Alone in the Universe

Are we alone in the universe?

It's a question that's been posed again and again. Carl Sagan posed it in the 1970s as a NASA mission scientist as the agency prepared to send its twin Viking landers to Mars.

And nearly 50 years after the first of two landers touched down on Mars, we're no closer to an answer as to whether there's life — out there.

Scientists haven't stopped looking. In fact, they've expanded their gaze to places like Saturn's largest moon, Titan and Jupiter's moon Europa.

The search for life beyond planet earth continues to captivate. And NASA has upcoming missions to both moons. Could we be closer to answering that question Carl Sagan asked some 50 years ago?     READ MORE...

US Coast Sinking Fast

Parts of the East Coast of the United States are sinking so fast it could threaten infrastructure, farmland and wetlands, according to NASA.

Some areas have seen a drop of more than 2 millimeters per year from 2007 to 2020.

Satellite data shows the two biggest changes are from Savannah to Myrtle Beach and off the coasts of Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Charleston is one of the fastest-sinking cities. It is more than 2 inches lower than it was in 2007, and that’s a big deal for a city that’s just 10 feet above sea level.

Because of that, the city is considering building an 8-mile seawall.   READ MORE...

NASA Found a Super Earth

A NASA telescope orbiting our planet has spotted an intriguing super-Earth — a world some 30 to 70 percent bigger than Earth.

This rocky planet is in another solar system 137 light-years away, which in the vastness of space is considered relatively close (a light-year is nearly 6 trillion miles). The exoplanet, called TOI-715 b, is about 1.5 times the size of Earth. And, crucially, this world orbits inside the habitable, or "Goldilocks," zone.

"That’s the distance from the star that could give the planet the right temperature for liquid water to form on its surface," NASA explained on its website. "Several other factors would have to line up, of course, for surface water to be present, especially having a suitable atmosphere."

TOI-715 b orbits quite close to its star (each orbit lasts just 19 days) — but scientists don't think its a hellish, scorching world, like some other exoplanets. That's because its star is a "red dwarf," which is both cooler and smaller than our medium-sized star, the sun.   READ MORE...

Internet On Moon

NASA is indeed bringing a celestial internet of sorts to the moon, but it is not the same internet we know on Earth. The technology employs a “protocol suite” of new networking technologies for transmitting information between astronauts in space and those on Earth.

Additionally, Nokia announced plans to bring LTE/4G to the moon to support communication between the lunar lander and rover.  In March 2023, NASA took to Instagram to share the space agency’s plans to install an internet-like network in space that will connect astronauts with researchers on Earth.

First Wooden Satellite

NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are planning to launch the world's first wooden satellite into space in a bid to make spaceflight more sustainable.


LignoSat, a coffee mug-size satellite made from magnolia wood, is set to launch into Earth's orbit by summer 2024, according to the space agencies.

Wood doesn't burn or rot in the lifeless vacuum of space, but it will incinerate into a fine ash upon reentry into Earth's atmosphere — making it a surprisingly useful, biodegradable material for future satellites. After successfully testing their wood samples aboard the International Space Station (ISS) earlier this year, the scientists believe the test satellite is fit for launch.    READ MORE...

Software Updates Millions of Miles Away

About 46 years after NASA's Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 launched on an epic journey to explore space, the probes’ antique hardware continues to receive tweaks from afar.

One update, a software fix, ought to tend to the corrupted data that Voyager 1 began transmitting last year, and another set aims to prevent gunk from building up in both spacecraft's thrusters. Together, these updates intend to keep the spacecraft in contact with Earth for as long as possible.

"This far into the mission, the engineering team is being faced with a lot of challenges for which we just don’t have a playbook," Linda Spilker, project scientist for the mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. "But they continue to come up with creative solutions."  READ MORE...

IMAX Movie DEEP SKY

Featured in the IMAX® documentary DEEP SKY, this mosaic image stretches 340 light-years across. JWST’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) displays the Tarantula Nebula star-forming region in a new light, including tens of thousands of never-before-seen young stars that were previously shrouded in cosmic dust. [Photo: NASA]




Director Nathaniel Kahn probed the world of art sales in 2018’s The Price of Everything and the search for extraterrestrial life in 2021’s Emmy-winning Hunt for Planet B. His latest film, however, goes where no man has gone before: a million miles from Earth.


