TYB
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
September 13, 2025
Star Trails over One-Mile Radio Telescope
The steerable 60 foot diameter dish antenna of the One-Mile Telescope at Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, Cambridge, UK, is pointing skyward in this evocative night-skyscape. To capture the dramatic scene, consecutive 30 second exposures were recorded over a period of 90 minutes. Combined, the exposures reveal a background of gracefully arcing star trails that reflect planet Earth's daily rotation on its axis. The North Celestial Pole, the extension of Earth's axis of rotation into space, points near Polaris, the North Star. That's the bright star that creates the short trail near the center of the concentric arcs. But the historic One-Mile Telescope array also relied on planet Earth's rotation to operate. Exploring the universe at radio wavelengths, it was the first radio telescope to use Earth-rotation aperture synthesis. That technique uses the rotation of the Earth to change the relative orientation of the telescope array and celestial radio sources to create radio maps of the sky at a resolution better than that of the human eye.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
NASA Curiosity Rover
Curiosity Blog, Sols 4649-4654: Ridges, Hollows and Nodules, Oh My
Sep 12, 2025
Earth planning date: Friday, Sept. 5, 2025
Curiosity is in the midst of the boxwork campaign, trying to decipher why we see such pronounced ridges and hollows in this area of Mount Sharp.
When this terrain was first identified from orbit it was hypothesized that the ridges may be the result of cementation by circulating fluids, followed by differential erosion of the less resistant bedrock in between (the hollows that we now observe).
We have been exploring the boxwork terrain documenting textures, structures and composition to investigate potential differences between ridges and hollows. One of the textural features we have observed are nodules in varying abundance.
The focus of our activities this week was to document the transition from smoother bedrock atop a boxwork ridge to more nodular bedrock associated with the edge of a shallow hollow.
In Tuesday’s three-sol plan we analyzed the smoother bedrock within the ridge, documenting textures with MAHLI, Mastcam, and ChemCam RMI, and chemistry with ChemCam LIBS and APXS.
Curiosity then successfully bumped towards the edge of the ridge/hollow to place the more nodular bedrock in our workspace. Friday’s three-sol plan was basically a repeat of the previous observations, but this time focused on the more nodular bedrock.
The planned drive should take us to another boxwork ridge, and closer to the area where we plan to drill into one of the ridges.
As the APXS strategic planner this week, I helped to select the rock targets for analysis by our instrument, ensuring they were safe to touch and that they met the science intent of the boxwork campaign.
I also communicated to the rest of the team the most recent results from our APXS compositional analyses and how they fit into our investigation of the boxwork terrain. This will help to inform our fast-approaching decision about where to drill.
Both plans included Mastcam and ChemCam long-distance RMI imaging of more distant features, including other boxwork ridges and hollows, buttes, the yardang unit, and Gale crater rim.
Planned environmental activities continue to monitor dust in the atmosphere, dust-devil activity, and clouds. Standard REMS, RAD, and DAN activities round out the week’s activities.
https://science.nasa.gov/blog/curiosity-blog-sols-4649-4654-ridges-hollows-and-nodules-oh-my/
Sol 4655: Right Navigation Camera, Cylindrical Projection
Sep 12, 2025
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took 31 images in Gale Crater using its mast-mounted Right Navigation Camera (Navcam) to create this mosaic.
The seam-corrected mosaic provides a 360-degree cylindrical projection panorama of the Martian surface centered at 138 degrees azimuth (measured clockwise from north).
Curiosity took the images on September 10, 2025, Sol 4655 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission at drive 2538, site number 118.
The local mean solar time for the image exposures was from 3 PM to 4 PM. Each Navcam image has a 45 degree field of view.
https://science.nasa.gov/resource/sol-4655-right-navigation-camera-cylindrical-projection-2/
Space Cargo Out for Delivery Days Before Next Resupply Mission Launches
September 12, 2025
One cargo spacecraft is orbiting Earth toward the International Space Station while another stands at its launch pad counting down to a lift off on Sunday to continue resupplying the Expedition 73 crew.
The orbital residents will be preparing for the dual cargo missions while keeping up cardiac and bone research over the weekend.
Three tons of food, fuel, and supplies are orbiting Earth today aboard the Roscosmos Progress 93 cargo craft following its launch on Thursday destined to arrive at the orbital outpost on Saturday.
It will perform a series of automated approach and rendezvous maneuvers before docking to the Zvezda service module’s aft port at 1:27 p.m. where it will stay for six months.
