Science

Tiny male anglerfish fuse their bodies into the larger females, and this strange strategy may have helped the fish diversify widely in the deep sea

The abundance of wild birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and insects has drastically declined over the past 50 years, but the scale and seriousness of this loss is often lost when we focus on the number of species in an area

Universe Today has explored the potential for sending humans to Europa, Venus, Titan, and Pluto, all of which possess environmental conditions that are far too harsh for humans to survive. The insight gained from planetary scientists resulted in some informative discussions, and traveling to some of these far-off worlds might be possible, someday. In the final installment of this series, we will explore the potential for sending humans to a destination that has been the focus of scientific exploration and science folklore for more than 100 years: Mars aka the Red Planet.

Dr. Jordan Bretzfelder, who is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), shares her insights on the viability of sending humans to Mars and how we should do it. So, should we send humans to Mars?

“Yes, I think there is immense value in sending humans to engage in scientific exploration on Mars,” Dr. Bretzfelder tells Universe Today. “Humans can make quick decisions about sampling and data acquisition and can move around certain obstacles and terrain with more ease and freedom than many types of robotic vehicles. This would also provide opportunities to study and develop technology to facilitate future planetary exploration.”

Countless robotic pioneers have explored the surface and atmosphere of Mars in incredible detail and continue to teach us whether Mars once had—or currently has—life. However, humans could provide an extra level of exploration since they won’t be hindered by waiting for instructions from Earth ground controllers, which can take anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes one way. If something goes wrong, human explorers can make on-the-spot decisions to find solutions, whereas robot explorers are faced with waiting for engineers back on Earth to find solutions, followed by sending instructions, and more waiting. Regarding technological advancements, a human mission will undoubtedly teach us how to live and work on Mars, and this includes testing shelters, food, bathroom facilities, and even combating the mental fatigue from being so far from Earth for a prolonged period. All things considered, what are the pros and cons of sending humans to Mars?

Dr. Bretzfelder tells Universe Today, “Pros are as above, and many examples of the benefits of humans in the field can be found in the history of the Apollo missions; instances where certain scientifically valuable rocks were collected due to the quick thinking and judgement of the astronauts. Cons include the difficulties involved in keeping astronauts alive and safe on a distant and environmentally complicated planetary surface. Additionally, the possibility of accidentally introducing terrestrial microbes to Mars is a potential risk.”

Whether it’s a robotic or human mission, NASA’s Office of Planetary Protection is responsible for ensuring that microbes don’t hitch a ride and contaminate extraterrestrial environments that we wish to explore, but especially to protect us from any microbes that could potentially be brought back to Earth.

Regarding the ongoing robotic exploration of Mars, there are presently seven active Mars orbiters from several nations teaching us more and more about the Red Planet and unlocking its secrets. On the surface, there are currently three active missions: NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, and China’s Zhurong rover. Past successful surface missions include NASA’s Viking 1 and Viking 2 landers, Mars Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity rovers, Phoenix lander, and InSight lander. From marsquakes to finding evidence for past surface liquid water, each of these missions spent years unlocking the secrets of Mars, both above and below the surface. But what additional science could be conducted by a human mission compared to a robotic mission?

“As above, humans (within limits based on their suits and other equipment) have the ability to navigate terrain that may not be suitable for a rover or helicopter,” Dr. Bretzfelder tells Universe Today. “They also can make real time decisions in the field about sampling etc., meaning there is less delay in waiting for signals from mission control to guide the rovers. Humans are also very adaptable to changing conditions and can respond quickly to address any issues or unexpected situations during a mission.”

In terms of an actual human habitat on Mars, countless images, videos, movies, and television shows have depicted a human habitat on the Martian surface, with very little depiction of a human habitat below the surface. While this depiction might be for aesthetics, a habitat on the surface would provide ideal surveying and sampling conditions, along with far better communications with Earth. However, a habitat on the surface would also expose the crew to dangerous amounts of solar radiation since Mars does not possess either an ozone layer or magnetic field like the Earth, both of which protect us from solar storms and other cosmic rays.