Deep Sky, a 40-minute Imax original documentary about NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that opened yesterday, showcases the mind-blowing images captured by the $10-billion telescope, which started beaming pictures of stars, nebulae, galaxies, planets, and a massive black hole back to Earth in July 2022. 

It is surely the most expensive “camera” Kahn, or any filmmaker, has had the privilege to work with, and viewed on nearly 100-foot-tall screens, the footage becomes transporting.


Kahn, who also wrote and produced the film, spoke with Fast Company about what drew him to the project, what the telescope’s “non-optical” electromagnetic spectrum revealed, and why it gives him hope for life on Earth.  READ MORE...

NASA Considering Budget Cuts

WASHINGTON — NASA is considering cutting the budget of two of its biggest space telescopes as it faces broader spending reductions for its astrophysics programs.

In an Oct. 13 presentation to the National Academies’ Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics, Mark Clampin, director of NASA’s astrophysics division, said he was studying unspecified cuts in the operating budgets of the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope to preserve funding for other priorities in the division.

The potential cuts, he said, are driven by the expectation that his division will not receive the full request of nearly $1.56 billion for fiscal year (FY) 2024 because of legislation passed in June that caps non-defense discretionary spending for 2024 at 2023 levels, with only a 1% increase for 2025.

“We’re working with the expectation that FY24 budgets stay at the ’23 levels,” he said. “That means that we have decided to reduce the budget for missions in extended operations, and that is Chandra and Hubble.”

Clampin declined to say how much the budgets of those two observatories would be cut, or specific impacts on them because of the cuts. He indicated the proposed cuts are still being studied, noting that he was able to make a “positive adjustment” for Chandra just in the last week.

Chandra and Hubble are the two most expensive NASA astrophysics missions to operate after the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA requested $93.3 million for Hubble and $68.7 million for Chandra in its fiscal year 2024 budget proposal, in line with past years’ budgets. Combined, they represent a little more than 10% of the fiscal year 2024 budget request for NASA astrophysics.

They are also among the two oldest NASA missions, with Hubble launched in 1990 and Chandra in 1999. Clampin suggested that was a reason for reducing their budgets. “Chandra has a number of issues right now. It’s becoming increasing difficult to operate,” he said. Insulation on the spacecraft’s exterior is degrading, warming the spacecraft and making operations increasing difficult.

“While Hubble doesn’t have those issues,” he added, “it has been operating for a long time and it is a large piece of the astrophysics budget.”  READ MORE...

ESV: A Lithium Free Battery

Nickel-hydrogen-based batteries that have long been used by NASA for its space missions are now making their way to power the grid. California-based EnerVenue is building large Energy Storage Vessels (ESVs) that could be used to power the grid using renewables, a press release said.

With the world making a major transition to renewables, energy storage solutions are the need of the hour. Lithium-ion batteries have been our best bet so far but making large-scale storage solutions is turning out quite expensive and cumbersome.

Li-ion batteries are prone to thermal runaway and large energy storage solutions need additional facilities for cooling, ventilation, and fire suppression to be built to prevent a major mishap. This is where nickel-hydrogen-based batteries could help.

How does a nickel-hydrogen battery work?
A nickel-hydrogen battery is much like any other battery with stacks of electrodes but held inside a pressurized gas tank. The cathode is made of nickel hydroxide, while the anode is hydrogen. When the battery is charged, the reaction produces hydrogen gas, which is oxidized during the discharging process to form water.

The energy-storing process, which involves the production of highly combustible hydrogen gas and a pressurized tank to contain it, raises doubts. However, the peak pressure inside the tank reaches only five percent of that in a hydrogen fuel cell. Moreover, if the pressure of the gas increases further, it results in the conversion of the gas into water again.  READ MORE...

Company Wants to Pick Up Space Trash

In the middle of a space flight, an astronaut heard a massive bang. He looked up and saw a piece of space junk embedded in the window of the shuttle.

If the debris had been bigger, it could have blown out the window, and the crew would have all died, the astronaut told Joel C. Sercel, the founder and CEO of TransAstra.

