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Categories: Space: Exploration, Space: The Solar System

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The impact experiment conducted on the asteroid Ryugu by the Japanese Hayabusa2 mission which took place two years ago resulted in an unexpectedly large crater. With the use of simulations, a team has recently succeeded in gaining new insights from the experiment regarding the formation and development of asteroids.

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NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has revealed the once-hidden features of the protostar within the dark cloud L1527, providing insight into the beginnings of a new star. These blazing clouds within the Taurus star-forming region are only visible in infrared light, making it an ideal target for Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam).

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Carbon fiber-reinforced ultra-high-temperature ceramic (UHTC) matrix composites are extensively used in space shuttles and high-speed vehicles. However, these composites suffer from a lack of oxidation resistance. Recently, researchers tested the heat resistance of these composites at very high temperatures, providing insight into the modifications needed to prevent UHTC degradation. Their findings could have huge implications for the manufacture of space shuttle orbiters.

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When Mars was a young planet, it was bombarded by icy asteroids that delivered water and organic chemistry necessary for life to emerge. According to the professor behind a new study, this means that the first life in our solar system may have been on Mars.

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For millennia, caves have served as shelters for prehistoric humans. Caves have also intrigued scholars from early Chinese naturalists to Charles Darwin. A cave ecologist has been in and out of these subterranean ecosystems, examining the unique life forms -- and unique living conditions -- that exist in Earth's many caves. But what does that suggest about caves on other planetary bodies? In two connected studies, engineers, astrophysicists, astrobiologists and astronauts lay out the research that needs to be done to get us closer to answering the old-age question about life beyond Earth.

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Following a successful launch of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket in the world, the agency's Orion spacecraft is on its way to the Moon as part of the Artemis program. Carrying an uncrewed Orion, SLS lifted off for its flight test debut at 1:47 a.m. EST Wednesday from Launch Pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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Through extensive model calculations, physicistshave reached general conclusions about the internal structure of neutron stars, where matter reaches enormous densities: depending on their mass, the stars can have a core that is either very stiff or very soft.

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It is still a glimpse into the future: Astronauts could be put into artificial hibernation and in this state be better protected from cosmic radiation. At present, there are already promising approaches to follow up such considerations. An international research team now has found decisive indications of the possible benefits of artificial hibernation for radiation resistance.

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A team of astronomers have found that planet formation in our young Solar System started much earlier than previously thought, with the building blocks of planets growing at the same time as their parent star.

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The Subaru Telescope successfully demonstrated engineering first light with a new instrument that will use about 2400 fiberoptic cables to capture the light from heavenly objects. Full operation is scheduled to start around 2024. The ability to observe thousands of objects simultaneously will provide unprecedented amounts of data to fuel Big Data Astronomy in the coming decade.

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Space missions already use electric propulsion devices, where electromagnetic fields are utilized to generate the thrust of spacecraft. One such electrodeless device, which harnesses radio frequency (rf) to generate plasma and a magnetic nozzle (MN) to channel and accelerate plasma, has shown immense promise in pushing the boundaries of space travel. But scientists have so far failed to achieve efficient conversion of the rf power to thrust energy. Now, a researcher has achieved a stunning 30% conversion efficiency.

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Three different moments in a far-off supernova explosion were captured in a single snapshot by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The star exploded more than 11 billion years ago, when the universe was less than a fifth of its current age of 13.8 billion years.

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A supernova is a stellar explosion, which occurs when the lives of some really massive stars come to an end. In this violent epilogue, the star expels the material from its outer layers by means of a shock wave, allowing us to see the various elements it was composed of.

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For the first time in its eight years orbiting Mars, NASA's MAVEN mission witnessed two different types of ultraviolet aurorae simultaneously, the result of solar storms that began on Aug. 27.

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As low Earth orbit becomes more cluttered, it becomes increasingly necessary to use middle Earth orbits, and radiation-tolerant cell designs will be needed. Making photovoltaics thinner should increase their longevity because the charge carriers have less far to go during their shortened lifetimes. Scientists propose a radiation-tolerant photovoltaic cell design that features an ultrathin layer of light-absorbing material. Compared to thicker cells, nearly 3.5 times less cover glass is needed for the ultra-thin cells to deliver the same amount of power after 20 years of operation.

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The earliest morphological traces of life on Earth are often highly controversial, both because non-biological processes can produce relatively similar structures and because such fossils have often been subjected to advanced alteration and metamorphism. Stromatolites, layered organo-sedimentary structures reflecting complex interplays between microbial communities and their environment, have long been considered key macrofossils for life detection in ancient sedimentary rocks; however, the biological origin of ancient stromatolites has frequently been criticized.

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Astronomers have identified the oldest star in our galaxy that is accreting debris from orbiting planetesimals, making it one of the oldest rocky and icy planetary systems discovered in the Milky Way.

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Astronomers have discovered the closest-known black hole to Earth. This is the first unambiguous detection of a dormant stellar-mass black hole in the Milky Way. Its close proximity to Earth, a mere 1600 light-years away, offers an intriguing target of study to advance our understanding of the evolution of binary systems.

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A new study finds the original crust on Mars is more complex, and evolved, than previously thought. Researchers have determined the Martian crust has greater concentrations of the chemical element silicon, which may mean Mars' original surface may have been similar to Earth's first crust.

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On September 26, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft crashed into Dimorphos, a moonlet of the near-Earth asteroid Didymos, at 14,000 miles per hour. Prior to the impact, engineers and scientists performed an experiment to study the cratering process that produces the mass of ejected materials and measures the subsequent momentum enhancement of the impact.