Artist’s concept for a crewed mission on Mars. (Credit: NASA/Clouds AO/SEArch)

In contrast, another type of human habitat could be below the surface, with past studies identifying the use of lava tubes for human settlements to shield them from the harmful solar radiation. However, any surface ventures could become tedious, along with communications with Earth becoming more complicated, even if a communications array was above-ground. Therefore, if humans were to travel to Mars, should it be above the surface or below?

Dr. Bretzfelder tells Universe Today, “An above surface mission, similar to the Apollo and upcoming Artemis missions would be the most feasible given the technology available and would limit impact to the Martian surface by simply operating above ground rather than excavating below ground. Samples or cores taken from depth may be scientifically valuable though.”

This discussion comes as NASA prepares to send humans back to the Moon as part of its Moon to Mars Architecture while SpaceX develops its Starship with the goal of sending humans to Mars, someday. China announced plans in 2021 to send their own astronauts to the Red Planet in 2033, with follow-up launches occurring every two years afterwards. Additionally, NASA has the goal of sending humans to Mars sometime in the 2030s.

“It is an exciting time to be able to seriously consider this type of exploration, and as we return to the Moon, we will likely learn valuable lessons to enable human exploration of Mars,” Dr. Bretzfelder tells Universe Today.

Will we ever send humans to Mars? Will such a mission achieve greater scientific objectives than the myriad of robotic missions sent to the Red Planet, and what could a human mission to Mars teach us about living and working so far from Earth? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post Should We Send Humans to Mars? appeared first on Universe Today.

A recent study accepted to The Planetary Science Journal investigates how the organic hazes that existed on Earth between the planet’s initial formation and 500 million years afterwards, also known as Hadean geologic eon, could have contained the necessary building blocks for life, including nucleobases and amino acids. This study holds the potential to not only help scientists better understand the conditions on an early Earth, but also if these same conditions on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, could produce the building blocks of life, as well.

Here, Universe Today discusses this recent study with Dr. Ben K. D. Pearce, who is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Morton K. Blaustein Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the study, regarding the study’s findings, potential follow-up research, NASA’s upcoming Dragonfly mission to Titan, and whether he thinks there’s life on Titan.

Dr. Pearce tells Universe Today about how past lab studies involving Carl Sagan discovered that the highest dilution (or addition of a solvent like water) to make the chemical reactions work was 100 micromolar, or approximately 10 parts per million (ppm). If the dilution is too strong, the molecules in the chemical mixture wouldn’t find each other, he says.

“After all, early Earth was a hazy place, much akin to Saturn’s Moon Titan,” Dr. Pearce tells Universe Today. “This is because over 4 billion years ago, Earth had an atmosphere rich in hydrogen, methane, and nitrogen, similar to Titan! What’s interesting about these haze particles, is that they are essentially biomolecule snowflakes, i.e., big aggregates of life’s building blocks bonded together. When these particles settled onto Earth’s surface, over 4 billion years ago, and fell into ponds, the bonds would break, and you could get a pond rich in life’s building blocks. We wanted to know if this source could exceed the 100 micromolar threshold in ponds, which could be concentrated enough for them to react and begin the process of forming the first information molecules like ribonucleic acid (RNA).”

Artist’s impression of a hazy and ancient Earth. (Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Francis Reddy)

For the study, the researchers created organic hazes in a laboratory setting under atmospheric conditions containing between 0.5 percent and 5 percent methane and analyzed the hazes for traces of amino acids and nucleobases using a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer (GC/MS). Additionally, they heated samples up to 200 degrees Celsius (392 degrees Fahrenheit) to simulate the samples resting on an uninhabitable surface, as well. The team then compared their results to computer models to investigate the number of nucleobases that would be present in these same environments.

Artist’s illustration of a very violent early Earth. (Credit: NASA)

“When we modeled the pond concentrations of nucleobases from organic hazes (making use of our experimental data), we discovered that this source may be the richest, most long-lasting source that we’ve modeled to date,” Dr. Pearce tells Universe Today. “As a reminder, all sources we’ve studied to date (meteorites, interplanetary dust, and atmospheric HCN) have led to below 100 micromolar concentrations; however, now we have finally found a source that breaches up towards this threshold.”