"Space junk is one of the greatest perils that astronauts face in low Earth orbit today," Sercel told Insider.

TransAstra was recently awarded an $850,000 contract from NASA to explore the possibility of cleaning up space junk with a giant "capture bag" that the company has dubbed Flytrap, Sercel said.

"It's kind of like picking up trash on the side of the highway," Sercel said.

Only much, much more complex and expensive.

Earth's backyard is a giant dumpster
As humans expand into space, we're leaving a big mess.

The European Space Agency estimates over 330 million pieces of space debris are circling the Earth. Space debris can reach speeds up to 17,500 mph and pose a risk to astronauts, shuttles, and satellites.

TransAstra's Flytrap bags were initially developed to capture asteroids that, in the future, could be mined for rare elements, Sercel said.

But the more Sercel and the team looked into asteroid mining, the more they "became aware of the space junk problem, and we thought this is a really good solution for cleaning up orbital debris," Sercel told Insider.  READ MORE...

NASA, SpaceX Sending Humans to an Asteroid

Recently, NASA developed a plan to send a crew of astronauts to an Earth-approaching asteroid, called Prospects for Future Human Space Flight Missions to Near-Earth Asteroids. The plan has its origins in a speech delivered by President Obama at the Kennedy Space Center in 2010.

Obama’s remarks were meant to quell a firestorm he created when he canceled the Constellation Program, the last attempt to go back to the moon. As a consolation prize, he proposed sending a crew of astronauts to an Earth-approaching asteroid before launching a crewed expedition to Mars. The new proposal, not yet funded, is an updated version of the Obama plan, using the SpaceX Starship instead of an Orion launched from a Space Launch System rocket.

The Obama proposal was not a serious one. It quickly devolved into something called the Asteroid Redirect Mission, which envisioned diverting a small asteroid or maybe a boulder from an asteroid into lunar orbit, where it would be visited by an Orion with a crew. No one took the idea seriously.

Dr. Richard Binzel of MIT, one of the world’s leading experts in small, celestial bodies such as asteroids and comets, was especially scornful. Instead, he suggested a survey of Earth-approaching asteroids, some of which might prove to be a threat to Earth.

The Asteroid Redirect Mission died a quick and unlamented death when President Trump assumed office and started the Artemis program that redirected NASA to send astronauts back to the moon before sending crewed expeditions to Mars. Unlike previous attempts to return to the moon, Artemis has met with considerable technical and political success. Artemis 1, an uncrewed mission around the moon, succeeded brilliantly.

President Biden, soon after assuming office, made Artemis his own. A crew has been selected for the Artemis II circumlunar mission to take place no earlier than late 2024.  READ MORE...

Life on Mars Likely

The mystery of life’s origins on Earth has long puzzled scientists, but a recent discovery on Mars might be shedding new light on this profound question, while also inching closer to finding life on Mars.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has uncovered a patchwork of well-preserved ancient mud cracks, forming a distinctive hexagonal pattern, signaling the presence of wet-dry cycles on early Mars. These cycles could be key to the assembly of complex chemical building blocks necessary for microbial life.

A study published in Nature elaborates on the importance of this discovery. The lead author, William Rapin of France’s Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planétologie, expressed his excitement, stating, “These particular mud cracks form when wet-dry conditions occur repeatedly – perhaps seasonally.”

Mud cracks named “Pontours”
Curiosity’s ongoing exploration of Mount Sharp, which stands 5 kilometers high in Gale Crater, has brought about this groundbreaking revelation. 

In 2021, after drilling a sample from a rock target nicknamed “Pontours,” located in a transitional zone between a clay-rich layer and a layer enriched with salty minerals called sulfates, the rover spotted these telling mud cracks.  READ MORE...

Nuclear Powered Spaceships

The space race has been revived, but this time, the goal post has been shifted much further – to Mars. As recent technological advancements promise to open new horizons of exploration, NASA plans to cut the travel time to Mars with a nuclear powered spacecraft.

A trip to Mars currently takes approximately seven months, covering a staggering 300-million-mile journey. NASA, in collaboration with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), now proposes an ambitious plan that hinges on the promise of nuclear thermal propulsion technology to reduce this duration significantly.