Station Commander Sergey Ryzhikov and Flight Engineer Alexey Zubritsky called down to Roscosmos mission controllers on Friday to discuss their readiness for Progress 93’s arrival.
The duo will be on duty Saturday monitoring the spacecraft as it nears the orbital outpost then will open Progress 93’s hatch on Sunday to begin unpacking the new gear.
NASA+ will begin its live docking beginning at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday.
The expanded Cygnus XL cargo craft from Northrop Grumman has been given the go from mission managers to launch atop a Space Falcon 9 rocket at 5:11 p.m. on Sunday from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Cygnus XL will deliver its largest load to date, over 11,000 pounds of new science and supplies, at 6:35 a.m. on Wednesday when the Canadarm2 robotic arm captures the spacecraft at a point about 10 meters away from the orbital outpost.
NASA Fight Engineers Jonny Kim and Zena Cardman will be on duty in the cupola at the controls of the robotics workstation tracking the spacecraft’s arrival.
Cardman took the first half of her shift off on Friday before spending the rest of the day inside the Columbus laboratory module swapping out space radiation monitor cables and inspecting research hardware supporting the DNA Stability food production experiment.
Kim spent his entire shift with NASA Flight Engineer Mike Fincke monitoring the effectiveness of a thigh cuff that may reverse the space-caused fluid shifts toward an astronaut’s head protecting the eyes.
Fincke led the investigation operating the biomedical gear measuring data collected from chest electrodes and Ultrasound 2 artery scans on Kim’s body while he wore the specialized cuff.
Kim and Cardman will also be treating bone stem cell samples on Sunday helping doctors understand microgravity’s effect on a crew member’s skeletal system.
Flight Engineer Kimiya Yui of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) spent a few moments photographing Kim and Fincke’s biomedical activities for review on the ground.
Yui also configured a research incubator in the Kibo laboratory module for the Dassai Moon experiment examining fermentation and the brewing process using sake yeast in space.
Yui later replaced a light bulb on a research rack then reviewed items to be returned to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft.
Roscosmos Flight Engineer Oleg Platonov familiarized himself with research operations for a space physics experiment that observes complex plasmas containing ions, electrons, neutral gas, and microparticles.
Results from the long-running investigation may lead to advanced spacecraft designs and improved industrial processes on Earth.
Platonov later pointed a camera out a space station window photographing glaciers in South America’s Patagonia region for a study monitoring the effects of natural and man-made conditions on Earth.
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2025/09/12/space-cargo-out-for-delivery-days-before-next-resupply-mission-launches/
https://www.nasa.gov/earth/natural-disasters/tsunamis/nasas-guardian-tsunami-detection-tech-catches-wave-in-real-time/
https://guardian.jpl.nasa.gov/
NASA’s GUARDIAN Tsunami Detection Tech Catches Wave in Real Time
Sep 12, 2025
A massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami off Russia in late July tested an experimental detection system that had deployed a critical component just the day before.
A recent tsunami triggered by a magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula sent pressure waves to the upper layer of the atmosphere, NASA scientists have reported.
While the tsunami did not wreak widespread damage, it was an early test for a detection system being developed at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
Called GUARDIAN (GNSS Upper Atmospheric Real-time Disaster Information and Alert Network), the experimental technology “functioned to its full extent,” said Camille Martire, one of its developers at JPL.
The system flagged distortions in the atmosphere and issued notifications to subscribed subject matter experts in as little as 20 minutes after the quake.
It confirmed signs of the approaching tsunami about 30 to 40 minutes before waves made landfall in Hawaii and sites across the Pacific on July 29 (local time).
“Those extra minutes of knowing something is coming could make a real difference when it comes to warning communities in the path,” said JPL scientist Siddharth Krishnamoorthy.
Near-real-time outputs from GUARDIAN must be interpreted by experts trained to identify the signs of tsunamis. But already it’s one of the fastest monitoring tools of its kind:
Within about 10 minutes of receiving data, it can produce a snapshot of a tsunami’s rumble reaching the upper atmosphere.
The goal of GUARDIAN is to augment existing early warning systems. A key question after a major undersea earthquake is whether a tsunami was generated.
Today, forecasters use seismic data as a proxy to predict if and where a tsunami could occur, and they rely on sea-based instruments to confirm that a tsunami is passing by.
Deep-ocean pressure sensors remain the gold standard when it comes to sizing up waves, but they are expensive and sparse in locations.
“NASA’s GUARDIAN can help fill the gaps,” said Christopher Moore, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Center for Tsunami Research.