In the end, the team discovered that nucleobases could exist in “warm little ponds” on Earth during the Hadean geologic eon. With the heating experiment, the team ascertained that such samples could not survive on a hot surface. Finally, they concluded that organic hazes could produce the building blocks of life only in a methane-rich atmosphere on ancient Earth, “but not so rich as to create an uninhabitable surface,” Dr. Pearce notes to Universe Today. Given these incredible findings, what follow-up research is being conducted or planned?

“I am presently building a new experimental setup to be used in my laboratory in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University, which opens this fall 2024,” Dr. Pearce tells Universe Today. “This lab is called the Origins and Astrobiology Research Laboratory. This experiment will allow my new research group to simultaneously model the atmospheric chemistry (e.g., HCN and organic haze production) and pond chemistry of early Earth. Our initial goal will be to use this to demonstrate the production of the first information molecules of life, such as RNA, in a simulated early Earth environment.”

This study comes as NASA is planning to send its Dragonfly mission to Titan, which currently has a planned launch date of July 2028 and landing on Titan’s surface sometime in 2034 in the “Shangri-La” dune fields. Dragonfly is a quadcopter whose goal will be to “hop” around Titan searching for evidence of Titan’s potential habitability, and currently has a planned mission timeline of 10 years with the science phase comprising 3.3 years. Its scientific payload will consist of a mass spectrometer, gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, geophysics and meteorology package, and a suite of microscopic and panoramic cameras.

Dragonfly is slated to operate during the Titan day and remain on the ground at night, with each lasting approximately 8 Earth days or 192 hours. It is currently hypothesized that Dragonfly will be capable of flying up to 16 kilometers (10 miles) on a single battery charge, with its batteries consisting of a Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) that will charge during the night. MMRTGs have a successful history on space missions, as they are currently used to power NASA’s Curiosity and Perseverance rovers on Mars. But how will Dragonfly contribute to or refute this study’s findings?

Artist’s impression of NASA’s Dragonfly quadcopter exploring the surface of Titan. (Credit: NASA)

Dr. Pearce tells Universe Today, “Given that there are tons of organic haze on Titan, we could expect that the surface contains preserved organic haze particles rich in life’s building blocks. Dragonfly will contain a mass spectrometer and will be able to characterize the building blocks of life in these particles to potentially validate our laboratory studies.”

Titan has a rich history of exploration, as numerous spacecraft over several decades have allowed us to gain greater insights into this mysterious world, which is not only the second-largest moon in the entire solar system but the only moon with a thick atmosphere. While the cameras onboard NASA’s Pioneer 11, Voyager 1, and Voyager 2 spacecraft were unable to image Titan’s surface due to the moon’s thick and hazy atmosphere, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft successfully used its infrared cameras to image Titan’s surface for the first time. It was these images that confirmed previous hypotheses that Titan possessed lakes of liquid methane and ethane that can only exist in extremely cold temperatures, with Titan’s surface temperature being minus 179 degrees Celsius (minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit).

Images of Titan obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft on April 16, 2005: natural color composite (left), monochrome (center), and false-color composite (right). (Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

Cassini carried with it the European Space Agency’s Huygens probe, which detached from the orbiting spacecraft and landed on Titan’s surface, sending back surface features of rounded rocks that could have only formed under liquid conditions. But, given that Titan could resemble an early Earth with its methane atmosphere and liquid lakes, will we find life on Titan?

“The only habitable environment on Titan is deep in the subsurface, which is not easy to get to without a drill or a geyser spewing stuff onto the surface,” Dr. Pearce tells Universe Today. “Thus, I’m not sure we will even be looking in the best places for decades beyond Dragonfly. It is also hard for me to imagine an origin of life on Titan, given that our current best hypotheses involve wet-dry cycles of ponds that would not be available on -180 C Titan. However, if I have learned anything from science in the past decade, it’s that we are often proven wrong by new findings, and I absolutely welcome it! It’s always better to look, just in case!”

