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Canada’s Artemis II astronaut Hansen shifts to reserve role, signaling new phase
4 days ago•Source: CNN
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6.91 min•7 days ago
Martian rock at Bright Angel carries surface carbon; origin remains unclear
NASA’s Perseverance rover detected a shallow surface presence of macromolecular carbon on a Martian rock at Bright Angel in Jezero Crater using the SHERLOC UV Raman spectrometer. While the compound resembles terrestrial kerogen, researchers caution it could be biotic or abiotic, and have ruled out instrument artefacts and Earth contamination. The carbon appears associated with carbonate/sulfate minerals at one target and with silicate-rich sediment at another, suggesting multiple emplacement events over geologic time. Definitive biogenic origin remains uncertain until samples are returned to Earth for isotopic and chirality analyses.
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Earth May Outlast the Sun’s Death, New Study Finds
New York Post•9 days ago
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2004 magnetar flare delivered Sun-scale energy to Earth in 0.2 seconds
Space Daily•17 days ago
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Mars meteorite reveals rare garnet, a mineral clue to ancient Martian geology
Scientists analyzing the Martian meteorite NWA 8171 identified a new garnet-bearing rock type, a mineral not previously detected on Mars; the rock could reflect metamorphic processes from impacts or magmatic activity, offering a window into Mars's ancient geology. Isotopic analyses are planned to confirm whether the garnet formed on Mars or was delivered by an exotic meteorite.
Milky Way’s Central Black Hole Reveals Hidden Wind
Astronomers using ALMA radio maps and NASA’s Chandra X-ray data detected a 3-light-year cone-shaped cavity around Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, indicating a previously unseen wind. The finding helps explain why our galaxy’s center appeared windless and provides a new observable for understanding how black holes influence their host galaxies.
Two Stars, One Dazzling Death: New View of the Crystal Ball Nebula
A new image of the Crystal Ball Nebula (NGC 1514) taken with Hawaii’s Gemini North telescope shows a dying star in a binary system about 1,500 light-years away; as the primary star sheds its outer layers, its orbiting companion stirs the expanding gas into intricate, cloudlike shapes, with colors tracing hot hydrogen and oxygen. Captured by the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph atop Maunakea, the view highlights how planetary nebulae form and evolve on short astronomical timescales, roughly 10,000 years, while astronomers monitor changes over years to learn how mass is lost and shells expand.
Psyche Probe Captures Stunning Crescent Mars During Gravity Flyby
NASA's Psyche spacecraft flew by Mars on May 15, using a gravity assist to boost its speed by about 1,000 mph and capturing high-resolution images, including a crescent view of Mars' polar ice caps and wind-carved craters from roughly 2,900 miles above the surface, as it continues toward the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche (arrival expected in 2029); the flyby also served to calibrate instruments for the longer journey.
Nereid: Neptune’s lone survivor of an ancient moon-wide chaos
JWST data suggest Neptune’s moon Nereid may be the only intact remnant of Neptune’s primordial moon system, surviving the disruptive arrival of Triton over 4 billion years ago. Its surface composition is more like regular satellites than Kuiper Belt objects, challenging the idea that it was captured. Computer simulations indicate a roughly 25% chance that some moons could survive the Triton encounter, and further JWST observations or a future Neptune mission could confirm this scenario.
Moon's gradual drift will erase future total solar eclipses
The Moon is receding from Earth at about 3.8 cm per year due to tidal interactions, a rate precisely measured by lunar laser ranging using Apollo and Lunokhod reflectors. As the Moon moves farther away, its apparent size will eventually be too small to fully cover the Sun, ending total solar eclipses within roughly 500–800 million years. Until then, upcoming total eclipses seen from Earth occur within this narrow, finite window, making the current era temporarily unique in cosmic terms.
Curiosity detects diverse organics on Mars, hinting at ancient habitability
NASA’s Curiosity rover, via a wet-chemistry experiment on a Mary Anning rock at Gale Crater, uncovered 21 carbon-containing molecules, including seven not previously detected on Mars. The organics could be preserved for about 3.5 billion years, reinforcing the idea that ancient Mars was habitable, though the findings do not prove life. Researchers say definitive answers require returning samples to Earth, and future missions with similar chemistry experiments (e.g., ExoMars Rosalind Franklin, Dragonfly) will continue probing Mars’ organic past.
DART Achieves First Solar-Orbit Change After Asteroid Impact
NASA’s DART mission confirmed that crashing into the small asteroid Dimorphos shortened its orbit around the larger Didymos by about 32 minutes, and new analysis shows the impact also nudged the binary system’s solar trajectory by roughly 1.7 inches (4.3 cm) per hour—the first measured change in an object’s path around the Sun—demonstrating humanity’s ability to steer asteroids if needed.
Japan builds ultra-precise X-ray telescope that spots a 3.5 mm dot from 1 km
A Japanese collaboration from Nagoya University and the SPring-8 facility has developed a high-resolution X-ray telescope with nanometer-precision, seamless nickel mirrors capable of resolving a 3.5 mm object at 1 km. Ground tests used a 10‑micrometer X-ray source about 900 meters away to simulate distant starlight, and the instrument flew on the FOXSI-4 sounding rocket in 2024 to observe a solar flare, validating its performance in space. The team plans a refined version for FOXSI-5 in 2026 and aims to miniaturize the optics for CubeSats to broaden access to high-resolution X-ray observations.
Milky Way Core Revealed: ALMA Maps Our Galaxy’s Star-Birth Gas in Detail
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have produced the most complete, high‑resolution map of the Milky Way’s center, revealing the cold gas and its 3D motions in the Central Molecular Zone and offering new insights into where and how stars and planetary systems form near Sagittarius A*.