“It provides one more piece of information, one more valuable data point, that can help us determine, yes, we need to make the call to evacuate.”
Moore noted that GUARDIAN adds a unique perspective: It’s able to sense sea surface motion from high above Earth, globally and in near-real-time.
Bill Fry, chair of the United Nations technical working group responsible for tsunami early warning in the Pacific, said GUARDIAN is part of a technological “paradigm shift.”
By directly observing ocean dynamics from space, “GUARDIAN is absolutely something that we in the early warning community are looking for to help underpin next generation forecasting.”
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How GUARDIAN works
GUARDIAN takes advantage of tsunami physics. During a tsunami, many square miles of the ocean surface can rise and fall nearly in unison.
This displaces a significant amount of air above it, sending low-frequency sound and gravity waves speeding upwards toward space.
The waves interact with the charged particles of the upper atmosphere — the ionosphere — where they slightly distort the radio signals coming down to scientific ground stations of GPS and other positioning and timing satellites.
These satellites are known collectively as the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS).
While GNSS processing methods on Earth correct for such distortions, GUARDIAN uses them as clues.
SWOT Satellite Measures Pacific Tsunami
The software scours a trove of data transmitted to more than 350 continuously operating GNSS ground stations around the world. It can potentially identify evidence of a tsunami up to about 745 miles (1,200 kilometers) from a given station.
In ideal situations, vulnerable coastal communities near a GNSS station could know when a tsunami was heading their way and authorities would have as much as 1 hour and 20 minutes to evacuate the low-lying areas, thereby saving countless lives and property.
Key to this effort is the network of GNSS stations around the world supported by NASA’s Space Geodesy Project and Global GNSS Network, as well as JPL’s Global Differential GPS network that transmits the data in real time.
The Kamchatka event offered a timely case study for GUARDIAN.
A day before the quake off Russia’s northeast coast, the team had deployed two new elements that were years in the making: an artificial intelligence to mine signals of interest and an accompanying prototype messaging system.
Both were put to the test when one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded spawned a tsunami traveling hundreds of miles per hour across the Pacific Ocean.
Having been trained to spot the kinds of atmospheric distortions caused by a tsunami, GUARDIAN flagged the signals for human review and notified subscribed subject matter experts.
Notably, tsunamis are most often caused by large undersea earthquakes, but not always. Volcanic eruptions, underwater landslides, and certain weather conditions in some geographic locations can all produce dangerous waves.
An advantage of GUARDIAN is that it doesn’t require information on what caused a tsunami; rather, it can detect that one was generated and then can alert the authorities to help minimize the loss of life and property.
While there’s no silver bullet to stop a tsunami from making landfall, “GUARDIAN has real potential to help by providing open access to this data,” said Adrienne Moseley, co-director of the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre.
“Tsunamis don’t respect national boundaries. We need to be able to share data around the whole region to be able to make assessments about the threat for all exposed coastlines.”
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NASA, War Department Partnership Tests Boundaries of Autonomous Drone Operations
Sep 12, 2025
Through an ongoing collaboration, NASA and the Department of War are working to advance the future of modern drones to support long distance cargo transportation that could increase efficiency, reduce human workload, and enhance safety.
Researchers from NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley recently participated in a live flight demonstration showcasing how drones can successfully fly without their operators being able to see them, a concept known as beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS).
Cargo drones, a type of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), carried various payloads more than 75 miles across North Dakota, between Grand Forks Air Force Base and Cavalier Space Force Station.
This demonstration was conducted as part of the War Department’s UAS Logistics, Traffic, Research, and Autonomy (ULTRA) effort.
NASA’s UAS Service Supplier (USS) technology helped to demonstrate that cargo drones could operate safely even in complex, shared airspace.
During the tests, flight data including location, altitude, and other critical data were transmitted live to the NASA system, ensuring full situational awareness throughout the demonstration.
The collaboration between NASA and the Department of War is known as the Federal USS Synthesis Effort (FUSE).
The demonstration allowed FUSE researchers to test real-time tracking, situational awareness, and other factors important to safely integrating of drone traffic management into U.S. national airspace.
The FUSE work marks an important step towards routine, scalable autonomous cargo drone operations and broader use for future military logistics.
“NASA and the Department of War have a long and storied partnership, collaborating with one another to contribute to continued advancement of shared American ideals,” said Todd Ericson, senior advisor to the NASA administrator.
“FUSE builds upon our interagency cooperation to contribute enhanced capabilities for drones flying beyond the visual line of sight.
