The Hayabusa2 sample return capsule returning to Earth. The bright streak in the sky is the capsule, shock heated as it enters the Earth's atmosphere. The bright lights on the ground are buildings. (JAXA) In the early hours of December 6, 2020, what appeared to be a shooting star blazed across the sky above the …
More On The Very Hot Science of Stellar Flares and Their Implications For Habitability
Among the many scientific fields born, or reborn, by the rise of astrobiology and its search for life beyond Earth is the study of stars, including our own Sun. Now that we know that planets -- from the large and gaseous to the small and rocky -- are common in our galaxy and number in …
“Tantalizing” Carbon Signals From Mars
The rugged and parched expanses of Western Australia are where many of the oldest signs of ancient life on Earth have been found, embedded in the sedimentary rocks that have been undisturbed there for eons. One particularly significant finding from the Tumbiana Formation contained a substantial and telltale excess of the carbon-12 isotope compared with …
A Huge Watery Reservoir May Lie Beneath the Surface of The “Grand Canyon” of Mars
That early Mars was much wetter and warmer than it is today has been well established by numerous missions. Water ice is visible at the poles and many fossil rivers have been found in the southern highlands of Mars. The Curiosity rover found as well that the large crater where it landed -- Gale Crater …
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What The James Webb Space Telescope Can Do For Exoplanet Science and What It Cannot Do
When the James Webb Space Telescope finally launches (late this month, if the schedule holds) it will forever change astronomy. Assuming that its complex, month-long deployment in space works as planned, it will become the most powerful and far-seeing observatory in the sky. It will have unprecedented capabilities to probe the earliest days of the …
Touching the Sun
The Parker Solar Probe is the stuff of superlatives and marvels. Later this week, it will pass but 5.3 million miles from the sun -- much closer than Mercury or any other spacecraft have ever come -- and it will be traveling at a top speed of 101 miles per second, the fastest human-made object …
Metal Mini-Asteroids Detected Passing Near Earth, Offering Potentially Great Science and Maybe Future Mining
Metal asteroids offer something rare in the solar system -- the core of a planet without all the rock that normally surrounds it. Since it is impossible to directly examine a planetary or lunar core if the parent body remains intact, metal-rich asteroids where the upper mantle and crust layers have been lost to a …
Frigid Europa Holds a Huge and Maybe Habitable Ocean Beneath Its Thick Ice Covering. How is That Possible?
Jupiter's moon Europa is almost five times as far away from the sun as Earth is, with surface temperatures that don't rise above minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit. It's slightly smaller than our moon and orbits but 400,000 miles from the solar system's largest planet, which it takes but 3.5 Earth days to orbit. As a …
Sample Return from Mars Begins in Earnest
For the first time ever, a sample of pulverized rock from another planet has been drilled, collected and stored for eventual delivery to the highest-tech labs on Earth. Yes, a storehouse of rocks were collected on the moon by Apollo astronauts and delivered to Houston, and some small samples of two asteroids and one comet …
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The Many Ways The James Webb Space Telescope Could Fail
When a damaged Apollo 13 and its crew were careening to Earth, mission control director Gene Kranz famously told the assembled NASA team that "failure is not an option." Actually, the actor playing Kranz in the "Apollo 13" movie spoke those words, but by all accounts Kranz and his team lived that phrase, with a …
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Many Worlds 