DRACO spacecraft is nuclear powered
NASA aims to launch a nuclear-powered spacecraft, known as DRACO (Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations), into Earth’s orbit either by late 2025 or early 2026. The spacecraft, under construction by Lockheed Martin, a leading aerospace and defense company, will serve as a testbed for this groundbreaking technology.

NASA administrator Bill Nelson said that this technology “would allow humans to travel in deep space at record speed.” However, it remains unclear by how much the nuclear thermal propulsion technology can decrease the travel time.

DRACO is expected to provide a treasure trove of critical data that will usher in a new age of space exploration.

“We’re going to put this together, we’re going to fly this demonstration, gather a bunch of great data and really, we believe, usher in a new age for the United States [and] for humankind, to support our space exploration mission,” said Kirk Shireman, vice president of Lockheed Martin Lunar Exploration Campaigns.
Groundbreaking technology

A nuclear thermal rocket (NTR), the underpinning technology of the DRACO, boasts a thrust-to-weight ratio approximately 10,000 times greater than electric propulsion and two-to-five times more efficiency than in-space chemical propulsion.

The technology utilizes heat from a nuclear powered fission reactor to heat a hydrogen propellant, which then expands through a nozzle to provide thrust, propelling the spacecraft forward.

Increased safety needed to put humans on Mars
Apart from speeding up transit, the NTR propulsion system also promises increased safety for astronauts. Reduced travel duration translates into a decreased risk of exposure to deep-space radiation and a smaller logistical footprint due to the lesser quantity of supplies required for the trip. “If we have swifter trips for humans, they are safer trips,” said NASA deputy administrator and former astronaut Pam Melroy.  READ MORE...

Dark Energy

Universe Dark Energy-1 Expanding Universe
This diagram reveals changes in the rate of expansion since the universe's birth 15 billion years ago. The more shallow the curve, the faster the rate of expansion. The curve changes noticeably about 7.5 billion years ago, when objects in the universe began flying apart as a faster rate. Astronomers theorize that the faster expansion rate is due to a mysterious, dark force that is pulling galaxies apart.  Credit: NASA/STSci/Ann Feild






One explanation for dark energy is that it is a property of space. Albert Einstein was the first person to realize that empty space is not nothing. Space has amazing properties, many of which are just beginning to be understood. The first property that Einstein discovered is that it is possible for more space to come into existence. 

Then one version of Einstein's gravity theory, the version that contains a cosmological constant, makes a second prediction: "empty space" can possess its own energy. Because this energy is a property of space itself, it would not be diluted as space expands. As more space comes into existence, more of this energy-of-space would appear. 

As a result, this form of energy would cause the universe to expand faster and faster. Unfortunately, no one understands why the cosmological constant should even be there, much less why it would have exactly the right value to cause the observed acceleration of the universe.


Another explanation for how space acquires energy comes from the quantum theory of matter. In this theory, "empty space" is actually full of temporary ("virtual") particles that continually form and then disappear. 

But when physicists tried to calculate how much energy this would give empty space, the answer came out wrong - wrong by a lot. The number came out 10120 times too big. That's a 1 with 120 zeros after it. It's hard to get an answer that bad. So the mystery continues.

Another explanation for dark energy is that it is a new kind of dynamical energy fluid or field, something that fills all of space but something whose effect on the expansion of the universe is the opposite of that of matter and normal energy. 

Some theorists have named this "quintessence," after the fifth element of the Greek philosophers. But, if quintessence is the answer, we still don't know what it is like, what it interacts with, or why it exists. So the mystery continues.  READ MORE...

NASA'S Wind Tunnel

Flying cars. Space tourism. Safe reentry for astronauts coming back from Mars.

These technologies are still science fiction, but some won't be for much longer, according to Charles "Mike" Fremaux, NASA Langley Research Center's chief engineer for intelligent flight systems.

To test these concepts, particularly in regard to public and military safety, NASA Langley is building its first new wind tunnel in over 40 years. The NASA Flight Dynamic Research Facility, a project Fremaux has been pursuing for 25 years, will replace two smaller wind tunnels that are around 80 years old. The center's most recent and largest, the National Transonic Facility, was built in 1980.