This mission is the next big step toward true autonomous flight and will yield valuable insights that we can leverage as both the commercial drone, cargo and urban air taxi industries continue to expand and innovate.
As always, safety is of paramount importance at NASA, and we are working with our partners at the FAA and Department of Transportation to ensure we regulate this appropriately.”
Autonomous and semi-autonomous drones could potentially support a broad range of tasks for commercial, military, and private users.
They could transport critical medical supplies to remote locations, monitor wildfires from above, allow customers to receive deliveries directly in their backyards.
NASA is researching technology to further develop the infrastructure needed for these operations to take place safely and effectively, without disrupting the existing U.S. airspace.
“This system is crucial for enabling safe, routine BVLOS operations,” said Terrence Lewis, FUSE project manager at NASA Ames.
“It ensures all stakeholders can see and respond to drone activity, which provides the operator with greater situational awareness.”
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/ames/nasa-war-department-partnership-tests-boundaries-of-autonomous-drone-operations/
https://www.livescience.com/health/surgery/science-news-this-week-nasa-finds-best-evidence-of-life-on-mars-and-and-scientists-invent-visible-time-crystals
Science news this week: NASA finds best evidence of life on Mars and and scientists invent visible time crystals
Sept. 13, 2025
Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.
This week's science news has been out of this world, with NASA's announcement that speckled rocks found on Mars may be the clearest sign yet that life once existed on the Red Planet.
The rocks all contain flecks of leopard-like spots that, on Earth at least, are telltale signs of chemical reactions that microbes use for energy. This, alongside the presence of organic compounds and evidence of water once flowing through the rocks, has gotten scientists seriously excited.
But keep the Champagne corked, because it's still possible that the marks may have been left by inorganic processes, meaning we'll have to wait for the politically endangered Mars Sample Return mission before we know for sure.
This week also thankfully brought us more conclusive news from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO).
By detecting faint ripples in space-time released by the merger of two distant black holes, the detector finally confirmed a decades-old theory by Stephen Hawking that the cosmic monsters link general relativity to quantum mechanics.
Tying these two threads together into a theory of everything could be achieved with just one trip to a black hole.
But making that trip would require some serious cellular engineering — if news of human stem cells experiencing accelerated aging in space is anything to go by.
In the meantime, our planet has a close flyby by the asteroid Apophis and some strange-looking solar eruptions to get through.
LA's 'halo' barrel mystery begins to unravel
Scientists are finally learning what's inside mysterious 'halo' barrels submerged off Los Angeles
They appeared under the lights of deep-sea survey robots working off the coast of Los Angeles in 2020 — a graveyard of 27,000 barrels encircled by haloes of whitish, toxic sediment many at the time believed to be the banned pesticide DDT.
Yet the exact quantity of the barrels, who put them there, and what they may contain remain unknown to this day.
However, a new study has shed some light into the murky situation. Analyzing samples collected from five of the barrels, researchers found that they didn't contain DDT after all, but caustic alkaline waste capable of killing most of the marine life in the vicinity.
They also discovered the chemical reactions that form the haloes themselves, which they will use to identify the overall extent of the toxic spill.
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Life's Little Mysteries
Do humans and chimps really share nearly 99% of their DNA?
Humans and chimpanzees share nearly 99% of their genetic material: It's a frequently repeated truism about us and one of our closest-living relatives, but is it even true?
It turns out not really, and even the comparison itself obscures a deeper truth about how DNA makes humans and chimps in the first place.
Visible time crystals created
Scientists create first-ever visible time crystals using light — and they could one day appear on $100 bills
Only theorized in 2012, time crystals have been captivating us since they were first created in 2016. Since those early years, scientists have replicated the fascinating phenomenon in a variety of systems, but none of them can be seen directly.
That's now changed, with the announcement that scientists have made visible time crystals out of the liquid crystals typically found inside LCD screens.
These aren't just an intriguing demonstration of the bizarre quantum workings of time crystals, they could have practical applications too — possibly appearing on future high-denomination bills as anti-counterfeiting designs.
Science Long Read
Camera trap in Chile detects strange lights blazing through the wilderness. Researchers are scrambling to explain them.
Just past midnight, in the silence and dark of Chile's far South Patagonia region, a camera trap picked up something inexplicable: Across three photos, intense lights danced downward in front of the lens.
Could they have been a camera artifact, ball lightning, or even UFOs? Live Science reported on the hunt for answers.
