Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System after Mercury . In English, Mars carries a name of the Roman god of war , and is often referred to as the “Red Planet“ because the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance that is distinctive among …
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A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth’s atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller than a grain of sand, so almost …
The moon has always served as an inspiration for humanity, and there are many potential benefits for further exploration of our planet’s rocky satellite. But we need to establish guidelines to prevent unethical behavior on the moon, particularly regarding the use of natural resources and off-planet labor. How humans should interact with space and celestial objects is central …
Asteroid impacts have a bad reputation here on Earth — it’s the dinosaurs’ signature public relations victory — but it’s the moon that really bears the scars of living in our messy neighborhood. That’s because Earth has an arsenal of forces that slowly wear away the craters left behind by impacts. And that’s frustrating for scientists who …
A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth’s atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller than a grain of sand, so almost …
A whiff of ammonia in reddish ices on Pluto may be evidence of recent geological activity on the dwarf planet, with liquid water spewing out from Pluto’s depths like molten lava would on Earth, a new study finds.
These findings suggest that Pluto may harbor at least some features favorable to the evolution of life, researchers said.
Scientists analyzed data that NASA’s New Horizons probe gathered during its flyby of the dwarf planet in 2015. In this data, they found evidence of ammonia on Pluto’s surface in areas that previous research suggested had experienced tectonic activity.
“In recent years, ammonia has been a bit like the ‘holy grail’ of planetary science,” study lead author Cristina Dalle Ore, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, told Space.com. One reason for this is that ammonia is a key ingredient in chemical reactions underlying life as we know it, “and therefore, when found, it flags [the presence of] an environment that is conducive to life. This does not mean that life is present — and we have not yet found it — but it indicates a place where we should look.”
Ammonia “is a fragile molecule and gets destroyed by ultraviolet irradiation as well as cosmic rays,” Dalle Ore said. “Therefore, when found on a surface, it implies that it had been emplaced there relatively recently, some million years before [being found].”
A skyrmion can be described as a swirling quasi-particle, a knot of twisting field lines, or a subatomic hurricane. They’re also one of the most difficult physics concepts for humans to understand. That’s because these nano-size disturbances are easiest to describe mathematically and, despite being known about for nearly 60 years, physicists have only recently started to find practical applications for skyrmions.
Skyrmions are named for British nuclear physicist Tony Skyrme, who first proposed their existence in 1961. His idea was to model subatomic entities like protons and neutrons using convoluted twists in the quantum field that all particles possess, according to the American Physical Society. While the concept was useful in many ways, such as accurately predicting some of the properties of fundamental particles like quarks and gluons, it struggled with other aspects of nuclear behavior.
The idea was eventually superseded by a theory known as quantum chromo-dynamics, which was more successful at modeling subatomic particles. But skyrmions have been revived by researchers working on magnetic fields, which can also be coaxed into forming vortex-like swirls.
Because skyrmions are so small and stable, physicists are interested in controlling these particle-like entities for use in futuristic computers and electronic memory storage, according to Physics Today. Initially, researchers could only induce magnetic skyrmions in materials that had been cooled to very cold temperatures, but they are now routinely produced in room-temperature objects.
Since it takes relatively little power to maintain and electronically access data stored in magnetic skyrmions, engineers think these particles could make for very efficient memory-storage devices. An emerging field called skyrmionics is now dedicated to creating such next-generation appliances.
How can we bring a sample of Mars safely back to Earth? With scientists worldwide curious about the Red Planet’s potential for life, NASA and the European Space Agency are working on a future “sample-return” mission to safely study Mars materials. One possible location for sample hunting could be a Martian spot called Jezero Crater, the …
NASA’s Apollo 11 mission comes to life in 19,000 hours of newly available audio.
Over the eight-day, 3-hour Apollo 11 mission, astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins stayed in constant communication with mission control and supporting teams. The back-and-forth conversations, which took place over what are called communication “loops,” were released to the media, because NASA is required to make its work public. But these fragile physical recordings had to be stored in special, climate-controlled vaults.
Now, thanks to a dedicated collaborative effort between NASA and the University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas), all 19,000 hours of audio recordings from the Apollo 11 mission have been converted into a digital format and are available online. [How the Apollo 11 Moon Landing Worked (Infographic)]
NASA collection: https://go.nasa.gov/2yFz8zN