"These facilities are really kind of tailor-made for doing a lot of that work," he said at a presentation at the Virginia Air & Space Science Center in Hampton on Tuesday. The talk was part of NASA Langley's Sigma Series community lectures.

"That's not our traditional wheelhouse. We haven't tested anything with a propeller on it in decades."

That's because many new craft will depend on electric vertical takeoff and landing, or "eVTOL," technology. With likely dozens or even hundreds of private vehicles in the airways, research is needed to understand how vehicles will react in real-world conditions.

Fremaux expects some of these technologies will likely be mainstream by 2040 or sooner.

The $43.2 million federal government contract to design and build the 25,000-square-foot facility went to BL Harbert International, a construction company based in Birmingham, Alabama. It is expected to open in early 2025.

The wind tunnel will be 130 feet tall, Fremaux said, comparing its capabilities to those it will replace: The 12-foot, Low-Speed Spin Tunnel built in 1939 and the 20-foot, Vertical Spin Tunnel built in 1940.

One project he worked on using the center's other wind tunnels—there are currently around 16 operating, Fremaux said—was the Stardust Mission in 2006, the first spacecraft to bring back material from outside the moon's orbit.  READ MORE...

NASA's Humanoid Robot

NASA’s Valkyrie humanoid robot is heading to Australia from its home base at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for extensive testing. The move is part of a reimbursable Space Act Agreement with Woodside Energy in Perth, Western Australia.

This is according to a press release by NASA published on Thursday.

Woodside Energy will test the machine’s software and provide data and feedback to NASA particularly as it relates to developing remote mobile dexterous manipulation capabilities to accommodate remote caretaking of uncrewed and offshore energy facilities.

“Valkyrie will advance robotic remote operations capabilities which have potential to improve the efficiency of Woodside’s offshore and remote operations while also increasing safety for both its personnel and the environment. In addition, the new capabilities may have applications for NASA’s Artemis missions and for other Earth-based robotics objectives,” said the NASA statement.

NASA hopes that the tests conducted in Woodside’s facilities will teach the agency how to better design robots for work in dirty and hazardous conditions like those found on the Moon and other planets.

Some activities to be undertaken by the robot include inspection and maintenance of infrastructure and plants that leverage resources and materials to produce new items. These activities could one day enable astronauts to live off the land in space.

“We are pleased to be starting the next phase of development and testing of advanced robotic systems that have the potential to positively impact life on Earth by allowing safer operations in hazardous environments,” said Shaun Azimi, lead of the dexterous robotics team at NASA Johnson.  READ MORE...

Universe Expansion Could be a Mirage

Astronomers use the light from distant stars, such as the Helix Nebula seen here, to measure the apparent expansion of the universe. New resaerch suggests there may be more to the pictue that we're not seeing. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSC)



The expansion of the universe could be a mirage, a potentially controversial new study suggests. This rethinking of the cosmos also suggests solutions for the puzzles of dark energy and dark matter, which scientists believe account for around 95% of the universe's total energy and matter but remain shrouded in mystery.


The novel new approach is detailed in a paper published June 2 in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity, by University of Geneva professor of theoretical physics Lucas Lombriser.


Scientists know the universe is expanding because of redshift, the stretching of light's wavelength towards the redder end of the spectrum as the object emitting it moves away from us. 

Distant galaxies have a higher redshift than those nearer to us, suggesting those galaxies are moving ever further from Earth.

More recently, scientists have found evidence that the universe's expansion isn't fixed, but is actually accelerating faster and faster. This accelerating expansion is captured by a term known as the cosmological constant, or lambda.


The cosmological constant has been a headache for cosmologists because predictions of its value made by particle physics differ from actual observations by 120 orders of magnitude. The cosmological constant has therefore been described as "the worst prediction in the history of physics."

Cosmologists often try to resolve the discrepancy between the different values of lambda by proposing new particles or physical forces but Lombriser tackles it by reconceptualizing what's already there.     READ MORE...

Jupiterian Lightening

Scientists have recorded lightning on Jupiter in radio observations. Recently, however, a historic event occurred when the Juno space probe took the first-ever photograph of a Jupiterian lightning bolt.

