokaryotes, which also includes a domain of microbes called archaeans, can be found in steaming compost piles, and places with volcanic activity and hot springs such as Lassen. The highest known temperature shrugged off by a prokaryote, an archaean called Methanopyrus kandleri, is 251.6 degrees Farenheit, a record for all organisms, prokaryotes or not.

In contrast to prokaryotes, the fire amoeba is an eukaryote — complex organisms that include every animal, plant, fungi, and also unicellular tiny lifeforms called protists, encompassing algae and other amoebae — and is composed of cells, or one cell in the case of the fire amoeba, that have a distinct nucleus bound by a membrane and interior organelles.

Eukaryotes such as mammals and us humans have an upper temperature limit of 109.4 degrees Farenheit, above which we die. Until now, the upper temperature limit for more hardy eukaryotic organisms, such as fungi and red algae, was thought to be 131 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, so this discovery of the fire amoeba is remarkable.

“We need to rethink what’s possible for a eukaryotic cell in a significant way,” Angela Oliverio, Syracuse University microbiologist and study co-author, told Nature.

The team found this tiny microorganism in a stream of hot spring water that was pH neutral, in contrast to the many acidic pools in Lassen.

“It’s the most uninteresting geothermal feature you’ll find in Lassen,” Syracuse microbiologist and study co-author Beryl Rappaport told Nature.

Studying the water from this stream yielded zero indication of life while under microscope, but something unexpected happened when the scientists added nutrients to the water and heated the samples to a temperature of 134.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the stream’s temp range; they noticed this then unknown amoeba moving and replicating.

When they slowly heated the samples up to 145.4 degrees, the hardly little amoeba again defied expectations and still kept on dividing and moving, according to the paper. At a degree higher, it was still active.

At 158 degrees, though, the amoeba went into dormancy in a process called encystment, in which it turns into a cyst-like ball; it develops a hard shell that protects it from harsh environmental conditions; cooler temperatures would allow for the amoeba to unwind form its cocoon to grow and reproduce again.

The team also decoded and analyzed the fire amoeba’s genome and “found an enrichment of genes related to proteostasis [process that regulates proteins], genome stability, and sensing the external environment,” the scientists wrote in the paper, showing the hidden mechanisms that allow the amoeba to survive.

The scientists said this discovery of the fire amoeba is exciting because it opens up the possibility of further research and discovery of new, undiscovered high-temperature loving eukaryotes; scientists have typically studied heat-loving prokaryotes called thermophiles.

“We looked in one stream,” Oliverio said. “Maybe we got extremely lucky and there’s nothing else out there, but we really don’t think that’s the case.”

Another exciting aspect of the discovery, according to the scientists, is that it could lead to better insight on how eukaryotes can survive such extreme temperatures while maintaining healthy cellular integrity and functionality. The proteins within the amoeba can also be a source for “thermostable proteins” that can find many applications in the biotechnology field, they said.

What’s also cool is that the discovery raises the possibility of life beyond Earth; researchers have speculated that microbes such as bacteria could lurk in the ancient riverbeds and lake shores of Mars or its ice caps.

Because like what actor Jeff Goldblum said in the first Jurassic Park movie: “Life finds a way.”

More on Microbes: 

• We’re Totally OK With This 48,500 Year Old “Zombie” Virus Being Resurrected
  

{ https://futurism.com/category/science-energy }

07-12-2025 om 22:56 geschreven door peter  

Credit: © NASA/CSA/ESA, Rashi Jain (NCRA-TIFR)

The Milky Way’s Twin

Rashi Jauin and Yogesh Wadadekar of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (NCRA-TIFR) in Pune, India, made the discovery, revealed in a recent paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Their sighting of the mature galaxy comes from light emitted when the universe was only one-tenth of its current age. Their name for the galaxy, Alaknanda, ties it to the Milky Way and to one of India’s most sacred features, the Ganges River. Before flowing through India, the Ganges originates from two headstreams in the Himalayas: Alaknanda and its twin, Mandakini, which is the Hindi name for the Milky Way.

The Milky Way and Alaknanda both feature grand design spirals, formed by two symmetric arms. Achieving this beautiful order from the irregular chaos of a new galaxy was believed to take billions of years, as the gas slowly accreted and was sculpted by slow-moving density waves into the ordered spiral shape.

Star Producing Power

At Alaknanda’s center is a bright, rounded bulge 30,000 light-years across. This central feature produces new stars at a rate 20 times that of the Milky Way, coming out to a combined mass of 60 times the Earth’s Sun annually. At this tremendous speed, half of Alaknanda’s stars were formed in just 200 million years.

“Alaknanda has the structural maturity we associate with galaxies that are billions of years older,” said lead author Rashi Jain. “Finding such a well-organised spiral disk at this epoch tells us that the physical processes driving galaxy formation—gas accretion, disk settling, and possibly the development of spiral density waves—can operate far more efficiently than current models predict.”

“It’s forcing us to rethink our theoretical framework,” he added.

James Webb Space Telescope Observations

Alaknanda’s location proved a boon for viewing the distant galaxy. Also in its direction is Pandora’s Cluster, a massive galaxy cluster that bends and magnifies light passing through, improving Webb’s ability to observe the spiral structure’s detail.

The pair behind the study broke the light down using 21 different filters to produce exact measurements of Alaknanda’s distance, dust content, star count, and star formation rate. Data for the project came from two different observational sets, acquired during the UNCOVER and MegaScience surveys.

As Webb allows researchers to peer not just farther out into the universe, but much further back in time, many preconceptions about our understanding of the cosmos are unraveling. Other types of advanced galaxies are being sighted from eras that should be far too early for them to exist based on our present understanding of galactic evolution.

“Alaknanda reveals that the early Universe was capable of far more rapid galaxy assembly than we anticipated,” said co-author Yogesh Wadadekar. “Somehow, this galaxy managed to pull together ten billion solar masses of stars and organise them into a beautiful spiral disk in just a few hundred million years.”

“That’s extraordinarily fast by cosmic standards,” Wadadekar said, “and it compels astronomers to rethink how galaxies form.”

James Webb and the Early Universe

This new data will require rethinking past ideas and developing new explanations, as scientists debate how these complex forms may have arisen so early. However, the researchers behind the recent study offered up some possibilities to help lead off that ongoing discussion. 

One is that cold gas infilled the galaxy, while density waves shaped it, but at a rapid pace. A more dramatic solution is that the galaxy collided with a small galaxy to form the arms, though in such an event, the spirals would be expected to fade rapidly. The researchers say that if subsequent observations can distinguish whether Alaknanda’s rotation is steady or turbulent, that will provide essential context for future debate on the matter.

Whatever the case, the James Webb Space Telescope is not just showing us more of the same that astronomers have already observed in our universe. Peering to greater distances, it is presenting unexpected discoveries that push against our most basic understandings of our universe, and continued exploration with NASA’s premier space observatory will only further test our scientific theories and lead to new insights into the cosmos.

The paper, “A Grand-design Spiral Galaxy 1.5 Billion Years After the Big Bang with JWST,” appeared in Astronomy and Astrophysics on November 10,W 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.

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

07-12-2025 om 21:46 geschreven door peter  

China Outlines Future Plans in New Video, Including Finding Earth 2.0

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

05-12-2025 om 23:01 geschreven door peter  

Credit: © NASA/CSA/ESA, Rashi Jain (NCRA-TIFR)

The Milky Way’s Twin

Rashi Jauin and Yogesh Wadadekar of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (NCRA-TIFR) in Pune, India, made the discovery, revealed in a recent paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Their sighting of the mature galaxy comes from light emitted when the universe was only one-tenth of its current age. Their name for the galaxy, Alaknanda, ties it to the Milky Way and to one of India’s most sacred features, the Ganges River. Before flowing through India, the Ganges originates from two headstreams in the Himalayas: Alaknanda and its twin, Mandakini, which is the Hindi name for the Milky Way.

The Milky Way and Alaknanda both feature grand design spirals, formed by two symmetric arms. Achieving this beautiful order from the irregular chaos of a new galaxy was believed to take billions of years, as the gas slowly accreted and was sculpted by slow-moving density waves into the ordered spiral shape.

Star Producing Power

At Alaknanda’s center is a bright, rounded bulge 30,000 light-years across. This central feature produces new stars at a rate 20 times that of the Milky Way, coming out to a combined mass of 60 times the Earth’s Sun annually. At this tremendous speed, half of Alaknanda’s stars were formed in just 200 million years.

“Alaknanda has the structural maturity we associate with galaxies that are billions of years older,” said lead author Rashi Jain. “Finding such a well-organised spiral disk at this epoch tells us that the physical processes driving galaxy formation—gas accretion, disk settling, and possibly the development of spiral density waves—can operate far more efficiently than current models predict.”

“It’s forcing us to rethink our theoretical framework,” he added.

James Webb Space Telescope Observations

Alaknanda’s location proved a boon for viewing the distant galaxy. Also in its direction is Pandora’s Cluster, a massive galaxy cluster that bends and magnifies light passing through, improving Webb’s ability to observe the spiral structure’s detail.

