Change'e 5 landing site overview. Credit: Chinese National Space Agency's (CNSA) Lunar Exploration and Space Engineering Center On Dec 1, 2020, China landed the Chang’e 5 mission on the near side of the moon. Three days later, that little lander lifted back off with about 1.7 kg lunar rocks and soil. On Dec 16 this mission would successfully return to Earth and analysis would begin. In this sample, researchers found tiny glass beads produced in Lunar Volcanoes. Analysis of their chemical composition indicates these beads were formed as recently as 120 million years ago. It is unclear...
Stellar Winds Spotted on Three Sun-like Stars
Infrared image of the shockwave (red arc) created by the massive giant star Zeta Ophiuchi in an interstellar dust cloud. The tenuous winds of sun-like main-sequence stars are much more difficult to observe. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech; NASA and The Hubble Heritage Team...
Massive Object Detected Via Gravitational Puppetry
A screenshot from a visualization of the orbit of the Gaia BH3 system as a whole through the Milky Way. Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC- CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO. Acknowledgments: Stefan Jordan with Gaia Sky. The universe we see doesn’t always reflect the universe that is out there....
Stars are Messy Cannibals
This image, taken with the VLT Survey Telescope hosted at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, shows the beautiful nebula NGC 6164/6165, also known as the Dragon’s Egg. The nebula is a cloud of gas and dust surrounding a pair of stars called HD 148937. Credit: ESO/VPHAS+ team....
The Dying Sun will Take Out the Earth
Clumps of debris from a disrupted planetesimal are irregularly spaced on a long and eccentric orbit around the white dwarf. Individual clouds of rubble intermittently pass in front of the white dwarf, blocking some of its light. Because of the various sizes of the...
When the Sun Zots the Trees That’s a Scary Storm, Eh?
Our planet is constantly changing under the forces of humans, geology, and even the Sun. And while we can see what humans do daily and what geology does through quakes and eruptions almost weekly, catching the Sun being its bad self is a lot harder because it’s a lot...
Unexpectedly on the Endangered List: Antarctic Meteorites
Solar radiation heating the surface of a blue ice area. Photo taken during the 2023-2024 fieldwork mission of the Instituto Antártico Chileno (INACH) to Union Glacier, Ellsworth Mountains, Antarctica. Credit: Veronica Tollenaar, Université Libre de Bruxelles. As...
Invasive Species Boldly Go Where No Plant has Gone Before
Nordenskjöld glacier viewed from where its ice front was located in 2017. Credit: Dr Pierre Tichit Global travel and trade are making it easier and easier for invasive species to make their way to new parts of the world, including places where little to no life was...
Watching Atoms Escape Venus
This image was processed from archived Mariner 10 data by JPL engineer Kevin M. Gill. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Atmospheres are what make a planet good or evil for life. One of the questions I get asked most often is, “Can we terraform Venus to be like Earth?” Sure!...
Catch the (Alien) Rainbow
Each glory is unique, depending on the composition of the planet’s atmosphere and the colors of the light from the star that illuminates it. WASP-76 (the «Sun» of WASP-76b) is a yellow and white main sequence star like our Sun, but different stars create glories with...
Dear Future Self: Let’s Talk Climate Change
Credit: NOAA Recent research published in Science Advances and led by Madalina Vlascenu finds that when it comes to climate change, we can’t scare people straight. Stories of gloom and doom focused on the fate of our world don’t inspire people to change their ways and...