Science in pictures
Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS could be turning bright green, surprising new photos reveal
New photos of the comet 3I/ATLAS captured during the recent "blood moon" total eclipse appeared to show a surprising development — the comet, an interloper from beyond our solar system, may be turning green.
The most common explanation for this strange change (and no, it's not little green men) is the presence of diatomic carbon in the comet's coma, its fuzzy, temporary atmosphere.
Yet with no diatomic carbon yet to be detected by spectroscopic observations, the jury is still out. Astronomers will need to take follow-up photos to confirm the effect and investigate its cause.
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NASA workers plan 3rd protest at D.C. headquarters on Sept. 15 to decry Trump's science funding cuts
September 12, 2025
NASA employees are once again taking to the streets to raise awareness about deep science cuts and layoffs at the space agency. A third "Save NASA" protest is set for Monday, Sept. 15, outside the agency's Washington, D.C. headquarters.
The demonstration is being organized by NASA Needs Help — a group formed by employees and supporters at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and endorsed by the Goddard Engineers, Scientists and Technicians Association (GESTA).
Monday's event is scheduled to take place between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. EDT (1200 to 1700 GMT), according to an event website. It will be the group's second protest outside NASA headquarters, and third this summer taking place in the nation's capital.
Organizers say they are fighting to preserve NASA's science programs and workforce in the face of what they view as pernicious preemptive compliance with President Trump's fiscal year 2026 (FY 26) budget request before Congress has finalized a funding bill.
Demonstrations by members of NASA's workforce began at Goddard in June, where job losses and potential mission shutdowns sparked employee and community pushback.
Dismissals earlier in the year by Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — formerly led by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — and at-risk notices sent out to contractors working on missions marked for cancellation in the President's budget request have stoked fears of uncertainty and stripped employees' sense of job security.
Organizers say the campaign has grown with each protest, shifting from local concerns in Maryland to a broader appeal for national visibility.
A parallel protest to NASA Needs Help's June 21 "Moon Day" demonstration was also held by workers at the agency's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.
The group argues that current cuts not only threaten ongoing missions, but also risk dismantling decades of expertise across NASA centers.
Departures of those who signed up for the government's deferred resignation program (DRP) are compounding fears from those sticking around that even if funding is restored, programs will have lost an irreparable amount of institutional knowledge.
This third protest also follows on the heels of an Aug. 28 executive order from President Trump that disbanded employee unions at NASA and other agencies under the justification of national security — a decision GESTA and other worker advocates warn removes employees' right to respond collectively during a time of mounting turbulence.
The White House's FY 26 budget request calls for a 24% reduction to NASA's overall funding, with a 47% cut to agency science programs and a total elimination of NASA's Office of STEM Engagement (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and its education initiatives.
And while the President's budget has yet to be signed into law, protest leaders point to layoffs already underway, active spacecraft marked for premature decommission and projects halted midstream as evidence that real damage is already underway.
Congress has until Sept. 30, the end of FY 25, to finalize NASA's funding. Many lawmakers have voiced repeated support for the space agency, and have amended the budget proposal to match NASA's FY 25 allocations, but those revisions have not been finalized, and it's not clear if, or when they will be.
Until lawmakers act, the President's proposed cuts remain just that — a proposal — but an effort by NASA leadership to align with the Administration's vision has already triggered layoffs and mission wind-downs.
And, if Congress doesn't finalize a funding bill by the end of the month, NASA will face a government shutdown that will see most employees furloughed and programs halted. Protesters say this looming deadline underscores the urgency of their campaign.
The Sept. 15 protest comes as Congress is still weighing the ultimate fate of the President's proposed cuts. Monday's demonstration outside NASA HQ is intended as a show of force to underscore the political cost of hollowing out NASA's science and education portfolio.
"Congress says they want to save NASA. Let's see them do it now," NASA contract worker and NASA Needs Help organizer Marshall Finch told Space.com at a past rally — a sentiment protesters plan to bring to NASA's front door once again.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/nasa-employees-plan-3rd-protest-at-d-c-headquarters-on-sept-15-to-denounce-trumps-science-funding-cuts
https://sites.google.com/view/nasaneedshelp/events
Is there life on Saturn's moon Enceladus? New study complicates the search
September 12, 2025
Enceladus, one of Saturn's small icy moons, spans just 300 miles (500 kilometers) — yet despite its modest size, it has become a star in the search for life beyond Earth.
From cracks near its south pole, the moon blasts towering geysers of water vapor, ice and organic molecules into space, which are tantalizing hints of a hidden ocean that could, in theory, be habitable.