The pair behind the study broke the light down using 21 different filters to produce exact measurements of Alaknanda’s distance, dust content, star count, and star formation rate. Data for the project came from two different observational sets, acquired during the UNCOVER and MegaScience surveys.

As Webb allows researchers to peer not just farther out into the universe, but much further back in time, many preconceptions about our understanding of the cosmos are unraveling. Other types of advanced galaxies are being sighted from eras that should be far too early for them to exist based on our present understanding of galactic evolution.

“Alaknanda reveals that the early Universe was capable of far more rapid galaxy assembly than we anticipated,” said co-author Yogesh Wadadekar. “Somehow, this galaxy managed to pull together ten billion solar masses of stars and organise them into a beautiful spiral disk in just a few hundred million years.”

“That’s extraordinarily fast by cosmic standards,” Wadadekar said, “and it compels astronomers to rethink how galaxies form.”

James Webb and the Early Universe

This new data will require rethinking past ideas and developing new explanations, as scientists debate how these complex forms may have arisen so early. However, the researchers behind the recent study offered up some possibilities to help lead off that ongoing discussion. 

One is that cold gas infilled the galaxy, while density waves shaped it, but at a rapid pace. A more dramatic solution is that the galaxy collided with a small galaxy to form the arms, though in such an event, the spirals would be expected to fade rapidly. The researchers say that if subsequent observations can distinguish whether Alaknanda’s rotation is steady or turbulent, that will provide essential context for future debate on the matter.

Whatever the case, the James Webb Space Telescope is not just showing us more of the same that astronomers have already observed in our universe. Peering to greater distances, it is presenting unexpected discoveries that push against our most basic understandings of our universe, and continued exploration with NASA’s premier space observatory will only further test our scientific theories and lead to new insights into the cosmos.

• The paper, “A Grand-design Spiral Galaxy 1.5 Billion Years After the Big Bang with JWST,” appeared in Astronomy and Astrophysics on November 10, 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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{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

05-12-2025 om 22:37 geschreven door peter  

Earthquakes and mysterious light beams: Has the UK got its own Bermuda Triangle?

Josh Milton

Most sightings were made in the early hours yesterday

(Picture: North Yorkshire Weather Updates)

Two things happened yesterday that took people in the UK by surprise – multiple sightings of beams of towering light and an earthquake.

So… what on earth is going on?

At around 5.30am, people told Metro they saw a beam of light poking out from behind houses and trees.

They were mainly seen in towns and villages near the coastline, from Newton Stewart, Scotland, to Colchester, Essex, some 300 miles away.

Later that same day, an earthquake hit the north of England, rattling most of Lancashire and the Lake District at 11.23pm.

That epicentre in Silverdale is right in the centre of a triangle of some of the sightings of the mysterious lights.

Is this a sign that aliens are trying to communicate with us? Was the quake the thud of Mr Bean falling from the sky? Or does the UK have its very own Bermuda Triangle?

Metro has looked at the facts.

Lighting sightings

Darren Steger-Lewis, 38, spotted the vertical light while out for a morning run at 5.30am at Ness Point – the most easterly point of England.

The administrative manager for a mobility scooter manufacturer said the light was out at sea and was crystal clear.

His first thought was that it must have been solar activity, but he did wonder if it might be little green men.

Nothern Lights in the sky over UK

Darren said: ‘The alien thought did naturally cross my mind, but the question arose: If we were being visited, would Lowestoft really be the destination of choice?’

Wayne Jensen, 43, told Metro he saw the beacon at about 5am in Mildenhall, Suffolk.

He said: ‘I have absolutely no idea what it was, but it definitely wasn’t man-made. My guess is something to do with gases in the atmosphere.’

It didn’t need to be ‘man-made’ though – beams are commonly reported during alleged sightings of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, otherwise called UFOs.

However, Jim NR Dale, a meteorologist with the British Weather Services, told Metro there’s probably a much more mundane, but still spectacular, explanation.

Dale said they are more likely ‘light pillars’, an atmospheric optical illusion.

North Yorkshire Police told Metro the force is not aware of any reports of UFOs in the region, either.

Seismic Silverdale

Hours later, at 11.23pm, there was another natural phenomenon that woke up the people of Lancashire – an earthquake that felt like an underground explosion.

Fiona Johnston said: ‘Well, last night I felt the earth move. I was laid in bed reading around 11.30pm when the end of my bed moved.

‘It felt exactly like it did when Alfie [my deceased dog] would attempt to jump on the bed. I honestly thought it was him coming back to visit me because he was very much on my mind last night and I’d been watching videos of him.’

Fiona, like many others roused from their sleep, was relieved to hear that it was a tremor.

The UK experiences around 300 tremors every year, but only 20 or so are strong enough to be felt.

Can Barrow really be compared with the Bermuda Triangle?

Countless aircraft, boats and people have vanished in the area connecting Virginia’s Norfolk, Puerto Rico and Bermuda.

Officials and scientists have debunked the idea that aliens or a mysterious force in the 500,000 square mile section of the Atlantic Ocean is to blame.

Yet, the myth is so enduring that any eerie cluster of incidents anywhere tends to get the Triangle treatment.

What are ice pillars

Also called ice pillars, light pillars are a type of atmospheric optics, or the way light travels through the atmosphere.

When it’s nippy outside around sunrise or sunset, clouds that are normally high in the atmosphere drift down towards the Earth’s surface.

Within these clouds are millions of ice crystals that, when an artificial light from a ground source shines through them, reflect it like tiny mirrors.

If the light comes from the sun, they’re rather aptly called ‘sun pillars’.

Ice can cause all sorts of illusions, such as the ghostly blur of diamond dust, when these teeny-tiny mirrors reflect streetlights.

Physicist Les Cowley, a physicist who studies atmospheric optics, said: ‘So, keep an eye on the sky during those cold winter nights, as you never know when you might be treated to the awe-inspiring sight of light pillars illuminating the darkness.’

Metro’s verdict

In all seriousness, the strongest explanation here is coincidence.

When you introduce Colchester to the Beamuda Triangle map, you’re left with something more closely related to a four-sided shape.

But the Morecambe Wonky Diamond doesn’t have quite the ring to it, does it?

{ https://metro.co.uk/news/ }

05-12-2025 om 22:05 geschreven door peter  

Is life out there? NASA finds essential sugars on ancient asteroid Bennu more than 200 million miles away

• READ MORE: NASA baffled by rock on Mars that 'doesn't belong there'

By SHIVALI BEST, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY EDITOR 

How life began on Earth is one of the biggest remaining questions in science. 

Now, NASA has taken a major step towards answering this query. 

The US space agency has discovered essential sugars on Bennu – an ancient asteroid 200 million miles away from Earth. 

The five–carbon sugar ribose was found on the asteroid, as well as six–carbon glucose. 

This marks the first time this sugar has been found in an extraterrestrial sample.

The researchers, led by a team at Tohoku University in Japan, emphasise that these sugars are not evidence of aliens. 

Instead, they could provide key clues to the origins of life here on Earth. 

'Although these sugars are not evidence of life, their detection, along with of amino acids, nucleobases, and carboxylic acids in Bennu samples, show building blocks of biological molecules were widespread throughout the solar system,' the team explained. 

How life began on Earth is one of the biggest remaining questions in science. Now, NASA has taken a major step towards answering this query. The US space agency has discovered essential sugars on Bennu – an ancient asteroid 200 million miles away from Earth

Bennu is an asteroid made from rocks that formed nearly 4.6 billion years ago. 

Every six years, the asteroid – which is around 500 metres wide – passes close to Earth, coming within 186,000 miles of our planet.  

In 2020, NASA's OSIRIS–REx mission seized upon a close flyby, collecting samples from Bennu and returning them to Earth three years later, on 24 September 2023. 

Since then, scientists have been analysing the samples to learn more about the conditions in our solar system billions of years ago. 

In the latest study, the Tohoku University team set out to understand whether or not Bennu contains the building blocks of life. 

Here on Earth, the sugars deoxyribose and ribose are key building blocks of DNA and RNA, respectively.

DNA is the primary carrier of genetic information in cells, while RNA performs numerous essential functions. 

'All five nucleobases used to construct both DNA and RNA, along with phosphates, have already been found in the Bennu samples brought to Earth by OSIRIS–REx,' said Dr Yoshihiro Furukawa, who led the new study. 

The five–carbon sugar ribose was found on the asteroid, as well as six–carbon glucose. This marks the first time this sugar has been found in an extraterrestrial sample.

In 2020, NASA's OSIRIS–REx mission seized upon a close flyby, collecting samples from Bennu and returning them to Earth three years later, on 24 September 2023

Asteroid Bennu

Size: 500 metres wide 

Age: Formed from rocks dating back 4.5 billion years

Orbit and rotation: Makes one orbit around the sun every 1.2 years, and one full rotation every 4.3 hours 

Formation: Likely formed in the Main Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter

The new discovery of ribose means that all of the components to form the molecule RNA are present in Bennu.'