How will this recent study contribute to finding life on Titan, and what will Dragonfly teach us about Titan’s habitability in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post How Did Life Get Started on Earth? Atmospheric Haze Might Have Been the Key appeared first on Universe Today.

Engineers have demonstrated a system they've dubbed 'MadRadar' for fooling automotive radar sensors into believing almost anything is possible. The technology can hide the approach of an existing car, create a phantom car where none exists or even trick the radar into thinking a real car has quickly deviated from its actual course. And it can achieve this feat in the blink of an eye without having any prior knowledge about the specific settings of the victim's radar, making it the most troublesome threat to radar security to date.

Engineers have demonstrated a system they've dubbed 'MadRadar' for fooling automotive radar sensors into believing almost anything is possible. The technology can hide the approach of an existing car, create a phantom car where none exists or even trick the radar into thinking a real car has quickly deviated from its actual course. And it can achieve this feat in the blink of an eye without having any prior knowledge about the specific settings of the victim's radar, making it the most troublesome threat to radar security to date.

Researchers describe the discovery of a new method that transforms everyday materials like glass into materials scientists can use to make quantum computers.

Researchers describe the discovery of a new method that transforms everyday materials like glass into materials scientists can use to make quantum computers.

The earliest galaxies are thought to have formed as the gravitational pull of dark matter, which has been impossible to study directly, slowly drew in enough hydrogen and helium to ignite stars. But astrophysicists now show that after the Big Bang, hydrogen and helium gas bounced at supersonic speeds off dense, slowly moving clumps of cold dark matter. When the gas fell back in millennia later, stars formed all at once, creating small, exceptionally bright galaxies. If models of cold dark matter are correct, the James Webb Space Telescope should be able to find patches of bright galaxies in the early universe, potentially offering the first effective test for theories about dark matter. If it doesn't, scientists have to go back to the drawing board with dark matter.

The field of exoplanet study continues to grow by leaps and bounds. As of the penning of this article, 5,572 extrasolar planets have been confirmed in 4,150 systems (with another 10,065 candidates awaiting confirmation. Well, buckle up because six more exoplanets have been confirmed around TOI-1136, a Sun-like star located roughly 276 light-years from Earth. This star is less than 700 million years old, making it relatively young compared to our own (4.6 billion years). This system will allow astronomers to observe how systems like our own have evolved with time.

The six-planet system was confirmed by the TESS Keck Survey, an international team of astronomers that searches for exoplanets by combing data obtained by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the W.M. Keck Observatory (of which UC Riverside planetary astrophysics professor Stephen Kane is the principal investigator). The details of the six-planet system were presented in a series of papers that appeared in The Astronomical Journal. In the seventeenth and latest paper in the series, the survey team presented precise mass measurements of the six exoplanets, details about their orbits, and the characteristics of their atmospheres.

To date, most of the exoplanets observed by astronomers have been either individual discoveries or one of just a few planets. But in some cases, such as Kepler-90 and TRAPPIST-1, astronomers have observed many planets in a single system (8 and 7, respectively). Depending on the age of their parent star, these systems present astronomers with the opportunity to observe how multi-planet systems formed and evolved. In the case of TOI-1136, its age sets it apart from many known systems, being merely 700 million years old.

Artist’s impression of the planetary system around Kepler-90, a Sun-like star 2,545 light years from Earth. Credits: NASA

Tara Fetherolf, a visiting assistant professor of astrophysics at Cal State San Marcos and co-author of a new paper, explained in a UC Riverside News release:

“Because few star systems have as many planets as this one does, it’s getting close in size to our own Solar System. It’s both similar enough and different enough that we can learn a lot. This gives us a look at planets right after they’ve formed, and solar system formation is a hot topic. Any time we find a multi-planet system it gives us more information to inform our theories about how systems come to be and how our system.”

