Cosmic Mystery Solved and Stellar Missing Link Discovered

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Summary 

Today’s top story focuses on the Blue Ring Nebula, which researchers say is the phase of a star merger never seen before, providing the missing link for merger progression. Plus, stories on Mars, laboratory supernovae, Steve (no, really), JUICE, gravity waves, and Enceladus.

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Merging Stars Produce Glowing Blue Ring Nebula

• Caltech press release 
• NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory press release 
• Princeton University press release 
• Keck Observatory press release 
• “A Blue Ring Nebula from a Stellar Merger Several Thousand Years Old,” Hoadley, K., et al., 2020 November 18, Nature

Ancient zircon minerals from Mars reveal the elusive internal structure of the red planet

• University of Copenhagen press release (Eureka Alert)
• “The internal structure and geodynamics of Mars inferred from a 4.2-Gyr zircon record,” Maria M. Costa, et al., 2020 Nov. 16, PNAS

Arecibo Observatory’s 305-Meter Telescope to Be Decommissioned

• NSF press release 

Farming on Mars will be a lot harder than ‘The Martian’ made it seem

• Science News article 
• “Challenging the agricultural viability of martian regolith simulants,” A. Eichler, et al., 2021 Jan. 15, Icarus.

Aurora-Chasing Citizen Scientists Help Discover A New Feature of STEVE

• NASA press release 
• Science News article 
• “The Mysterious Green Streaks Below STEVE,” Joshua Semeter, et al., 2020 Oct. 1, AGU Advances.

On Thin Ice: Tiger Stripes on Enceladus

• Eos article 
• “The formation of Enceladus’ Tiger Stripe Fractures from eccentricity tides,” A.R. Rhoden, et al., 2020 Aug. 15, Earth and Planetary Science Letters

Gravity Waves Leave Ripples Across a Glowing Night Sky

• Eos article 
• “Mesospheric Gravity Wave Momentum Flux Associated With a Large Thunderstorm Complex,” Steven N. Smith, et al., 2020 Oct. 8, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres

Swedish Space Instrument Participates in the Search for Life Around Jupiter

• IRF press release 

Credits

Written by Pamela Gay and Beth Johnson
Hosted by Pamela Gay and Beth Johnson
Audio and Video Editing by Ally Pelphrey
Content Editing by Beth Johnson
Intro and Outro music by Kevin MacLeod, https://incompetech.com/music/