This isn't the first time ribose has been found on an extraterrestrial object. 

In fact, the sugar has previously been found in two meteorites recovered on Earth. 

However, the key difference in the Bennu sample is that deoxyribose – the key building block of DNA – was not found.    

'If Bennu is any indication, this means ribose may have been more common than deoxyribose in environments of the early solar system,' the researchers explained. 

According to the researchers, the findings support the 'RNA world' hypothesis. 

This suggests that the first forms of life relied on RNA as the primary molecule to store information and to drive chemical reactions necessary for survival. 

'Present day life is based on a complex system organized primarily by three types of functional biopolymers: DNA, RNA, and proteins,' explained Dr Furukawa. 

Read More

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

'However, early life may have been simpler.'

The researchers also found evidence of glucose on Bennu.

This marks the first evidence that an important energy source for life as we know it was also present in the early solar system. 

While Bennu provides key clues about life on Earth, it also poses a threat to our planet. 

A recent study found that there is a one-in-2,700 chance of a collision with Earth in September 2182. 

WHAT COULD WE DO TO STOP AN ASTEROID COLLIDING WITH EARTH?

Currently, NASA would not be able to deflect an asteroid if it were heading for Earth but it could mitigate the impact and take measures that would protect lives and property.

This would include evacuating the impact area and moving key infrastructure.

Finding out about the orbit trajectory, size, shape, mass, composition and rotational dynamics would help experts determine the severity of a potential impact.

However, the key to mitigating damage is to find any potential threat as early as possible.

NASA and the European Space Agency completed a test which slammed a refrigerator-sized spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos.

The test is to see whether small satellites are capable of preventing asteroids from colliding with Earth.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) used what is known as a kinetic impactor technique—striking the asteroid to shift its orbit.

The impact could change the speed of a threatening asteroid by a small fraction of its total velocity, but by doing so well before the predicted impact, this small nudge will add up over time to a big shift of the asteroid's path away from Earth.

This was the first-ever mission to demonstrate an asteroid deflection technique for planetary defence.

The results of the trial are expected to be confirmed by the Hera mission in December 2026.

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

05-12-2025 om 12:35 geschreven door peter  

Astrophysicists have created terrifying simulations that reveal how black holes naturally create dazzling displays detected from billions of light-years away. 

In the stunning imagery, the black holes appear in the centre as a dark, blank space – simply because no light can be reflected from them. 

But blossoming around these 'destructive monsters' are colourful, vibrant patterns of richly-textured purple, pink and orange. 

These amazing light shows are generated by material emitting energy as it falls into the black hole, whether it's gas, dust or matter. 

The experts at Simons Foundation in New York managed to observe these unforgiving regions of space using light spectrum data fed to powerful computers. 

'The colour represents how dense the gas is,' study author Lizhong Zhang told the Daily Mail. 'The more bright the colour, the more dense the gas around the black hole.'

Black holes are intense sources of gravity that hoover up surrounding dust and gas, as well as planets and even other black holes.

If a human fell into one of these cosmic monsters, the forces of gravity would be so strong that they would undergo 'spagettification'. 

Astrophysicists have created terrifying simulations of how black holes naturally create dazzling displays. Near this black hole (shown in the centre), a 'highly turbulent' accretion flow forms a dense, thin thermal disk that remains remarkably stable

The simulations reveal how material flowing around and into stellar mass black holes creates intense light shows of pink, purple and orange 

Due to their intense gravitational pull, black holes draw material such as gas, plasma and dust into a swirling, orbiting bright orange disc called an 'accretion disk'. 

This hot disk orbiting the black hole is its main source of light – and is why we're able to detect black holes in other galaxies billions of light-years away. 

Already, high-resolution images have been produced of 'supermassive' black holes – those that have masses hundreds of millions to billions of times that of our sun.

Supermassive black holes evolve over years or even centuries and drive the evolution of galaxies.  

However, the comparatively smaller 'stellar' black holes cannot be observed in the same way, appearing only as pinpoints of light, the team say. 

To model stellar black hole accretion, the team used two of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, Frontier and Aurora, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory, in Tennessee and Illionois respectively.

These 'exascale' computers are capable of performing a quintillion operations per second – a billion billion calculations, or 1 followed by 18 zeroes.

Using the supercomputers, the researchers calculated the behaviour of material swirling and zipping around stellar black holes. 

The study focused on stellar black holes which form from the gravitational collapse of a massive star at the end of its life cycle

As scorching gas and dust flow around and into a black hole, they glow with fierce intensity across the light spectrum

Even with the computational power, the researchers still required complex mathematics and algorithm optimised for exascale computing to get accurate results. 

Through their simulations, the research team showed how matter behaves as it spirals toward stellar mass black holes.

The matter forms 'highly turbulent' radiation-dominated disks, launching chaotic winds and sometimes even producing powerful jets. 

Near the black hole, the 'dense but thin' accretion disk 'remains remarkably stable' despite the turbulent flow of material fuelling it, the team report. 

The disk is embedded within a 'magnetically dominated' envelope that helps stabilise the whole system.    

The findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal, marks the first time physical processes in stellar black hole accretion have been calculated and presented accurately.

Previous simulations took shortcuts by simplifying the calculations of radiation and treating radiation as a sort of fluid, which does not reflect its actual behaviour. 

Scientists lifted the veil on the first images ever captured of a black hole in April 2019. The glowing orange ring shows the event horizon of M87, in the Virgo galaxy cluster

In the future, the team want to determine if their computer method applies to all types of black holes, such as supermassive black holes, which exist in the centers of most large galaxies. 

Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, has a mass more than 4 million times that of our sun. 

Black holes are so far away that getting an image of one was only managed in 2019, using a massive network of Earth telescopes. 

However, we have a very good chance of seeing a black hole explosion by 2035. 

Another team of scientists recently reported there's a 90 per cent chance of at least one black hole exploding in the next 10 years. 

If and when it happens, telescopes positioned in space and here on Earth should be able to capture the event.

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

05-12-2025 om 12:22 geschreven door peter  

Why Some Species Evolved Consciousness While Others Remained Unaware

Gary Manners

Scientists at Ruhr University Bochum have uncovered compelling evidence about one of evolution's greatest mysteries: why consciousness developed in some species but not others. Their groundbreaking research examines the evolutionary advantages of conscious experience and reveals that birds may have solved the puzzle of awareness through a completely different brain architecture than mammals Phys.org.

The question of consciousness has puzzled scientists for decades, but new research suggests the answer lies not in what consciousness is, but rather in what purpose it serves. According to Professors Albert Newen and Onur Güntürkün, understanding the function of consciousness is essential to explaining why oak trees remained non-conscious while crows developed sophisticated awareness. The research, published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, challenges long-held assumptions about brain structure and conscious experience, demonstrating that evolution can achieve similar solutions through remarkably different pathways.

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Three Levels of Consciousness Serve Different Survival Purposes

Newen and Carlos Montemayor have identified three distinct types of consciousness, each serving unique evolutionary functions. The first and most primitive is basic arousal, which developed to trigger alarm responses in life-threatening situations. This fundamental form enables organisms to recognize bodily damage through pain - an extraordinarily efficient mechanism for detecting threats to survival. When an animal feels pain from an injury, this conscious experience immediately signals danger and triggers defensive responses like fleeing or freezing.

The second evolutionary stage brought general alertness, allowing organisms to focus selectively on important stimuli while filtering out less relevant information. This capability enables a creature to notice smoke during a conversation and immediately shift attention to search for fire. Beyond simple cause-and-effect learning, targeted alertness permits the identification of complex correlations and scientific relationships in the environment. This advancement represents a crucial step in cognitive evolution, enabling more sophisticated interactions with the world.

The third and most advanced form is reflexive self-consciousness, which allows organisms to reflect on themselves, their past experiences, and potential futures. Humans develop this ability around 18 months of age, as demonstrated by the classic mirror test where toddlers recognize their own reflection. Some animals, including chimpanzees, dolphins, and remarkably, magpies, have also passed this test. This form of consciousness enables better social integration and coordination with others, suggesting that awareness evolved partly to facilitate complex social behaviors.

The researchers used the experimental of the "mirror-audience test" in roosters to measure their self-consciousness. The tested rooster was placed in an arena divided by a transparent glass (A,C) or a mirror (B,D).

(Maldarelli & Gunturkun/Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)

Birds Achieved Consciousness Without a Cerebral Cortex

Perhaps the most surprising discovery involves avian consciousness. Gianmarco Maldarelli and Onur Güntürkün demonstrate that birds possess fundamental forms of conscious perception despite lacking the cerebral cortex that mammals rely upon for awareness. When pigeons encounter ambiguous visual stimuli, they shift between different interpretations just as humans do. More remarkably, crows display nerve signals that correspond to their subjective perception rather than the physical stimulus itself - a hallmark of conscious experience.