But new research presented this week at a planetary science conference in Finland shows that many of the organic molecules detected in these plumes could also form right on the moon's surface, driven by relentless radiation from Saturn's magnetic field.
The results cast doubt on whether the plumes truly carry whispers of alien life, or merely echoes of lifeless chemistry on the frozen shell.
"Although this doesn't rule out the possibility that Enceladus' ocean may be habitable, it does mean we need to be cautious in making that assumption just because of the composition of the plumes," study lead Grace Richards of Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics said in a statement.
For their experiment, Richards and her colleagues recreated conditions on Enceladus in miniature inside a specialized laboratory in Hungary.
Using an ice chamber, the team froze mixtures of water, carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia to a bone-chilling –420 degrees Fahrenheit (-253 degrees Celsius), mimicking frigid conditions near the moon's surface.
The ices were then bombarded with high-energy "water-group ions," the same charged particles trapped around Saturn that constantly irradiate Enceladus.
To monitor the chemical changes induced by radiation, the researchers used infrared spectroscopy to observe the molecular "fingerprints," or spectra, of the ices.
As radiation interacted with the samples, the spectra shifted, signaling the formation of new molecules.
Each of the five experiments produced carbon monoxide, cyanate, and ammonium — compounds that were detected in Enceladus' plumes by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in 2005.
When the samples were gently warmed, more complex organics appeared, including carbamic acid, ammonium carbamate and potential amino acid precursors including methanol and ethanol, as well as molecules like acetylene, acetaldehyde and formamide, which are building blocks that could contribute to the chemistry of life.
"Although many of these products have not previously been detected on Enceladus' surface, some have been detected in Enceladus' plumes," Richards and her colleagues wrote in the paper.
This leads to "questions about whether plume material is formed within the radiation-rich space environment or whether it originates in the subsurface ocean."
Crucially, the timescales necessary for radiation to drive these chemical reactions are comparable to how long ice remains exposed on Enceladus' surface or in its plumes, so distinguishing ocean-sourced organics from surface-born ones may be difficult, the study notes.
"It is likely that the composition of the subsurface ocean may not be accurately reflected by the composition of the emergent plume, or by material deposited on the surface immediately adjacent to the plume," the paper reads.
For astrobiologists, the results are both sobering and exciting. On one hand, they complicate the story that organics in the plumes are definitive signs of a life-friendly ocean.
On the other, they highlight that rich, potentially life-relevant chemistry can thrive even in extreme, radiation-battered environments, thereby expanding the ways scientists think about where prebiotic molecules might form and why Enceladus remains a prime target for exploration.
NASA's Cassini mission, which ended in 2017 with a dramatic plunge into Saturn's atmosphere, gave humanity its first and only direct "taste" of Enceladus' geysers.
But instruments onboard the spacecraft weren't designed to distinguish between molecules forged in the moon's presumably deep ocean and those cooked up in the icy shell.
These answers could come in the coming decades with future missions.
One concept under consideration as part of the European Space Agency's Voyage 2050 program envisions a dedicated probe that could land on the surface and collect material ejected from the moon's hidden ocean.
NASA has also previously studied an "Orbilander" concept designed to sample Enceladus' plumes from orbit.
Meanwhile, China is exploring a multi-part mission architecture that would include an orbiter, a lander and a deep-drilling robot that would attempt to reach the subsurface ocean to search for potential biosignatures.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/search-for-life/is-there-life-on-saturns-moon-enceladus-new-study-complicates-the-search
https://www.europlanet.org/epsc-dps2025-study-questions-ocean-origin-of-organics-in-enceladuss-plumes/
The tachocline mystery: New models explain how Sun keeps its magnetic fields alive
Updated: Sep 13, 2025 07:22 AM EST
Deep beneath the surface of the sun lies a razor-thin transition zone called the tachocline. Despite being only a sliver in size, the tachocline is believed to be the engine room of the un’s magnetic activity.
This boundary divides the sun’s interior into two parts. An inner radiative zone (makes up 70 percent of the Sun by radius), where energy flows smoothly and the whole region spins together like a solid ball, and the outer convective zone (the remaining 30 percent), where hot gases swirl chaotically and spin at different speeds depending on location.
The tachocline is where the seeds of solar flares and coronal mass ejections are thought to form.
For decades, scientists have known about it, but could not explain why this boundary is so astonishingly thin or how it stays stable.
Now, researchers from the University of California (UC), Santa Cruz have managed to model this elusive layer in a way that finally makes sense.
