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Sharp Gamma-Ray Hint Sparks Fresh Dark Matter Debate
1 day ago•Source: Gizmodo
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Moon Poles Could Shelter Earth Microbes, NASA Study Finds
NASA researchers tested five Earth microbes (including Deinococcus radiodurans and Aspergillus niger) in simulated lunar conditions and found that shadowed lunar polar pockets could preserve microbes in cryptobiosis, suggesting the Moon may be less inhospitable than thought and that astronauts could unintentionally contaminate it; the study in Science Advances used LRO data to map radiation and UV exposure and highlights cold traps at the poles as potential refuges for microbial life, raising planetary-protection considerations and opportunities for future sterile experiments.
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Astronomers Uncover a Black Hole Star in the Early Universe
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China's Long March 7A Explodes After Launch, Marking a Rare Setback
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Pluto's Atmosphere Thins as It Recedes, Hinting at Collapse
New Horizons data and Earth-based stellar occultations show Pluto’s atmospheric pressure rose from 1988 to 2015, stayed roughly constant until about 2021, and then declined by as much as 16% by 2022 as the dwarf planet moved farther from the Sun, potentially signaling the first signs of atmospheric collapse that had been anticipated for decades; continued observations over the coming years will be needed to confirm the trend, with Pluto not returning closer to the Sun until 2114.
Sunshade, Jovian Fusion and a New Orbit: A 9.1‑Quadrillion‑Year Plan for Earth
A speculative arXiv preprint outlines a megaproject to keep Earth habitable for 9.1 quadrillion years: build a 435,000‑mile sunshade just outside the Moon’s orbit to block the Sun, mine Moon and Ceres for materials to anchor a vast tether, and power an artificial Sun via fusion reactors in Jupiter beamed to Earth; to avoid the Sun’s red giant engulfment, Earth would be nudged outward to about 1.2 AU, with additional safeguards addressing tectonics, water loss and other cosmic threats. The concept remains theoretical and unproven.
Black Holes Regurgitate Their Meals: Real-Time Gas Expulsions Revealed
Astronomers studying a 2023 tidal disruption event around the supermassive black hole Swift J1727.8-1613 found that a substantial fraction of the star’s material is expelled back into space after being drawn in, suggesting black holes can regurgitate matter and that the outflow could rival the amount swallowed, challenging the idea that these cosmic behemoths simply gobble everything.
Boeing Eyes Starliner Comeback Flight With ISS Cargo Mission
Boeing says its Starliner is largely fixed after past issues and is coordinating with NASA to set a cargo launch to the ISS, which would pave the way for a potential late-2027 crewed test; a free docking port is needed, NASA has trimmed Starliner missions under a revised contract, and Boeing is weighing options including selling space-unit assets while awaiting port availability.
Curiosity Maps a Martian Honeycomb: A Vast Field of Polygonal Patterns on Mars
NASA’s Curiosity rover stitched 340 images into a 360-degree panorama of Valle Grande on Mount Sharp’s foothills, revealing a vast sea of honeycomb-like polygonal fractures across the Martian plain—evidence of ancient water activity and a clue to Mars’s past habitability.
Missing Ordinary Matter Reunited: Diffuse Gas Envelopes Galaxies and Clusters
Using thousands of fast radio burst measurements, researchers mapped where ordinary (baryonic) matter resides and found widespread, diffuse gas surrounding galaxies and galaxy clusters. This diffuse gas accounts for the universe’s missing baryons, extending up to about 4 million light-years from galaxies and suggesting energetic processes like black hole jets fling baryons far beyond visible halos, which helps reconcile observations with current astrophysical models.
Sun's Silver Finally Seen: New Solar Atmosphere Model Aligns Sun with Meteorites
A refined model of the Sun's atmosphere shows the Sun contains about 55% more silver than earlier estimates, meaning silver isn't missing but was misread due to simplified models; the solar abundance now aligns better with ancient meteorites and resolves a decades-long discrepancy. The improvement comes from more realistic treatment of the Sun's outer layers and how silver atoms interact with light, rather than discovering new silver. Researchers say the Sun remains a key reference for understanding heavier elements in stars and plan to apply the method to other stars while checking for biases from other elements.
New NASA study says extreme solar storms could be more powerful than previously thought
A NASA Goddard-led study argues that past estimates of solar-storm severity were biased by erroneous measurements, suggesting there may be no upper limit to the energy solar wind can transfer to Earth's magnetosphere; this implies extreme one-in-a-thousand-year events could pose greater risks to satellites, GPS, and communications than previously recognized.
Pluto's Hidden Landslides Reframe Its Icy Landscape
Researchers reexamining data from NASA’s New Horizons flyby have identified six massive landslides inside Pluto’s craters, marking the dwarf planet’s first confirmed mass-wasting events. The largest slide spans about 50 square miles (130 square kilometers), with others rising roughly 1,200–1,500 meters, suggesting gravity-driven reshaping of Pluto’s icy terrain and hinting at more landslides that future missions could uncover.
Hidden Stellar-Math Black Hole Found in Dense Star Cluster, Hinting at Thousands More
Astronomers using Hubble archival data and Webb infrared observations discovered the first stellar-mass black hole (about 4.5 solar masses) orbiting a star in the Omega Centauri globular cluster, a system named oMEGACat BH-2 with a 94-year orbital period—the longest known for a black hole binary. The find suggests Omega Centauri may harbor up to ~10,000 such black holes, helping explain black hole populations in dense clusters and their relevance to gravitational-wave sources. The team plans to continue hunting for more BHs in this cluster and others over the coming years.