The avian brain contains functional structures that meet theoretical requirements for conscious processing through entirely different architecture. The NCL (nidopallium caudolaterale), which serves as the bird equivalent to the mammalian prefrontal cortex, enables highly integrated and flexible information processing. The connectome of the avian forebrain—mapping all information flows between brain regions—shares striking similarities with mammalian brains, meeting many criteria of established consciousness theories like the Global Neuronal Workspace theory.

• Big Difference Between Neanderthal and Modern Human Brain Development Revealed
• The Amazing Study of CEMI Field Theory and Why It's Important to Our Wellbeing

Recent experiments reveal different types of self-perception in birds beyond the traditional mirror test. While some corvid species pass the mirror test, other ecologically relevant experiments have shown additional forms of self-consciousness in different bird species. Pigeons and chickens can differentiate between their mirror reflections and actual conspecifics, adjusting their behavior according to context - evidence of situational, basic self-consciousness that mirrors capacities previously thought exclusive to mammals.

Ancient brain structure evolution theory of Scala Naturae showing brain development proceeding from simple to more complicated with the addition of new brain regions as evolution progressed. This erroneous view is compared with a modern understanding of brain structure evolution that reveals a basic common structure evolved in the vertebrate brain and various regions expanded to accommodate each specific animal's needs.

(Pablo Carlos Budassi/CC BY-SA 4.0)

Consciousness Emerged Earlier and More Widely Than Previously Believed

The implications of this research extend far beyond understanding birds. These findings suggest that consciousness represents a much older and more widespread evolutionary phenomenon than scientists previously assumed. The fact that birds developed conscious processing without a cerebral cortex demonstrates that different brain structures can achieve similar functional solutions - a principle that fundamentally reshapes our understanding of how awareness evolves.

This discovery also raises profound questions about consciousness in other species. If birds with their radically different brain architecture can achieve awareness, what other animals might possess forms of consciousness that we have failed to recognize? The research team suggests that scientists may need to look beyond traditional markers of consciousness, such as specific brain structures, and instead focus on functional capabilities and behavioral indicators. This shift in perspective could revolutionize how we assess consciousness across the animal kingdom, potentially revealing awareness in species previously dismissed as simple automatons operating purely on instinct.

The research ultimately tries to answer a crucial question of the evolution of consciousness as follows: consciousness evolved not as a single solution to a universal problem, but as multiple adaptive responses to various environmental and social challenges. Species that developed consciousness gained significant survival advantages through improved threat detection, flexible learning capabilities, and enhanced social coordination. Meanwhile, organisms like oak trees, which solved survival challenges through entirely different strategies such as chemical signaling and structural adaptations, never required conscious awareness.

• Top image: AI Generated representation of a woman and her consciousness.
• Source: AI Visual Vault/Adobe Stock

By Gary Manners

References

• Maldarelli, G., & Güntürkün, O. 2025. Conscious birds. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Available at: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article/380/1939/20240308/235178/Conscious-birdsConscious-birds
• Newen, A., & Montemayor, C. 2025. Three types of phenomenal consciousness and their functional roles: unfolding the ALARM theory of consciousness. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Available at: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article/380/1939/20240314/235161/Three-types-of-phenomenal-consciousness-and-their
• Phys.org. 2025. Examining why some species developed consciousness while others remained non-conscious. Available at: https://phys.org/news/2025-11-species-consciousness-conscious.html

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

04-12-2025 om 23:59 geschreven door peter  

Top astronaut removed from NASA mission after SpaceX 'classified' photos breach

• MORE: Stranded astronauts finally escape station… but now three MORE are trapped

By CHRIS MELORE, US ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITOR

A veteran Russian astronaut has been removed from an upcoming NASA mission after allegedly violating an international arms trafficking law. 

Oleg Artemyev is said to have been accused of photographing classified documents and rocket equipment at a SpaceX facility in Hawthorne, California, and then 'smuggling' that information out of the building on his phone in late November.

The 54-year-old was scheduled to be part of the SpaceX Crew-12 mission, led by NASA, heading to the International Space Station (ISS) in early 2026.

He has been replaced by fellow cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, and Russia's official space agency Roscosmos said the change was made because of 'Artemyev's transfer to another job'.

However, other reports from Russia have said the move was made for much more serious reasons, claiming that Artemyev violated the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) by allegedly photographing and leaking the SpaceX materials.

ITAR is a set of US government rules that tightly control the export, sharing, or transmission of sensitive defense-related technologies, information, and items, including spacecraft components and technical blueprints.

Russian investigative outlet The Insider reported that an international probe has been launched into Artemyev's actions. 

At the moment, there are no claims that the alleged incident took place in order to harm the US. However, the case would amount to espionage if it is proven that Artemyev collected the photos with the intent to deliver them to a foreign government to gain an advantage over the US.

Cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev is believed to have been accused of photographing sensitive documents and equipment at the SpaceX facility in California

Artemyev was working at the SpaceX building in Hawthorne in preparation for Crew-12's 2026 mission to the International Space Station

The Daily Mail has reached out to NASA and SpaceX for comment regarding the allegations against Artemyev.

Russian media also reported that the cosmonaut has already been 'booted out of America' as space and national security officials investigate the alleged incident.

Space industry analyst Georgy Trishkin revealed on his Telegram channel that the veteran cosmonaut committed a 'serious violation' of the ITAR laws, which can carry both civil and criminal punishments if investigators were to determine he is guilty.

He added that the change was made with no official announcement by NASA or SpaceX, noting that the allegations seem credible since Artemyev was removed less than three months before the Crew-12 mission.

'My contacts confirm that a violation occurred and an interdepartmental investigation has been launched,' Trishkin told The Insider.

'It's very difficult to imagine a situation in which an experienced cosmonaut could inadvertently commit such a gross violation.'

The space industry expert also claimed that NASA was trying to make sure the scandal did not become public knowledge.

Artemyev had flown to the ISS on three previous missions, in 2014, 2018 and 2022. He has spent a total 560 days in space and performed eight spacewalks lasting over 53 hours. The 2026 mission would have been his first in the SpaceX Dragon Capsule.

Artemyev was removed from the 2026 mission to accept a 'transfer to another job', according to the Russian space agency Roscosmos

The Crew-12 SpaceX mission to the International Space Station is set to take off in early 2026, and another Russian cosmonaut has replaced Artemyev. Pictured: SpaceX's Dragon Capsule

The ITAR restrictions were created by the US Department of State in 1976 to protect national security by preventing unauthorized access to important data and equipment that could benefit enemy nations.

READ MORE

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In this case, Artemyev is alleged to have violated the law because he is a foreign national illegally capturing images of materials deemed 'restricted' by the US government. Allegedly leaving SpaceX headquarters with those images on his phone would amount to 'exporting' the information without US government approval.

If the claims against Artemyev are proven to be true, breaking ITAR laws can lead to fines of more than $1million per violation.

In the most serious cases, where a violator is found to be committing espionage against the US, the State Department noted that criminal penalties include up to 20 years in prison.

Even in less serious cases, violators can also be banned from government contracts, including working with NASA and SpaceX on future missions.

If the incident is proven true, it could also strain joint missions between NASA and Roscosmos, as cosmonauts will likely face increased monitoring while they work at US-based facilities.

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

04-12-2025 om 21:33 geschreven door peter  

Five years ago, on December 5, 2020, the Hayabusa2 spacecraft dropped a capsule containing samples of material collected on the asteroid Ryugu into Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists are still studying them and finding substances that can tell us a lot about the past of the Solar System.

Hayabusa spacecrafts

The Japanese space program is usually talked about as something that’s way behind the American, Russian, and Chinese ones. But there’s one thing that’s way ahead of all of them. That’s using innovative ways to speed up in space.

And while solar sails remain an experiment, the use of ion engines has already yielded very important results. We are talking about two spacecraft from the Hayabusa series, which delivered samples from asteroids to Earth. December 5 marks the fifth anniversary of the second spacecraft dropping a capsule with samples from the asteroid Ryugu onto our planet.

And while solar sails remain an experiment, the use of ion engines has already yielded very important results. We are talking about two spacecraft from the Hayabusa series, which delivered samples from asteroids to Earth. December 5 marks the fifth anniversary of the second spacecraft dropping a capsule with samples from the asteroid Ryugu onto our planet.

Its small size and therefore gravitational pull make this task easier. However, for spacecraft with conventional chemical engines, it remains unattainable. Ion engines, in which charged particles are accelerated by a magnetic field, are another matter. Their thrust is small, but the speed of the jet is several times higher than that provided by rockets that launch spacecraft into orbit.

This allows fuel to be used much more economically and acceleration to be maintained for much longer. And this was perfectly suited to the tasks of flying to an asteroid. The Hayabusa spacecraft, whose name refers to the peregrine falcon, had four engines. They were powered by solar panels, used xenon as a working fluid, and provided acceleration for the 510 kg spacecraft.

The spacecraft also carried containers for samples and a device for collecting them, communication systems, and equipment necessary for landing on the asteroid. The first spacecraft also carried a small robot, while the second carried two robots, plus a stationary MASCOT module.

