Berkeley CA (SPX) Apr 16, 2025
Imagine a Slushee composed of ammonia and water encased in a hard shell of water ice. Now picture these ice-encrusted slushballs, dubbed "mushballs," raining down like hailstones during a thunderstorm, illuminated by intense flashes of lightning. Planetary scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, now say that hailstorms of mushballs accompanied by fierce lightning actually exi

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Apr 10, 2025
A new study led by the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) offers a compelling explanation for Mars' puzzling magnetic field distribution, revealing that the planet's ancient magnetism may have originated from a hemispheric field generated by a molten core. Mars once boasted a global magnetic field strong enough to protect its atmosphere, much like Earth's. Today, that shie

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Apr 10, 2025
NASA's Lucy spacecraft is preparing for a pivotal encounter on April 20, 2025, as it targets asteroid (52246) Donaldjohanson, a three-mile-wide object located in the main asteroid belt. This flyby, led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), will serve as a rehearsal ahead of Lucy's primary mission: investigating the Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter's orbit. These ancient Trojan ast

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Apr 16, 2025
Scientists have hypothesized since the 1960s that the Sun is a source of ingredients that form water on the Moon. When a stream of charged particles known as the solar wind smashes into the lunar surface, the idea goes, it triggers a chemical reaction that could make water molecules. Now, in the most realistic lab simulation of this process yet, NASA-led researchers have confirmed this pre

Boston MA (SPX) Apr 16, 2025
On board Intuitive Machines' Athena spacecraft, which made a moon landing on March 6, were cutting-edge MIT payloads: a depth-mapping camera and a mini-rover called "AstroAnt." Also on that craft were the words and voices of people from around the world speaking in dozens of languages. These were etched on a 2-inch silicon wafer computationally designed by Professor Craig Carter of the MIT Depar

Researchers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the magnetar SGR 0501+4516 was not born in a neighbouring supernova as previously thought. The birthplace of this object is now unknown, and SGR 0501+4516 is the likeliest candidate in our galaxy for a magnetar that was not born in a supernova. This discovery was made possible by Hubble’s sensitive instruments as well as highly accurate reference data from the European Space Agency's Gaia spacecraft.

An ESA-funded study that used satellite data to define biodiversity zones and shipping lanes in the Atlantic Ocean suggests it is possible to protect 30% of ocean habitats, with little impact on fishing and shipping.

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Meet Biomass – ESA’s next Earth Explorer mission to launch. Carrying the first P-band synthetic aperture radar in space, this new mission is set to deliver crucial information about the state of our forests and how they are changing, and to further our knowledge of the role forests play in the carbon cycle.

Sydney, Australia (SPX) Apr 14, 2025
In a landmark demonstration of material resilience, researchers at Tsinghua University's School of Materials Science and Engineering have confirmed that two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor materials can endure the extreme environment of space. The investigation, led by Professor Ruitao Lv, involved launching both 2D materials and field-effect transistors (FETs) into low Earth orbit aboard China's