Wurenlingen, Switzerland (SPX) Mar 28, 2023
For a long time it has been suspected that fullerene and its derivatives could form naturally in the universe. These are large carbon molecules shaped like a football, salad bowl or nanotube. An international team of researchers using the Swiss SLS synchrotron light source at PSI has shown how this reaction works. The results have just been published in the journal Nature Communications. "

Ithaca NY (SPX) Mar 28, 2023
An international team of astronomers has found the atmospheric compositions of giant planets out in the galaxy do not fit our own solar system trend. Using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the researchers discovered that the atmosphere of exoplanet HD149026b, a 'hot Jupiter' orbiting a star comparable to our sun, is super-abundant in the heavier elements carbon and oxygen - far ab

Boston MA (SPX) Mar 28, 2023
George Ricker built his first telescope when he was in third grade. Growing up in rural Florida, with its abundance of dark night skies, facilitated his natural propensity for stargazing. But it was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during his undergraduate days at the Institute that his fascination became a calling. "I was a physics major at MIT, but I took enough astronomy courses to decide that th

San Antonio TX (SPX) Mar 28, 2023
Southwest Research Institute recently delivered the Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) to Firefly Aerospace in Cedar Park, Texas, for integration into the Blue Ghost 1 lunar lander scheduled to arrive at the Moon in 2024. The sounder will determine the electrical conductivity of the interior of the Moon by measuring low-frequency electric and magnetic fields. "For more than 50 years, scie

Pasadena CA (JPL) Mar 24, 2023
Curiosity is ten and a half years into operating in Gale cater, a concept that before and even a few years after landing seemed to be an impossible dream. When we landed, my daughter - then 6 - asked me how long the rover would last. I remember telling her "By the time you get to high school, we'll be just about out of power to do much." I am pleased to report to you today how wrong I was,

Indianapolis IN (SPX) Mar 28, 2023
If you've ever seen a shooting star, you might have actually seen a meteor on its way to Earth. Those that land here are called meteorites and can be used to peek back in time, into the far corners of outer space or at the earliest building blocks of life. Today, scientists report some of the most detailed analyses yet of the organic material of two meteorites. They've identified tens of thousan

Cedar Park TX (SPX) Mar 28, 2023
Firefly Aerospace, Inc., an end-to-end space transportation company, recently completed risk reduction testing for critical Miranda engine components ahead of the first hot fire scheduled this summer. As a larger, scaled-up version of the company's Reaver engines, Miranda will power the Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV) Firefly is co-developing with Northrop Grumman. "We are making significant p

Christchurch, New Zealand (SPX) Mar 28, 2023
Insability is a key property that enables both swift iteration in development and unparalleled utility of the end product. Aside from being a key technology demonstrator, the Mk-II holds significant commercial promise as a suborbital vehicle, spanning a wide range of applications such as earth monitoring, microgravity research, disaster management, and in-situ atmospheric measurements - pr

Paris (AFP) March 27, 2023
Scientists said Monday they have discovered water inside tiny beads of glass scattered across the Moon, suggesting that one day it could be extracted and used by the "explorers of tomorrow". The Moon was long believed to be dry, but over the last few decades several missions have shown there is water both on the surface and trapped inside minerals. Mahesh Anand, a professor of planetary

Paris (AFP) March 27, 2023
The James Webb Space Telescope has measured the temperature of a rocky exoplanet for the first time, finding that a "cousin" of Earth most likely lacks an atmosphere, researchers said Monday. When the Trappist-1 system was discovered in 2017, astronomers were excited at the prospect that some of its seven rocky planets - which are roughly similar to Earth in size and mass - could be habita