Hayabusa2 flight

The flight of Hayabusa2 was entirely determined by the results of the first spacecraft’s journey, which was extremely problematic. From its launch in 2003, it was expected that by 2007, it would have collected samples from the near-Earth asteroid Itokawa and returned to Earth. But something kept happening during the flight.

First, during the initial landing, Hayabusa lost the miniature robot MINERVA, which simply could not stay on the surface and flew off into space. Then the spacecraft itself touched down rather unsuccessfully on the surface of the space rock, so it was unclear until the very end whether it had managed to collect any material. And finally, on its way back to Earth, its propulsion system failed, so it was even considered lost for some time.

In the end, specialists managed to start some of the ion engines, and Hayabusa was able to reach Earth in 2010 and drop a capsule with samples onto the surface. Incidentally, it turned out to be not empty at all and gave scientists the first sample of material delivered from an asteroid. But it was clear that a second attempt was needed to get everything right this time.

This was the mission of Hayabusa2, which began on December 3, 2014. The target was the carbonaceous asteroid 162173, a member of the Apollo group of near-Earth asteroids. During the probe’s 2015 flight, it was named Ryugu after the palace of the dragon lord of the seas in the Japanese fairy tale about Urashima Tarō.

On July 7, 2018, Hayabusa2 entered orbit around Ryugu, which had a diameter of 920 m and resembled a nut in shape. On September 21 of the same year, two small robots were lowered to the surface. This time, they were able to stay on the surface long enough to transmit images back to Earth. Then, on October 3, the MASCOT module landed on the surface and was able to conduct research on Ryugu’s chemical composition on site.

But researchers on Earth still wanted to obtain something for their laboratories. So, on February 22, 2019, the probe itself descended to the surface of Ryugu and took samples of material from its surface. But that was not all. Japanese researchers also wanted to obtain materials from its depths. Therefore, the probe took off from the asteroid and fired a copper projectile at it on April 5 of the same year.

As a result, a crater was formed, and some rock samples from the depths of the asteroid settled on the surface near it. These were needed by Hayabusa2, which landed on the asteroid’s surface for the second time on July 11, 2019, filled another container, and took off. The probe remained in Ryugu’s orbit until November 13, 2019. One of its ion engines failed on the way, but this did not prevent the mission from being completed.

What scientists learned from Ryugu samples

On December 5, 2020, Hayabusa2 dropped a capsule containing samples collected on Ryugu into Earth’s atmosphere. It landed at the Woomera Range Complex in Australia. A team of specialists quickly retrieved it and took it to a laboratory, where they opened it and began studying the samples.

The first thing that scientists noticed when studying the samples was that they resembled black sand. The soil delivered by Hayabusa2 turned out to be the darkest of all samples extracted in space. This, along with chemical analysis, allowed scientists to establish a connection between Ryugu and carbonaceous meteorites found on Earth.

Determination of the physical characteristics of these samples showed that they are quite fragile and porous. This allowed us to solve an old mystery: why are there so many carbonaceous asteroids in space, but very few meteorites of similar composition have been found on Earth? It turns out that they do not survive collisions with our planet’s atmosphere, being destroyed in it.

The second important discovery was published in January 2025. Carbonate and sodium sulfate, as well as chlorides, were found in samples from Ryugu. These could only have formed in hot water conditions.

This means that the asteroid was previously part of a much larger body that was closer to the Sun. It may belong to the Elania or Pulana group. According to scientists’ estimates, Ryugu is only 8.9 million years old.

The third important discovery made during the study of samples from the Hayabusa2 capsule is that a bunch of organic substances were found in Ryugu. These include all twenty essential amino acids, aliphatic amines, carboxylic acids, aromatic hydrocarbons, and nitrogen-containing heterocyclic compounds.

Perhaps this news is the most important of all. Because, despite the fact that Ryugu broke away from its parent body relatively recently, the material it is made of has remained unchanged since the formation of the Solar System. This means that even back then, in interplanetary space, all the components necessary for biological evolution were already present.

The question of where it began has long been a source of concern for scientists. It is quite possible that the first biochemical reactions did not even take place in the protoplanetary disk, but in the gas and dust cloud from which the Solar System was formed. Samples from Ryugu support this theory.

It is not over yet

But that’s not all. After dropping the capsule with the samples, Hayabusa2 did not burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, as its predecessor did. It flew on, and so the mission continues even 11 years after its launch. The spacecraft still has three engines and fuel for them, as well as equipment for photographing and remotely studying asteroids.

And now the Japanese probe is continuing its mission. In July 2026, it is scheduled to fly past asteroid (98943) Torifune, which belongs to the silicate class and has a diameter of about 500 m. Hayabusa2 is expected to fly at a distance of 10 km from it.

After that, the probe will continue to orbit the Sun and will approach 1998 KY26 in 2031. Like other objects studied by Hayabusa2, it belongs to the Apollo group of near-Earth asteroids. However, observations of this space rock, which is only 11 m in diameter, have shown that it may be extremely interesting.

In 2023, after the Hayabusa2 flight program was approved, 1998 KY26 was classified as a dark comet. This asteroid does not form a tail or coma, but it experiences acceleration similar to that of a comet. It is expected to contain a significant amount of water, so it will be interesting to see during the flyby whether anything evaporates from its surface, creating jet streams.

However, it is possible that the Hayabusa2 mission will not end there. If its equipment remains functional and there is enough xenon in the tanks for new maneuvers, its mission may be extended again.

• Posted in Articles, Observations

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/articles-en/ }

03-12-2025 om 22:44 geschreven door peter  

The European Space Agency (ESA) has published an interesting image taken by the Mars Express spacecraft. It shows a very unusual crater, whose structure resembles a butterfly.

Usually, in a collision that causes a crater to form, material will be ejected in all directions. However, this is not always the case. In the case of the butterfly crater, the space rock fell at a low, shallow angle, resulting in the interesting and unusual shapes that can be seen in the Mars Express image.

As a result of the collision, two separate sections of material were ejected north and south of the crater, creating two elongated “wings” of raised ground. The “wings” of this unique butterfly crater are rather vague and irregular, but they can be seen in the lower left and upper right parts of the main crater, which resembles a walnut. It has an atypical oval shape and measures 15 by 20 km.

Some of the debris forming the wings (mainly visible just above the crater) also appears smoother and more rounded, almost resembling a mudflow. This indicates that it mixed with water or ice from beneath the surface of Mars, which melted during the impact.

The butterfly crater is far from the only interesting feature of this place. The rest of the frame is mostly flat, drawing attention to a group of steep, flat-topped rock formations known as mesas. The higher areas of land here have been gradually eroded away, and the remaining hills are those that have managed to withstand erosion over time.

The mesas stand out sharply against the brownish surroundings thanks to layers of exposed dark material at their edges. As on Earth, it is probably rich in magnesium and iron and was formed by eruptions. In the past, this region experienced fairly powerful volcanic activity, resulting in the accumulation of lava and ash deposits over time, which were buried by other materials.

Signs of lava can be seen in the form of “wrinkled ridges”: folded patterns that formed when lava flows cooled and contracted, causing the surface to crumple.

Earlier, we reported on how mysterious rocks revealed the history of Mars’ tropical climate.

• According to ESA

• Posted in News, Science

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/articles-en/ }

03-12-2025 om 22:23 geschreven door peter  

The Harsh Red Planet

The surface of Mars is highly inhospitable to human life, due to billions of years of catastrophic changes that likely erased any past habitability. Any colonists will need an artificial air supply, as the planet’s atmosphere is extremely thin and composed chiefly of poisonous carbon dioxide. That atmospheric weakness also prevents effective regulation of the planet’s temperature, resulting in wild swings from a comfortable 79°F to an unsurvivable -194°F.

On top of all this, brutal cosmic radiation, bringing with it a significant cancer risk for future astronauts, showers the planet’s surface, unimpeded by its thin atmosphere.

Such a challenging environment—inimical to most complex life, let alone humans—will require robust shelters and life-support systems if any permanent settlement is to occur. Given long journeys, limited payload, and the tremendous expense of landing humans on Mars, mission planners are understandably concerned about using any available local resources.

Life on Mars Once and Again

Samples collected from Mars’ Jezero crater do not conclusively contain life, but they do hint that microbes may have inhabited the soil long ago. Although such microbes are not readily apparent, they still populate the Red Planet, and microbial life on Earth offers a chance to study how such organisms could impact Mars. One such process is biomineralization, in which microbes produce hard minerals, shaping the terrestrial landscape over long periods and operating in some of the most extreme environments on Earth.

Now, a team of international researchers has devised a way to harness natural biomineralization to produce sturdy building materials from Martian regolith. Among the methods the team studies, biocementation, a process where microbes generate calcium carbonate at room temperature, emerged as the most promising for practical implementation.

Bacterial Powerhouses

The team identified two bacteria that, when working in tandem, produce remarkable results. The first is Sporosarcina pasteurii, which, through a process called ureolysis, produces the desired calcium carbonate. The other is a cyanobacterium called Chroococcidiopsis, an extremely resilient organism capable of weathering environments as challenging as the Martian surface.