Here's What We Know

A NASA freelancer accidentally discovered the lightning photo in the raw data collected by the spacecraft. The image was taken on December 30, 2020, when the probe flew close to the gas giant's north pole for the 31st time.

The lucky recipient of the photo is Kevin M. Gill. In 2022, he completed processing the data from the JunoCam. It is known that the picture was taken from an altitude of about 32,000 km.

In the near future, scientists will be able to get more photos of Jupiterian thunderstorms. This is because the spacecraft will regularly fly over the night side of the planet for several months.

Source: ScienceDaily

Tractor Beams - No Longer SciFi

Rebel ships better watch out because, apparently, we’re closer to making tractor beams a reality than ever. Once relegated to the realm of fantasy in Star Wars and Star Trek, Phys.org is reporting that a team of aerospace engineers led by Professor Hanspeter Schaub is working on electron beams that use attractive or repulsive electrostatic force to remove space debris from orbit. Presumably, if the team finds success in creating these beams, we could prevent Kessler Syndrome from becoming a reality.

Kessler Syndrome is a phenomenon, laid out by NASA scientist Donald Kessler, where the space debris in Earth’s orbit becomes so significant that it hinders our ability to launch satellites, spacecraft, orbital stations, and anything else into orbit. It’s a major problem that could easily become the state of our orbit if measures aren’t taken to prevent it. Using so-called “space dump trucks” with tractor beams could be one way to lessen our debris problem.

The main problem with space debris is that it’s not so easy to clear out, as objects in space move rapidly and unpredictably, so you can’t just grab it like you would grab trash out of the ocean. Tractor beams would allow us to move debris and other objects out of the way without having to touch them directly. Another example of the usefulness of these beams would be moving old satellites out of the way to make room for new satellites.

Of course, there is still a lot of work today before these tractor beams can be applied in real-world scenarios. To test the technology, the team uses a vacuum chamber called the Electrostatic Charging Laboratory for Interactions between Plasma and Spacecraft. The vacuum chamber can simulate a space environment, and the team can place simulated debris made out of metal to experiment with the electrostatic tractors.  READ MORE...

Our Moon's Hidden Resource

Alongside advances in space exploration, we’ve recently seen much time and money invested into technologies that could allow effective space resource utilisation. And at the forefront of these efforts has been a laser-sharp focus on finding the best way to produce oxygen on the Moon.

In October, the Australian Space Agency and NASA signed a deal to send an Australian-made rover to the Moon under the Artemis program, with a goal to collect lunar rocks that could ultimately provide breathable oxygen on the Moon.

Although the Moon does have an atmosphere, it’s very thin and composed mostly of hydrogen, neon, and argon. It’s not the sort of gaseous mixture that could sustain oxygen-dependent mammals such as humans.

That said, there is actually plenty of oxygen on the Moon. It just isn’t in a gaseous form. Instead, it’s trapped inside regolith — the layer of rock and fine dust that covers the Moon’s surface. If we could extract oxygen from regolith, would it be enough to support human life on the Moon?

THE BREADTH OF OXYGEN
Oxygen can be found in many of the minerals in the ground around us. And the Moon is mostly made of the same rocks you’ll find on Earth (although with a slightly greater amount of material that came from meteors).

Minerals such as silica, aluminium, and iron and magnesium oxides dominate the Moon’s landscape. All of these minerals contain oxygen, but not in a form our lungs can access.

On the Moon, these minerals exist in a few different forms including hard rock, dust, gravel, and stones covering the surface. This material has resulted from the impacts of meteorites crashing into the lunar surface over countless millennia.

Some people call the Moon’s surface layer lunar “soil”, but as a soil scientist, I’m hesitant to use this term. Soil as we know it is pretty magical stuff that only occurs on Earth. It has been created by a vast array of organisms working on the soil’s parent material — regolith, derived from hard rock — over millions of years.

The result is a matrix of minerals which were not present in the original rocks. Earth’s soil is imbued with remarkable physical, chemical, and biological characteristics. Meanwhile, the materials on the Moon’s surface is basically regolith in its original, untouched form.  READ MORE...