Decoding tachocline’s stability
The tachocline was first revealed in the 1980s through helioseismology, a method that uses ripples inside the sun, much like seismologists use earthquakes to probe Earth’s interior.
However, translating that discovery into a working physical model proved nearly impossible. The difficulty comes from the nature of the sun itself.
A turbulent plasma sphere with processes that span scales from just 10 meters all the way to a million kilometers, and timescales from seconds to millions of years.
Past attempts at modeling could not capture all these extremes at once, and so the tachocline stubbornly refused to appear in simulations.
This is where the new study comes into play. The authors overcome the modeling challenge by attempting what they call “hero” calculations.
Using NASA’s Pleiades supercomputer, they spent tens of millions of computing hours over 15 months running simulations large enough and detailed enough to capture the tachocline in a more realistic way.
Previous efforts had given too much importance to viscosity, the sticky property of fluids that resists flow. However, according to the researchers, in reality, viscosity plays a negligible role in the sun’s interior.
Instead, they emphasized radiative spreading, the natural tendency of the radiative zone’s energy transport to broaden the tachocline over time.
To their surprise, when the model was allowed to run under these conditions, a tachocline emerged on its own.
Even more revealing, the simulations showed that the magnetic fields produced in the convective zone actually help keep the tachocline narrow, not just the other way around.
In other words, the dynamo (the natural process through which the sun produces its magnetic field) that was thought to depend on the tachocline also appears to create and maintain it, a feedback loop that earlier models had missed.
“There’s a synergy here because the tachocline is believed to play a fundamental role in causing the dynamo process.
It now seems that the reverse may also be true, in the sense that the magnetic field from the dynamo may cause the tachocline to exist in the first place,” Loren Matilsky, lead study author and a postdoc researcher, notes.
A finding that goes beyond the Sun
Predicting violent solar storms is critical for protecting modern technology, from satellites to global power grids. By reproducing the tachocline, scientists now have a foundation for more reliable forecasts of solar activity.
Beyond Earth, the findings could also guide studies of other stars, since stellar magnetism plays a key role in shaping planetary systems and even in determining whether planets might support life.
“We’re learning a lot about our sun’s dynamics, and in the process, I think we’re also learning about how this works on other stars. The questions of the tachocline become all the more important in light of other stellar systems and exoplanets,” Matilsky said.
However, even with NASA’s second most powerful supercomputer, the simulations cannot yet capture every detail of the sun’s turbulent layers. So the UC Santa Cruz team aims to refine their models further and apply them to other stars.
https://interestingengineering.com/space/sun-tachocline-mystery-unlocked-nasa-supercomputer
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adefe3
>It's interesting how all these earthquakes are so close to the submarine base.
Wonder what else they're making down there?
JWST finds planet with all-carbon atmosphere orbiting 'black widow' star
September 13, 2025
Science advances through data that don't fit our current understanding. At least that was Thomas Kuhn's theory in his famous On the Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
So scientists should welcome new data that challenges their understanding of how the universe works. A recent paper, available in pre-print on arXiv, using data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) might just had found some data that can do that.
It looked at an exoplanet around a millisecond pulsar and found its atmosphere is made up of almost entirely pure carbon.
This type of pulsar, PSR J2322-2650, is known as a "black widow" system, as it powers its high energy outbursts by stealing material from a neighboring star.
In this case, that neighboring star has likely been degraded to a "hot Jupiter" companion planet that orbits its parent neutron star every 7.8 hours.
A typical "black widow" formation process has two steps - one where the neutron star (which in this case is also a pulsar) steals the material, and a second step where it blasts its companion with high energy gamma radiation, ripping off most of the companion star's outer layers and resulting in a Jupiter-sized exoplanet composed mainly of helium.
The exoplanet around PSR J2322-2650, known as PSR J2322-2650b, does fit the description of a Jupiter-sized planet that seems to have the same density as what would be expected if it was made up primarily of helium.
However, its atmosphere is unlike any other black widow companion ever seen. According to the spectrographic reports from JWST, its atmosphere is composed mainly of elemental carbon, taking the form of tricarbon (C3) or dicarbon (C2).
Usually those types of elements are found in the tails of comets, or in actual flames here on Earth. Their presence in a planet's atmosphere, especially in such abundant quantities, is new to science.
Another interesting thing about the planet's atmosphere is the difference between the day and night side.
On the dayside, which is always facing the pulsar since the planet is tidally locked, temperatures can reach above 2000 C and there are very clear chemical signatures.