When co-located, Chroococcidiopsis acts as a natural life-support system, creating an oxygen-rich microenvironment in which Sporosarcina pasteurii can thrive. Additionally, Chroococcidiopsis secretes a substance that protects its microbial mate from the harsh UV radiation pouring over the Red Planet. In this protective bubble, Chroococcidiopsis is safe to secrete polymers, which turn the loose Martian regolith into a sturdy building material similar to concrete.

Bio-Based 3D Prints On Mars

Producing the raw materials is a massive step toward human permanence on the Red Planet, but the researchers did not stop there. They have also begun exploring the optimal method for erecting structures on the Martian surface from their microbial concrete.

The optical solution, the team says, would be to use giant 3D printers, fed on a mixture of their microbial pair and Martian soil. 3D-printed concrete buildings are a technology already well established on Earth, with one notable example being their use in constructing a Starbucks in Texas earlier this year.

The researchers’ focus on these two microbes doesn’t end with construction, as the team believes both could be useful for long-term life support operations. Chroococcidiopsis could be used to produce oxygen not just for microenvironments but also on a larger scale to produce breathable air for astronauts. On an even larger timescale, Sporosarcina pasteurii produces ammonia, which could be utilized in terraforming efforts, to fundamentally change Mars from the barren wasteland it is today into something more habitable.

For now, any practical implementation of such processes to permanently colonize Mars is likely to be at least a few decades away, though ongoing advancements are paving the way for a lasting human presence on the Moon and Mars to become a 21st-century reality.

The paper, “From Earth to Mars: A Perspective on Exploiting Biomineralization for Martian Construction,” appeared in Frontiers in Microbiology on December 2, 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.

{ https://thedebrief.org/ }

03-12-2025 om 22:09 geschreven door peter  

“We wanted to address one of the biggest limitations in soft robotics today: the dependence on heavy, rigid power systems,” said Professor Wei Tang, a lead author of the study, in a statement. “Our goal was to create a pump that is soft, lightweight, and capable of operating autonomously, just like biological tissues.”

Future Space and Sea Missions 

The team’s research is important because it addresses one of the most significant limitations in robotics and wearables: the need for heavy batteries or external power sources. Mimicking the human lymphatic system allows the creation of robotic systems that can flow autonomously.

Such technologies could lead to wearable smart gloves that regulate temperature and circulation when a person moves, as well as robots that can perform tasks in hazardous environments, such as deep-sea exploration or even outer space. 

The Design

Using low-cost 3D printing techniques, the team created pumps in various shapes and sizes, making them customizable for a wide range of applications, from medical devices to remote robotics. This led to the development of the soft fiber pump (SFP), a slender, highly flexible device that can bend, twist, and stretch in various ways.

Two designs were developed from the research: a high-performance version that uses spiral electrodes to boost pumping capabilities, and a durable version with parallel electrodes inspired by the human lymphatic vessels. Both designs offer flexibility and strength in environments where traditional pumps would fail.

What makes the technology different from others before is its built-in ability to generate its own power. The researchers integrated a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) (a device that converts mechanical motion into electricity) directly into the pump system. When in rotation or motion (such as wind, water flow, or human movement), the TENG provides all the energy the pump needs.

“This turns everyday motion into a power source,” said Professor Jun Zou, co-lead of the project. “It moves us closer to machines that power themselves, without batteries or external electrical systems.”

To showcase the pump’s true potential, the team built several functional prototypes, including artificial muscles capable of lifting weights to mimic a lifelike robotic movement. This, in addition to microfluidic control systems to enhance lab-on-a-chip diagnostic devices, and a temperature-regulating smart glove that uses the pump to circulate fluid and adjust temperature comfort.

“By fusing biological inspiration with advanced materials and energy harvesting,” said Tang, “we’re creating systems that are not just functional—but genuinely alive with autonomy.”

The study “Lymphatic-Inspired and TENG-Powered Soft Fiber Pumps for Soft Robots” was published in SmartBot.

• Chrissy Newton is a PR professional and the founder of VOCAB Communications. She currently appears on The Discovery Channel and Max and hosts the Rebelliously Curious podcast, which can be found on YouTube and on all audio podcast streaming platforms. Follow her on X: @ChrissyNewton, Instagram: @BeingChrissyNewton, and chrissynewton.com.

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

03-12-2025 om 18:35 geschreven door peter  

Now that samples are safely in labs for examination, this new study, led by Angel Mojarro of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined tiny fragments of Bennu’s rocky surface. Because these samples were taken directly from the asteroid and sealed before re-entry, they preserve a pristine record of early Solar System chemistry, free from contamination by Earth’s atmosphere and biosphere.​

“Our findings expand the evidence that prebiotic organic molecules can form within primitive accreting planetary bodies and could have been delivered via impacts to early Earth and other solar system bodies, potentially contributing to the origins of life,” the researchers wrote in their study. 

The team focused on two main types of organic material within the Bennu samples. One is a tough, tar-like “insoluble” organic sample made of large, interconnected carbon-rich structures, similar in some ways to very old coals or kerogen on Earth. The other is a “soluble” sample made up of smaller, more mobile molecules that can be extracted with liquids, such as amino acids and nucleobases, the molecules life uses to build proteins and to store genetic information in DNA and RNA. 

To study both, the team used a combination of heating samples to release volatile compounds and a wet-chemistry method that chemically tags small molecules for detection with high-sensitivity mass spectrometry.

Mojarro and his co-authors identified 15 of the 20 standard amino acids used by terrestrial life to assemble proteins, along with all five nucleobases that form the “letters” of DNA and RNA: adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine, and uracil. Earlier work on other Bennu fragments had already shown that the asteroid carries 14 protein-forming amino acids and the full set of nucleobases, but the new study adds one more amino acid to the list.

In a historical first, a tentative detection of the amino acid tryptophan in the aggregate Bennu sample indicates that a relatively complex amino acid exists in extraterrestrial objects. Tryptophan is one of the 20 amino acids used by life, and on Earth, it plays roles in both protein structure and cellular signaling. In the Bennu samples, it appears at trace levels across multiple subsamples and is absent from blank laboratory controls, so the team argues that it is unlikely to be a contamination artifact, while still stressing that further measurements will be needed to confirm the detection beyond doubt. 

If confirmed, its presence would suggest that some fragile organic molecules are missing from meteorites because they do not survive the heating and shock of atmospheric entry, highlighting the importance of sample-return missions for capturing the full range of prebiotic compounds in space.

• MJ Banias covers space, security, and technology with The Debrief. You can email him at mj@thedebrief.org or follow him on Twitter @mjbanias.

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

02-12-2025 om 22:08 geschreven door peter  

SuperCam

“These discharges represent a major discovery, with direct implications for Martian atmospheric chemistry, climate, habitability and the future of robotic and human exploration,” lead author Dr Baptiste Chide told Reuters.

Just one day after landing on Mars, SuperCam’s microphone recorded audio from the Red Planet for the first time. The SuperCam instruments, responsible for some of Perseverance’s most interesting finds, inadvertently picked up the audio and electromagnetic signatures suggesting the presence of mini lightning on Mars.

Unfortunately, while the early data is promising, SuperCam was designed to look for life, not lightning. Despite the audio evidence, there is debate about the presence of Martian lightning due to the lack of visual evidence. Although SuperCam collected some evidence of unexpected atmospheric electricity on Mars, researchers say that more specialized instruments and sensitive cameras would help confirm the initial findings.

Discovering Lightning on Mars

The work is a collaboration between the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the Université de Toulouse, and the Observatoire de Paris (PSL), working alongside other international researchers.

The French researchers behind the discovery combed through 28 hours of microphone recordings Perseverance made over 1,374 Earth days. Their results indicated that the electromagnetic and acoustic signatures were similar to minor static electrical events on Earth. Researchers have previously theorized that the Martian atmosphere may host such electrical activity, but this is the first direct evidence.

Martian Dust Devils

Violent surface activity, particularly dust devils and dust storm fronts, was strongly correlated with electrical activity. Dust devils are whirlwinds of swirling dust, produced as hot air rises off the Martian surface. The swirling internal movements of these dirt twisters produce electrical discharges as friction develops between tiny dust particles charged with electrons. Electrical arcs several centimeters long, along with an audible shockwave, result from these interactions.

On Earth, dry regions, such as deserts, are most prone to producing static electricity. Mars features even more optimal conditions for producing static electricity than even Earth’s driest regions, as the thin carbon dioxide atmosphere allows sparks to form through much weaker charges than on our planet.

Understanding Mars

The team’s findings may have a substantial impact on our understanding of Martian habitability. Specifically, discovering this extent of atmospheric electrical activity alters our understanding of the Red Planet’s chemistry.

The atmospheric charge is strong enough to speed up the formation of highly oxidizing compounds, which can destroy organic compounds and strongly alter the atmosphere’s photochemical balance. One immediate implication is that this may finally explain the long-debated rapid loss of methane from the Martian atmosphere.

