Construction of Roman Continues With the Addition of its Sunshade NASA continues to progress with the development of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RST), the next-generation observatory with a target launch date of 2027. As the direct successor to the venerable Hubble Space Telescope, Roman will build on the successes of Hubble and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Named after NASA’s first chief astronomer, the “mother of the Hubble,” the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will have a panoramic field of view 200 times greater than Hubble’s infrared view, enabling the first wide-field maps of the Universe. Combined with observations by the ESA’sRead More →

A Flaming Flower in the Large Magellanic Cloud Our neighbour, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), is rich in gas and dust and hosts regions of extremely robust star formation. It contains about 700 open clusters, groups of gravitationally bound stars that all formed from the same giant molecular cloud. The clusters can contain thousands of stars, all emitting vibrant energy that lights up their surroundings. One of these clusters is NGC 2040 in the constellation of Dorado, and the Gemini South Telescope captured its portrait. NGC 2040 is noteworthy because it contains so many O-type and B-type stars. They’re hot, massive stars that tend to live fastRead More →

A Bola Robot Could Provide Stable Jumping Capability on Low-Gravity Bodies New research on locomotion techniques that could be used in space exploration is constantly coming out. A lab from UCLA known as the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) is presenting a paper at the upcoming IEEE Aerospace Conference in March that details a unique system. The Space and Planetary Limbed Intelligent Tether Technology Exploration Robot (SPLITTER) consists of two miniaturized jumping robots tethered together. Such a system might sound like a recipe for chaos and bring back memories of ladder ball games where no amount of control seems to make the tether go whereRead More →

White Dwarfs Could Be More Habitable Than We Thought White dwarfs are the remnants of once brilliant main sequence stars like our Sun. They’re extremely dense and no longer perform any fusion. The light they radiate is from remnant heat only. Astronomers have doubted that white dwarfs could host habitable planets, partly because of the tumultuous path they follow to become white dwarfs, but new research suggests otherwise. White dwarfs are so small that their habitable zones would be equally as small. Their habitable zones could range from only 0.0005 to 0.02 AU from the star. At that range, any planets would be tidally locked.Read More →

Dramatically Decreasing the Time it Takes to Measure Asteroid Distances We all know that asteroids are out there, that some of them come dangerously close to Earth, and that they’ve struck Earth before with catastrophic consequences. The recent discovery of asteroid 2024 YR4 reminds us of the persistent threat that asteroids present. There’s an organized effort to find dangerous space rocks and determine how far away they are and where their orbits will take them. A team of scientists has developed a method that will help us more quickly determine an asteroid’s distance, a critical part of determining its orbit. Our asteroid concern is centredRead More →

FAST uncovers emission properties of three long-period pulsars Using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST), astronomers have investigated the emission properties of three long-period pulsars. Results of the observational campaign are presented in a research paper published Feb. 6 on the arXiv preprint server. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

Should Astronauts Add Jumping to their Workout Routine? It’s a familiar sight to see astronauts on board ISS on exercise equipment to minimise muscle and bone loss from weightlessness. A new study suggests that jumping workouts could help astronauts prevent cartilage damage during long missions to the Moon and Mars. They found that the knee cartilage in mice seems to grow stronger after jumping exercises, potentially counteracting the effects of low gravity on joint health. If effective in humans, this approach could be included in pre-flight routines or adapted for space missions. In space, astronauts experience significant loss of bone and muscle mass due toRead More →

Do We Live in a Special Part of the Universe? Here’s How to Find Out One of the basic principles of cosmology is the Cosmological Principle. It states that, no matter where you go in the Universe, it will always be broadly the same. Given that we have only explored our own Solar System there is currently no empirical way to measure this. A new study proposes that we can test the Cosmological Principle using weak gravitational lensing. The team suggests that measuring tiny distortions in light as it passes through the lenses, it may just be possible to find out  if there are differencesRead More →

From collisions to stellar cannibalism—the surprising diversity of exploding white dwarfs Astrophysicists have unearthed a surprising diversity in the ways in which white dwarf stars explode in deep space after assessing almost 4,000 such events captured in detail by a next-gen astronomical sky survey. Their findings may help us more accurately measure distances in the universe and further our knowledge of “dark energy.” phys.org Go to SourceRead More →

A Hyper Velocity Star Found with an Exoplanet Hanging on for Dear Life Hypervelocity stars have been seen before but NASA scientists have just identified a potential record-breaking exoplanet system. They found a hypervelocity star that has a super-Neptune exoplanet in orbit around it. This discovery could reshape our understanding of planetary and orbital mechanics. Understanding more about these fascinating high velocity stars challenges current models of stellar evolution. However it formed, its amazing that somehow, it has managed to hang on to its planet through the process! High-velocity stars travel through space at extraordinarily high speeds, often in excess of hundreds of kilometres perRead More →

Efforts to Detect Alien Life Advanced by Simple Microbe Mobility Test Finding alien life may have just got easier! If life does exist on other worlds in our Solar System then it’s likely to be tiny, primative bacteria. It’s not so easy to send microscopes to other worlds but chemistry may have just come to the rescue. Scientists have developed a test that detects microbial movement triggered by an amino acid known as  L-serine. In lab testing, three different types of microbes all moved towards this chemical and could be a strong indicator of life. The search for primitive alien life focuses on finding simpleRead More →

Curiosity’s Other Important Job: Studying Martian Clouds MSL Curiosity is primarily a rockhound. It’s at Gale Crater, examining the rocks there and on Mt. Sharp, which sits in the middle of the crater and rises 5.5 km above the crater floor. But Curiosity is also a skywatcher, and its primary camera, Mastcam, was built with Martian clouds in mind. When the sun set on Mars’ Gale Crater on January 17th, MSL Curiosity spent 16 minutes capturing images of the sky with Mastcam, the rover’s primary camera system. The images are part of an effort to understand noctilucent clouds, which are made of CO2 ice andRead More →

A Balloon With a Tether Could Explore Venus’ Surface Venus is very variable. Its surface constantly changes from volcanic activity, and the difference between its lower and upper atmosphere is night and day, with a dramatic change in sulfuric acid concentration. So, designing a system that works for all parts of Venus is particularly challenging. NASA thinks they might be on to a new idea of how to do so and has funded Ben Hockman, a roboticist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, to work on a tethered atmospheric sensor attached to a balloon as part of the NASA Institute of Advanced Concepts Phase I program.Read More →

Phoenix galaxy cluster caught in the act of extreme cooling The core of a massive cluster of galaxies appears to be pumping out far more stars than it should. Now researchers at MIT and elsewhere have discovered a key ingredient within the cluster that explains the core’s prolific starburst. phys.org Go to SourceRead More →