However, on the night side, there were almost no features at all, suggesting that side of the planet is covered in soot or something similar that doesn't have any distinct features.
To further prove how strange this planet's atmosphere is, the researchers calculated the ratios between carbon and oxygen as well as carbon and nitrogen.
The C/O ratio was over 100, while the C/N ratio was over 10,000. In comparison, the Earth has a C/O ratio of .01 and a C/N ratio of 40. Obviously, there's a lot of carbon on this planet.
And that doesn't fit well with models of how scientists thought the planet should form. As part of the "black widow" process, the outer layers of the planet should have been either siphoned up by the companion star or burned away by that star's radiation.
The fact that such a rich carbon atmosphere still exists remains a mystery. There are processes that can create such an atmosphere, such as a white-dwarf merger between who "carbon stars", but even that falls short of explaining how the planet's C/O ratio got so high.
Other aspects of the planet align with general theory though. Circulation models predict that rapidly rotating planets, like PSR J2322-2650b, would have strong westerly winds, which is different from the typical easterly winds on other tidally locked hot Jupiters.
The JWST data show that the hottest part of the planet is about 12 degrees west of center, providing the first ever observational evidence of this western wind phenomena.
In other words, PSR J2322-2650b is contradictory. It's the right size and shape for a typical black widow pulsar system. Its window circulation also fits well with our best models.
But its atmosphere is something else entirely, and scientists will have to go back to the theory to try to find a way to make it make sense with the new data.
While they're busy doing that, JWST will continue scanning the sky for more anomalies that could drive the next scientific revolution.
https://www.livescience.com/space/exoplanets/jwst-finds-planet-with-all-carbon-atmosphere-orbiting-black-widow-star
Scientists track down fresh boulder falls on the moon
September 13, 2025
As a boulder rolls down a cliff slope on the moon, it kicks up lunar dust, leaving behind a telltale herringbone pattern of ejecta.
In a recent study, for the first time, scientists geolocated and dated evidence of such boulder falls. They identified 245 fresh tracks created as boulders rolled, bounced, and slid down crater walls.
"For a long time, there was this belief that the moon is geologically dead.…
Our study shows that boulders with sizes ranging [from] tens to hundreds of meters and [with] weights in tons have moved from their places over time," said Sivaprahasam Vijayan, the study’s lead author and an associate professor at the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, India.
"It is equally important to know how recent these boulder fall events are to understand the time periods when the geological agents were active."
Tracking boulder falls
As lunar boulders bounce, they scoop up bright, unweathered subsurface material and bring it to the surface. As a result, fresh boulder fall tracks appear brighter than older ones.
"One can identify a boulder fall to be a recent one considering the boulder fall ejecta," said Senthil Kumar Perumal, principal scientist with the Planetary Sciences Group at the National Geophysical Research Institute in Hyderabad, India, who was not involved in the new study.
To identify relatively recent boulder tracks, Vijayan and his colleagues first manually searched thousands of images of the lunar surface between 40°S and 40°N.
At these latitudes, the sun makes the bright boulder tracks distinguishable from the rest of the lunar surface.
Once they identified a track, the researchers studied corresponding images taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Narrow Angle Camera between 2009 and 2022.
Next, scientists estimated the age of the tracks by studying regions with both boulder fall ejecta (BFE) and distinct impact ejecta blankets.
(Such blankets, nicknamed the "lunar equivalent of fossils," have long been used to estimate the age of impact events.)
The craters analyzed by Vijayan and his colleagues were found to be around 400,000 years old—which means the BFE tracks are more recent.
Finally, the scientists identified possible seismic faults or impact craters nearby that could have triggered the boulder falls.
Mapping the moon
The new geological map of boulder falls, published in Icarus, highlights seismically active spots and fresh impact sites on the moon.
Researchers say these regions could be potential landing sites for future lunar missions focused on recent surface and subsurface activity.
The study authors plan to integrate artificial intelligence methods into the next iteration of their work, but ultimately, Vijayan said, "the next step is to more precisely determine whether the cause [of a fall] is endogenic or exogenic, which can be achieved by deploying additional seismometers in upcoming missions."
Kumar concurred. "We need to have a large network of seismometers covering the entire [moon] that monitors seismic activity continuously for several decades," he said.
https://www.space.com/astronomy/moon/scientists-track-down-fresh-boulder-falls-on-the-moon
https://eos.org/articles/scientists-track-down-fresh-boulder-falls-on-the-moon
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0019103525001745?via%3Dihub