Mars’ climate dynamics are poorly understood at present. The team suggests that static electricity may be affecting dust movement, which would significantly affect Martian weather. Electricity could also pose a threat to electronic equipment on which current robotic and future crewed missions rely. Further supplemental research, aided by specialized instrumentation, will be required to deepen our understanding of Martian climate dynamics and support safe and reliable crewed landings in the future.

 The paper, “Detection of Triboelectric Discharges During Dust Events on Mars,” appeared in Nature on November 26, 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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{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

02-12-2025 om 21:49 geschreven door peter  

Scientists may have found the first evidence of primordial black holes born during the Big Bang – 'if it's real, then it's enormous'

• READ MORE: What would happen if you walked into a primordial black hole?

By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

Scientists may have found the first evidence of primordial black holes, born in the very first seconds of the Big Bang.

These tiny singularities can be smaller than a single atom but contain almost as much mass as our sun.

Until now, no one has been able to prove that these bizarre, ancient objects exist.

But by looking for ripples in the fabric of spacetime, known as gravitational waves, researchers think they could have found the 'smoking gun' to prove they are real.

On November 12, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational–Wave Observatory (LIGO) and its European counterpart, Virgo, detected an unusual signal from deep space.

The gravitational wave looked like it was coming from colliding black holes, but was much smaller than any known black hole could possibly be.

If it wasn't a glitch, the only remaining possibility is that the objects producing these faint ripples are the elusive primordial black holes.

Dr Djuna Croon, an astro–particle theorist at Durham University who was not involved in the observation, told Daily Mail: 'If it's real, then it's enormous.'

Scientists may have found the first evidence of primordial black holes, born in the very first seconds of the Big Bang. These tiny singularities can be smaller than a single atom but contain almost as much mass as our sun (artist's impression) 

This gravitational wave (pictured) appeared to have been made by objects as dense as a black hole but with less mass than that of the sun. No known object in the universe has these properties

When extremely dense objects like black holes merge, they spiral in on each other with such force that it whips up ripples in the fabric of spacetime.

These gravitational waves allow scientists on Earth to 'listen' for the shockwaves produced by these collisions, even when they occur billions of light–years away.

Using two obervatories – the American LIGO and the Italian VIRGO – scientists detected a signal on November 12 from an object smaller than the mass of our sun.

Dr Croon says: 'What is special about this alert is that the masses that we've identified are smaller than anything we know could have formed astrophysically and still be so compact.

'We've observed loads of black holes, and loads of neutron stars, and loads of white dwarfs, but this detection points to something very different.

'That's really, really significant because, if this is real, you need to explain how you ended up with such a compact remnant that is this light.'

Black holes usually form when stars many times larger than our sun run out of fuel and collapse, compressing their core into a dense point.

However, some scientists believe that primordial black holes could have formed directly out of overly dense regions of the boiling sea of matter that filled the cosmos right after the Big Bang.

Scientists believe that the signal might have been caused by the merger of two primordial black holes, which would explain why the gravitational wave comes from such small yet dense objects. Pictured: A NASA simulation of merging black holes

Scientists may have just spotted the first sign of ancient primordial black holes by capturing the faint ripples in spacetime produced by their collision (illustrated)

What are primordial black holes?

Primordial black holes are microscopic pieces of ultra-dense matter, just like normal black holes but smaller.

Scientists think they may have been formed at the very beginning of the universe rather than out of collapsing stars. 

Their initial masses could have range between 100,000 times less than a paperclip to 100,000 times greater than the sun. 

We haven't found proof that they exist, but they might form part of the 'dark matter' which makes up a large part of the mass of the universe. 

To form a black hole, all you need to do is concentrate a lot of energy in a really small volume,' Dr Croon explains.

'This could happen because a star collapses, or it could happen in the early universe just from a fluctuation in energy.'

On its own, a primordial black hole would go undetected. 

However, if two collided, they could produce a gravitational wave signal that looks a lot like the one VIRGO and LIGO found on November 12.

This prospect has scientists very excited, as it could be the first real proof of primordial black holes.

That is a big deal because primordial black holes are often put forward as one of the best candidates for the mysterious substance known as dark matter, which makes up around a quarter of the universe.

Since these black holes don't interact with light and contain a lot of mass, they are a perfect explanation for why the universe seems to have mass we can't see.

Dr Christopher Berry, a LIGO member at the University of Glasgow, wrote on BlueSky: 'If this merger is verified it could amount to smoking gun evidence of a population of primordial black holes.'

If true, this would be the first definitive evidence that primordial black holes (artist's impression) really exist 

However, scientists are still urging caution and say that we can't yet say for certain whether this really is a primordial black hole.

Researchers from the LIGO and VIRGO collaborations have assigned a 'false alarm rate' for this detection of about one in four years.

Read More

• Dark matter seen for the first time: Eerie image shows first direct evidence of elusive substance 

That wouldn't be terrible for a normal black hole merger, but for an extremely rare event like this, it's too high for researchers to be overly confident.

The best possible evidence that this is real would be for the detectors to find another signal in the future.

With big upgrades planned for the LIGO and VIRGO detectors, the hope is that this could soon become a reality.

Dr Croon says: 'If this is real, we'll just see many, many more of such events that we can study, so we'll learn more and more about it.'

What would happen if you fell into a black hole?

A black hole is a point of matter so dense that not even light can escape its gravitational pull.

If a human fell into one of these cosmic monsters, the forces of gravity would be so strong that they would undergo 'spagettification'.

Since a black hole's gravity is so strong, there is an extremely steep 'gravitational gradient'.

This means the forces affecting your feet nearer the black hole would be much more powerful than those affecting your head.

That means your body would be yanked into a long line like a piece of spaghetti being sucked up by a black hole.

At the same time, the intense radiation from orbiting material in the 'accretion disk' would blast you with incredibly powerful X–rays.

Strangely, as your elongated body approaches the black hole, your perception of time would start to radically diverge from anyone observing from outside.

Due to a process called time dilation, your passage through time would halt to a crawl. 

While you experience time passing normally, you would slow down from the perspective of anyone outside. 

Once you hit the event horizon, the point of no return, you would slip past the point where conventional physics can make sense of your situation.

From your view, all directions would lead towards the centre of the black hole as you are compressed to an infinitely dense point.

However, from the perspective of anyone watching from afar, you would essentially cease to exist.  

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

02-12-2025 om 21:20 geschreven door peter  

In a promising update, scientists have revealed that the ozone hole is healing – and it could soon close up for good. 

The Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service (CAMS) found that the hole – which appears yearly over Antarctica – closed on Monday (December 1).

This is not only earlier than expected, but also marks the earliest closure since 2019.

What's more, the 2025 ozone hole at its maximum extent was the smallest in five years, at 8.13 million sq miles (21.08 million km2). 

It marks the second consecutive year of relatively small holes compared to the series of large and long-lasting ozone holes from 2020-2023.

And it fuels hopes for the ozone layer's complete recovery – potentially within the next couple of decades. 

Dr Laurence Rouil, director of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), called the earlier closure and relatively small size 'a reassuring sign'. 

'It reflects the steady year-on-year progress we are now observing in the recovery of the ozone layer,' he said. 

 

Scientists confirm the 2025 ozone hole at its maximum extent was the smallest in five years, at 8.13 million sq miles (21.08 million km2)

The ozone hole is not technically a ‘hole’ where no ozone is present, but is actually a region of exceptionally depleted ozone over the Antarctic.

Generally, it opens every August, reaches its maximum size in September or October and closes in late November or early December.

In 2025, the ozone hole developed relatively early through mid-August, following a similar trajectory to the large ozone hole of 2023.

Towards the end of August 2025, its size reduced slightly before growing to a maximum area of 8.13 million sq miles/21.08 million km2 in early September. 

This size is 'fairly typical' at this point but well below the maximum of 10.07 million sq miles/26.1 million km2 observed in 2023.

During September, the size of the ozone hole started to gradually reduce but 'remained at a considerable size', experts found. 

Through September and October, it was between 5.7 million sq miles/15 million km2 (roughly the area of Antarctica) and 7.7 million sq miles/20 million km2. 

But the area of the ozone hole declined quickly during the first half of November, indicating the possibility of an early closure. 

The ozone hole is not technically a ‘hole’ where no ozone is present, but is actually a region of exceptionally depleted ozone in the stratosphere over the Antarctic. Pictured, November 1, 2025

The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) confirms that the 2025 Antarctic ozone hole came to an end December 1, marking the earliest closure since 2019 

A persistent small area of low ozone persisted through the second half of the month, until it fully closed on December 1. 

It marks the the earliest closure since 2019 (November 12) and one of the earliest closures of the ozone hole in the past four decades. 

Located in the stratosphere (the second layer of Earth's atmosphere), the ozone layer absorbs almost all of the sun's harmful incoming ultraviolet radiation (UVB) – making it fundamental to protecting life on Earth's surface 

Without the ozone layer, there would be severe increases of solar UV radiation, which would damage our DNA and make skin cancer more common. 