Initial observations of the system were made in 2019 using TESS, which was followed up with observations using the High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) at the W.M. Keck Observatory and the Automated Planet Finder (APF) at the Lick Observatory. The latter observations allowed the team to precisely constrain the mass of the planets using the Radial Velocity measurements (where slight variations in the star’s motion indicate the gravitational forces acting on it). This yielded estimates of about 3.5 (TOI-1135 b) to 9.7 (TOI-1135 f) Earth masses, placing them between Super Earths to Mini-Neptunes.

The team also used Transit Timing variations, where dips in a star’s luminosity are used to determine the presence of planets (and their size). They then created computer models where the velocity measurements were layered over the transit data, yielding more information about the system. Typically, young stars are difficult to study because they are so active, possessing powerful magnetic fields, sunspots, and powerful solar flares that influence their planets by affecting their atmospheres. Since all the planets observed around TOI-1136 are of a similar age, they likely formed under similar conditions.

An amusing rendition of the TOI-1136 system if each body in the system were a duck or duckling. Credit: Rae Holcomb/UCI

And since the planets of this system are relatively close to each other, the team was able to measure something hard to gauge in other systems. As Kane summarized:

“Young stars misbehave all the time. They’re very active, just like toddlers. That can make high-precision measurements difficult. This will help us not only do a one-to-one comparison of how planets change with time but also how their atmospheres evolved at different distances from the star, which is perhaps the most key thing.”

The results of this study could have far-reaching implications for exoplanet research and the search for life in the cosmos (astrobiology). According to the most recent fossilized evidence, life emerged on Earth during the Archaean Eon (ca. 3.9 billion years ago), almost immediately after it formed. While many of TOI-1136’s planets orbit too closely and are subject to too much radiation to make life likely, the team hopes that observations of this system will ultimately answer questions of how our planet and life as we know it came to be.

“Are we rare?” said Kane. “I’m increasingly convinced our system is highly unusual in the Universe. Finding systems so unlike our own makes it increasingly clear how our Solar System fits into the broader context of formation around other stars.”

Further Reading: UC Riverside, The Astronomical Journal

The post Six Planets Found Orbiting an Extremely Young Star appeared first on Universe Today.

Executives from Meta, TikTok and X were questioned by US lawmakers about the safety of children who use their products – experts say the companies need to do more than just provide parental controls

Nine out of ten people in a trial of a CRISPR treatment for potentially life-threatening inflammatory reactions seem to have been cured

When a prominent star in the night sky suddenly dims, it generates a lot of interest. That’s what happened with the red supergiant star Betelgeuse between November 2019 and May 2020. Betelgeuse will eventually explode as a supernova. Was the dimming a signal that the explosion was imminent?

No, and new research helps explain why.

Headline writers couldn’t resist the supernova angle, even though that explanation was never very likely. Eventually, it became clear that ejected dust from the star caused the dimming. New research based on observations before, during, and after the Great Dimming Event (GDE) supports the idea that dust from the star itself caused Betelgeuse’s drop in brightness.

A research letter titled “Images of Betelgeuse with VLTI/MATISSE across the Great Dimming” presents the infrared observations of Betelgeuse. The observations capture the star before, during, and after the GDE. The lead author is Julien Drevon, from the Université Côte d’Azur, France, and the European Southern University.

“To better understand the dimming event, we used mid-infrared long-baseline spectro-interferometric measurements of Betelgeuse taken with the VLTI/MATISSE instrument before (Dec. 2018), during (Feb. 2020) and after (Dec. 2020) the GDE,” the research letter states. In particular, their observations focus on silicon monoxide (SiO.)

The authors of the new research outline three steps in the process that created the GDE.

Step One

The GDE started with shocks deep inside Betelgeuse. They generated a convective outflow of plasma that brought material to the star’s surface. Researchers detected a strong shock in February 2018 and a weaker one in January 2019. The second, weaker shock boosted the effect of the stronger shock that preceded it, generating a progressive plasma flow at the surface of Betelgeuse’s photosphere.

Step Two

The plasma flowing to the photosphere’s surface created a hot spot. Hubble UV observations of Betelgeuse revealed the presence of a luminous, hot, dense structure in the star’s southern hemisphere, between the photosphere and the chromosphere.

