Science

The JWST has found an exoplanet unlike any other. This unique world has an atmosphere almost entirely composed of water vapour. Astronomers have theorized about these types of planets, but this is the first observational confirmation. The unique planet is GJ 9827 d . It’s about twice as large as Earth and three times as massive, and it orbits a K-type star about 100 light years away. The Kepler Space Telescope first discovered it during its K2 extension . In 2023, astronomers studied it with the Hubble Space Telescope. They detected hints of water vapour and described it as an ocean world. “This is the first time we’re ever seeing something like this.” Eshan Raul, University of Wisconsin – Madison However, the JWST results show that the atmosphere is almost completely comprised of water vapour. The results are in new research published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters titled “ JWST/NIRISS Reveals the Water-rich “Steam World” Atmosphere of GJ 9827 d. ” The lead author is Ca...

Most of the diverse elements in the Universe come from supernovae. We are, quite literally, made of the dust of those long-dead stars and other astrophysical processes. But the details of how it all comes about are something astronomers strive to understand. How do the various isotopes produced by supernovae drive the evolution of planetary systems? Of the various types of supernovae, which play the largest role in creating the elemental abundances we see today? One way astronomers can study these questions is to look at presolar grains. These are dust grains formed long before the formation of the Sun. Some of them were cast out of older systems as a star fired up its nuclear furnace and cleared its system of dust. Others formed from the remnants of supernovae and stellar collisions. Regardless of its origin, each presolar grain has a unique isotopic fingerprint that tells us its story. For decades, we could only study presolar grains found in meteorites, but missions such as Stardu...

The weathered UC Davis Marine Laboratory looms in thick fog on the edge of the ocean near Bodega Bay. Inside, an experiment is playing out that gives a badly-needed boost to Northern California’s kelp forests—underwater cathedrals of green and gold that nearly vanished from the north coast a decade ago. In early October, marine biologist Julieta Gomez rolled up her sleeve, reached into a jug of tumbling salt water, and pulled out a spool of twine. On it grew dozens of bull kelp starts, each little more than a brown speck. Their destination: the ocean. When Gomez attached twine like this to the seabed this summer, more than 100 juvenile kelp stipes appeared within the month and began reaching for the surface. “They’re looking amazing,” she said. Thanks to Gomez and her team, kelp is rebounding for the first time in a decade along the Sonoma coast, if even on a small scale. Their research is also providing insights that may be used to protect Central California’s kelp forests south of...

In the summer of ’69, Apollo 11 delivered humans to the surface of the Moon for the first time. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent just over two hours exploring the area near their landing site on foot. Only during Apollo 15, 16, and 17 did astronauts have a vehicle to move around in. Artemis astronauts on the Moon will have access to a vehicle right away, and NASA is starting to test a prototype. Momentum is building behind NASA’s Artemis program despite some setbacks. Artemis astronauts will explore the Moon far more thoroughly than the Apollo astronauts did, and technology is behind the improvement. Surface mobility is a key piece of Artemis. In April of 2024, NASA selected three vendors as part of their Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services contract. NASA engineers at the Johnson Space Center are designing an unpressurized rover prototype known as the Ground Test Unit. It’s a human-rated, unpressurized LTV (Lunar Terrain Vehicle). The unit is being designed and built as a platfor...

In June 2018, Japan’s Hayabusa 2 mission reached asteroid 162173 Ryugu. It studied the asteroid for about 15 months, deploying small rovers and a lander, before gathering a sample and returning it to Earth in December 2020. The Ryugu sample contains some of the Solar System’s most ancient, primitive, and unaltered material, opening a window into its earliest days about 4.6 billion years ago. The Ryugu sample is small, only about 5.4 grams (0.19 oz). However, scientific instruments that examine the sample’s chemical characteristics don’t need a large sample. In new research, scientists examined tiny fragments of Ryugu using the Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Photon Source (APS). The APS is a particle accelerator that accelerates photons to nearly the speed of light. These photons release X-rays that are used in a wide variety of scientific endeavours. (The APS was even involved in developing COVID-19 vaccines.) In this research, the APS X-rays were used in a special techniq...

Neutron stars are as dense as the nucleus of an atom. They contain a star’s worth of matter in a sphere only a dozen kilometers wide. And they are light-years away. So how can we possibly understand their interior structure? One way would be to simply spin it. Just spin it faster and faster until it reaches a maximum limit. That limit can tell us about how neutron stars hold together and even how they might form. Obviously, we can’t actually spin up a neutron star, but it can happen naturally, which is one of the reasons astronomers are interested in these maximally spinning stars. And recently a team has discovered a new one. All neutron stars rotate on their axes. They form from the collapse of a massive star’s core, and just as an ice skater spins faster as they pull in their arms, a neutron star spins up as it forms. Young neutron stars can rotate hundreds of times a second, though they generally slow down as they age. Interactions between their magnetic fields and interstellar s...

The Solar System’s hundreds of moons are like puzzle pieces. Together, they make a picture of all the forces that can create and modify them and the forces that shape our Solar System. One of them is Miranda, one of 28 known moons that orbit the ice giant Uranus. Miranda is its smallest major moon, at 471 km in diameter. New research shows that this relatively small, distant moon may be hiding something: a subsurface ocean. Miranda stands out from the other moons for one reason: its surface is a bizarre patchwork of jumbled terrain. There are cratered areas, rough scarps, and grooved regions. It may have the tallest cliff in the Solar System, a 20 km drop named Verona Rupes. Many researchers think its surface is deformed by tidal heating from gravitational interactions with some of the Uranus’ other moons. New research in The Planetary Journal set out to explain Miranda’s jumbled geology. It’s titled “ Constraining Ocean and Ice Shell Thickness on Miranda from Surface Geological St...

Saturn’s moon, Titan, is an anomaly among moons. No other moons have surface liquids, and aside from Earth, it’s the only other Solar System object with liquids on its surface. However, since Titan is so cold, the liquids are hydrocarbons, not water. Titan’s water is all frozen into a surface layer of ice. New research suggests that under the surface, Titan is hiding another anomaly: a thick crust of methane. The evidence for the methane comes mostly from craters. Observations have found few confirmed impact craters on the frigid moon, and the ones that have been observed are hundreds of meters shallower than the same-sized craters on other moons. If Titan’s crust was rock, the craters should be much deeper. The new research , published in The Planetary Science Journal, is titled “ Rapid Impact Crater Relaxation Caused by an Insulating Methane Clathrate Crust on Titan. ” Lauren Schurmeier, from the Hawai’i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at the University of Hawai’i at Mano...

In 1181, Japanese and Chinese astronomers saw a bright light appear in the constellation Cassiopeia. It shone for six months, and those ancient observers couldn’t have known it was an exploding star. To them, it looked like some type of temporary star that shone for 185 days. In the modern astronomical age, we’ve learned a lot more about the object. It was a supernova called SN 1181 AD , and we know that it left behind a remnant “zombie” star. New research examines the supernova’s aftermath and the strange filaments of gas it left behind. Though it was seen almost 850 years ago, only modern astronomers have been able to explain SN 1181. For a long time, it was an orphan. While astronomers were able to identify the modern remnants of many other historical supernovae , SN 1181 was stubborn. Finally, in 2013, amateur astronomer Dana Patchick discovered a nebula with a central star and named it Pa 30. Research in 2021 showed that Pa 30 is the remnant of SN 1181. The SN exploded when two...