Having a hole in the ozone layer therefore increases the amount of UV that reaches Earth's surface – and the bigger the hole is, the more we're exposed. 

It wasn't until the 1980s that the ozone hole was first discovered, by British meteorologist Jonathan Shanklin, making global headlines. 

As scientists explained, the hole was created by the release of human-made chemicals, particularly CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons), into the atmosphere. 

It led to the Montreal Protocol, an international agreement to halt the production of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances (ODS), signed in December 1987. 

While the Montreal Agreement phased out 99 per cent of all ozone-depleting chemicals, the remaining one per cent still lingers in Earth's upper atmosphere. 

During the southern hemisphere's winter, a large pillar of extremely cold, rotating air forms above the Antarctic.

Maximum yearly extent of the ozone hole: The 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 ozone holes were particularly large and long lasting

This concentrates the remaining CFCs in an area where cold conditions and solar radiation enable them to deplete the layer of ozone gas.

Experts hope CFCs will eventually be eliminated from the atmosphere, although this process is slow due to their chemical stability. 

READ MORE

• The ozone layer is healing! Hole over Antarctica is recovering – and could soon close for good, promising study reveals

It is estimated that the ban will enable a recovery of the ozone layer by 2050 and 2066, according to experts at CAMS. 

'This progress should be celebrated as a timely reminder of what can be achieved when the international community works together to address global environmental challenges,' said Dr Rouil. 

Meanwhile, a UN report said the ozone hole could heal over by 2040. 

The Ozone layer sits in the stratosphere 25 miles above the Earth's surface and acts like a natural sunscreen

Ozone is a molecule comprised of three oxygen atoms that occurs naturally in small amounts. 

In the stratosphere, roughly seven to 25 miles above Earth's surface, the ozone layer acts like sunscreen, shielding the planet from potentially harmful ultraviolet radiation that can cause skin cancer and cataracts, suppress immune systems and also damage plants. 

It is produced in tropical latitudes and distributed around the globe. 

Closer to the ground, ozone can also be created by photochemical reactions between the sun and pollution from vehicle emissions and other sources, forming harmful smog.

Although warmer-than-average stratospheric weather conditions have reduced ozone depletion during the past two years, the current ozone hole area is still large compared to the 1980s, when the depletion of the ozone layer above Antarctica was first detected. 

In the stratosphere, roughly seven to 25 miles above Earth's surface, the ozone layer acts like sunscreen, shielding the planet from potentially harmful ultraviolet radiation

This is because levels of ozone-depleting substances like chlorine and bromine remain high enough to produce significant ozone loss. 

In the 1970s, it was recognised that chemicals called CFCs, used for example in refrigeration and aerosols, were destroying ozone in the stratosphere.  

In 1987, the Montreal Protocol was agreed, which led to the phase-out of CFCs and, recently, the first signs of recovery of the Antarctic ozone layer. 

The upper stratosphere at lower latitudes is also showing clear signs of recovery, proving the Montreal Protocol is working well.

But the new study, published in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, found it is likely not recovering at latitudes between 60°N and 60°S (London is at 51°N).

The cause is not certain but the researchers believe it is possible climate change is altering the pattern of atmospheric circulation - causing more ozone to be carried away from the tropics.

They say another possibility is that very short-lived substances (VSLSs), which contain chlorine and bromine, could be destroying ozone in the lower stratosphere.

VSLSs include chemicals used as solvents, paint strippers, and as degreasing agents.

One is even used in the production of an ozone-friendly replacement for CFCs.

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

02-12-2025 om 20:45 geschreven door peter  

Story by Soniya

Image sourced via science.nasa.gov

​For the past few weeks, many people online have been talking about 3I/ATLAS, the fast-moving object seen in our solar system. Some were excited, some were confused, and a few even wondered if it might be something artificial.

But now NASA has given a clear answer after studying it closely with more than 20 telescopes and spacecraft.

NASA has confirmed that 3I/ATLAS is a natural comet, not alien technology and not anything man-made. It is simply a rare visitor from another star system.

A natural comet, not an artificial object

3I/ATLAS was first spotted on July 1, 2025, by NASA’s ATLAS telescope in Chile. It quickly drew attention because it was moving very fast and coming from deep space.

This makes it only the third confirmed interstellar object ever seen passing through our Solar System.

In a recent briefing, NASA officials explained that everything about the way the object moves and behaves matches a normal comet.

Amit Kshatriya from NASA said,

“This object is a comet … it looks and behaves like a comet.”

Nicky Fox, another NASA scientist, added that there are no signs of technology, no signals, and nothing that would suggest it was made by intelligent life.

She also reassured people that the comet is not dangerous.

Even during its closest approach, it will still be extremely far away from Earth — about 1.8 AU, which is almost twice the distance between Earth and the Sun.

A rare chance to study material from another star system

Even though it is natural, 3I/ATLAS is still something very special: scientists believe it formed around a completely different star far beyond our Solar System, which makes it an exciting object to study. 

By using powerful telescopes such as Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists discovered that the comet emits unusual gases.

They have found high levels of carbon dioxide and nickel vapour, not commonly seen from comets that originate from our own Solar System.

These rare chemicals give scientists an idea of what other star systems might be composed of.

NASA scientist Tom Statler commented that knowing this comet may contain material from before our Sun was even born “gives me goosebumps.”

​Rumors settle as the science becomes clear

With NASA’s final confirmation, the online theories can finally calm down. There is no sign that 3I/ATLAS is a spaceship or an artificial device. It is simply a natural comet from another part of the galaxy.

{ primetimer.com }

 

02-12-2025 om 20:08 geschreven door peter  

Over the past few decades, scientists have conducted numerous searches for extraterrestrial life and are now summarizing some of the results of this work. The conditions for the emergence of organic beings similar to those on Earth are more than favorable. However, no reliable traces of intelligent beings have been found.

New analysis of the search for extraterrestrial life

Since the 1950s, humanity has been searching for extraterrestrial life with increasingly sophisticated tools. But after decades of space probes, meteorite analysis, radio telescopes, and UFO investigations, what have we actually found?

A new piece of analysis by a team led by Seyed Sina Seyedpour Layalestani from the Islamic Azad University in Iran has looked at the most compelling evidence to date, from ancient space rocks that fell to Earth carrying the building blocks of life itself. The paper is published in the International Journal of Astrobiology.

Organic molecules in ancient meteorites

The Murchison meteorite, which crashed into Australia in 1969, is older than our solar system at 7 billion years. Recent analysis revealed something extraordinary: that all five nucleobases that form DNA and RNA (adenine, guanine, thymine, cytosine, and uracil) were present in this ancient stone. These molecules, confirmed as extraterrestrial in origin, fundamentally challenge the assumption that life’s ingredients formed exclusively on Earth.

The Orgueil meteorite that exploded over France in 1864 tells a similar story. This carbonaceous rock contains not just amino acids like glycine and alanine, but structures resembling microfossils, tiny forms that look similar to magnetotactic bacteria found in Earth’s oceans. While scientists initially dismissed these as contamination or mineral formations, recent studies have confirmed their extraterrestrial origin.

Conditions for the emergence of life beyond Earth

Space probes have expanded the search beyond meteorites. Rovers on Mars discovered liquid water streams and ice. The Cassini spacecraft found massive glaciers on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The Phoenix lander confirmed water ice just three centimeters below the Martian surface. These discoveries reveal that the basic requirements for life, water, organic compounds, and energy sources, seem to exist throughout our solar system.

Radio telescopes have detected more than 100 organic molecules in interstellar dust clouds, including amino acids and nucleic acid components. These findings strengthen the panspermia hypothesis, the idea that life’s building blocks are distributed throughout space, potentially seeding planets across the galaxy.

But what about intelligent alien civilizations? Despite decades of UFO reports and SETI programs broadcasting messages into space, no confirmed evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence exists. Most UFO sightings have conventional explanations, from ball lightning in the atmosphere to plasma phenomena in the thermosphere. The supposed alien bodies presented to Mexico’s Congress in 2023 were quickly dismissed as artificial constructs.

The search for extraterrestrial life and the help of artificial intelligence

The challenge isn’t a lack of evidence for life’s ingredients; instead, it’s proving that these ingredients actually formed living organisms elsewhere. The presence of DNA building blocks in billion-year-old meteorites doesn’t confirm that alien bacteria existed, only that the chemistry for life occurs naturally in space.

Enter artificial intelligence. New AI algorithms can analyze meteorite chemistry to distinguish biological from non-biological origins of organic compounds. Machine learning helps filter noise from radio signals and identify atmospheric biosignatures on distant exoplanets. Where human analysis might overlook subtle patterns in vast datasets, AI excels.

We’ve found the pieces. The building blocks of life exist throughout space. Whether those pieces assembled into living organisms, microbial or intelligent, remains the universe’s most tantalizing unanswered question.

• Provided by: phys.org

• Posted in News, Science

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/articles-en/ }

01-12-2025 om 00:00 geschreven door peter