Step Three

Stellar material detaches from the photosphere and forms a gas cloud above Betelgeuse’s surface. A colder region forms under this cloud as a dark spot. Since it’s cooler, dust is allowed to condense above this region and in the part of the cloud above it. That dust is what blocked some of Betelgeuse’s luminosity, causing the GDE.

Previous research revealed this three-step process behind the GDE. The authors of the new research article set out to observe Betelgeuse’s close circumstellar environment to probe and monitor its geometry. In the wavelength range they worked in, SiO spectral features are prominent, and they’re used to understand what happened with the red supergiant. In astronomy, SiO is used as a tracer for shocked gas in stellar outflows since it persists at high temperatures.

This figure from the research letter shows some of the data the researchers worked with. The top panel shows the absolute spectra during each observed epoch. The bottom panel shows the relative flux for the SiO bands. The bands are deeper during the GDE than either before or after. Image Credit: J. Drevon et al. 2024.

In their article, the authors focus on the SiO (2-0) band and what it signifies. They note how the band’s intensity contrast increases by 14% during the GDE. “Therefore, it seems that during the GDE, we observe brighter structures in the line of sight,” they explain.

Next, they note a 50% decrease in intensity contrast in December 2020. What does it mean?

“The SiO (2–0) opacity depth map shows, therefore, strong temporal variations within 2 years, indicative of vigorous changes in the star’s environment in this time span,” they write.

Their observations also suggest “the presence of an infrared excess in the pseudo continuum during the GDE, which has been interpreted as new hot dust formed,” Drevon and his colleagues write.

This figure from the research article explains some of what the researchers found. The middle column is particularly interesting because it’s a reconstruction of the SiO (2-0) absorption band onto Betelgeuse’s surface for each of the three observed epochs. The third column is similar but shows the SiO (2-0) optical depth. Overall, they constrain the geometry of the dust feature that caused the GDE. Image Credit: J. Drevon et al. 2024.

It seems like the Great Dimming is no longer the mystery it once was. It also shows that Occam’s Razor is alive and well: “The explanation that requires the fewest assumptions is usually correct.”

The supernova proposal was fun for a while, and one day, Betelgeuse will explode as a supernova. But before it ever does, there are likely going to be several more episodes of dimming. For now, the authors say that the star is returning to normal.

“The Dec. 2020 observations suggest that Betelgeuse seems to be returning to a gas and surface environment similar to the one observed in Dec. 2018,” they write, “but with smoother structures, maybe
due to the unusual amount of dust recently formed during the GDE in the line of sight.”

Case closed?

The post Betelgeuse. Before, During and After the Great Dimming appeared first on Universe Today.

Although solar flares have been classified based on the amount of energy they emit at their peak, there has not been significant study into differentiating flares since slow-building flares were first discovered in the 1980s. Scientists have now shown that there is a significant amount of slower-type flares worthy of further investigation.

A new paper describes how, despite widespread enthusiasm about artificial intelligence's potential to revolutionize healthcare and the use of AI-powered tools on millions of patients already, no federal regulations require that AI-powered tools be evaluated for potential harm or benefit to patients.

A new system that brings together real-world sensing and virtual reality would make it easier for building maintenance personnel to identify and fix issues in commercial buildings that are in operation.

A new system that brings together real-world sensing and virtual reality would make it easier for building maintenance personnel to identify and fix issues in commercial buildings that are in operation.

Researchers have successfully developed a new time-resolved atomic force microscopy (AFM) technique, integrating AFM with a unique laser technology. This method enables the measurement of ultrafast photoexcitation phenomena in both conductors and insulators, observed through changes in the forces between the sample and the AFM probe tip after an extremely short time irradiation of laser light. This advancement promises substantial contributions to the creation of new scientific and technological principles and fields.

A joint research team has successfully induced polarization and polarity in metallic substances.

Carbon nanostructures could become easier to design and synthesize thanks to a machine learning method that predicts how they grow on metal surfaces. The new approach will make it easier to exploit the unique chemical versatility of carbon nanotechnology.