Space News & Blog Articles

The US’s federally funded space program has been struggling of late. With the recent cancellation of the Mars Sample Return mission, and mass layoffs / resignations taking place at NASA, the general sense of a lack of morale at the agency is palpable, even from a distance. Jared Isaacman, the billionaire software entrepreneur and rocket enthusiast who was recently confirmed as NASA administrator during his second confirmation hearing, hopes to change that, and one of his priorities is pushing the Artemis missions for a permanent human presence on the Moon. However, at least one big technical hurdle remains before being able to do so - how to power a base during the two week long lunar night. A recent press release describes how NASA, and another branch of the federal government (the Department of Energy - DoE) hope to solve that problem - with a lunar-ready nuclear fission reactor.

We recently discussed the different types of worlds that the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is expected to find that might have noticeable biosignatures. However, no matter how good the instrumentation on board the observatory is, the data it collects will be useless if scientists don’t know how to interpret it. A paper explaining what data they need to collect before analyzing HWO data was authored by Niki Parenteau, a research biologist at NASA, and her co-authors, which is now available in pre-print on arXiv.

Supermassive Black Holes (SMBH), which reside at the center of many galaxies (ranging from dwarf to massive), are a true force of nature. Over time, dust and gas from their surroundings fall toward them, forming an accretion disk just outside the event horizon that is accelerated to near the speed of light (aka relativistic speed). This releases a tremendous amount of energy, temporarily making the core region outshine all the stars in the disk - what is known as an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN). Over time, this matter slowly accretes onto the black hole's face, also resulting in radiation across the spectrum.

The exact moment when life began on Earth may be forever hidden from us. But scientific research can explore the events leading up to that moment. Researchers have mad a lot of progress in finding the building blocks of life and in understanding how they formed.

Ever since humans learned that there are countless stars in the Universe with their own planetary systems, we have wondered if intelligent life exists beyond Earth. For more than 60 years, scientists have engaged in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), but all these attempts have yielded no definitive results. This has led scientists to question their methods and the possible indications of technological activity (aka. technosignatures) they should be looking for. In addition, they have come to consider expanding the search to include different forms of communication.

There are many reasons why Earth is habitable. One of them is that it's in a delicately balanced radiation struggle with the Sun and the larger cosmos. The Sun emits a powerful solar wind that would strip away the planet's atmosphere, except it's deflected by Earth's protective shield, the magnetosphere. Cosmic rays, dangerous high-energy particles that can damage living tissue, stream in from elsewhere in the cosmos, and they're likewise deflected by the magnetosphere.