Space news MEGA thread

[Brian G Turner]

A new view of Jupiter from NASA's Juno mission: Spectacular picture of Jupiter's storms

I've already posted some of the most interesting space news stories and information to the Science & Nature board, but here are a few of the less dramatic but potentially still interesting stories I've been keeping notes on over the course of the past few months:


PLANETS & SOLAR SYSTEM

Saturn has been getting a lot of press due to continued work on the massive amounts of data collected by the recent Cassini mission. Firstly, Saturn's rings are now estimated to be somewhere between 10-100 million years old, which is pretty short on in terms of space time scales: Saturn hasn't always had rings. One area Cassini especially looked at was the moons of Saturn, which a couple of new minor ones discovered - and they're squidgy! New close-ups of the mini-moons in Saturn's rings. There's also been continued focus on Titan, with measurements suggesting its lakes are pretty deep: Cassini reveals surprises with Titan's lakes

Further out, the search for a potential new Planet 9 continues, but a recent claim suggests that the strange gravitational disturbances detected may actually be caused by a ring of ice: Mystery orbits in outermost reaches of solar system not caused by 'Planet Nine'.

And Venus is finally getting attention with a new mission planned to visit there: Hopes rise of new mission to Venus


ASTEROIDS/COMETS

Asteroids have proven far more enigmatic than originally envisioned. Once thought of as just wandering rocks, recent missions have shown that the smaller ones at least are more like rubble piles - and intriguingly, Hayabusy 2 may have been formed from a previous collision: Asteroid mission exploring a 'rubble pile'. Meanwhile, asteroid Bennu is throwing out rocks as it spins: Holy spitting space rocks: Asteroid Bennu is active! and Hubble watches as an asteroid starts to tear itself apart

Impacts by asteroids and comets litter the planets and moons of our Solar System, but recent dating claims that our own Moon shows evidence of a particularly heavy bombardment around 290 million years ago: Scientists find increase in asteroid impacts on ancient Earth by studying the Moon

In the meantime, in the aftermath of all the excitement of 'Oumaumau visiting a couple of years ago, the search continues for other potential extra-solar visitors, with a rare asteroid new Venus raising eyebrows: A new telescope spots a very rare near-Venus asteroid


EXOPLANETS

The number of confirmed exoplanets has now passed the 4,000 mark: Exoplanet tally set to pass 4,000 mark. It's not simply astonishing how many we are discovering, but also the range of sizes and also habitats we're discovering. Many exoplanets surprisingly light: The low density of some exoplanets is confirmed and the new TESS telescope is finding planets smaller than Earth: NASA's TESS mission finds its smallest planet yet.

Also! Meet our new nearest neighbours: Habitable planets found near red dwarf neighbour? Two Earth-sized planets found in a nearby star's habitable zone!

GALAXIES

We've often been made to think of our galaxy, the Milky Way, as like a flat, spinning disk - but research released early this year showed that it's actually warped: The Milky Way is warped. This has been further confirmed this week: We live in a warped and twisted galaxy. My initial thought is that looks just like a still from a computer model of colliding galaxies, something we know has repeatedly happened in the past.

Speaking which, our imminent collision with the Andromeda galaxy has had its timeline revised: Gaia clocks new speeds for Milky Way-Andromeda collision. As we're still learning more about the size of our Milky Way - which remains difficult to measure - recent research suggests we've at least located part of its outer edge: Subaru Telescope identifies the outermost edge of the Milky Way system


STARS

Our sun remains mysterious and discoveries continue, not least that we've suddenly realized that it's magnetic fields is 10x stronger than originally thought: Researchers find that the sun's magnetic field is ten times stronger than previously believed. We're also finding out that our sun is a little more shaky than expected: Researchers find evidence for a new fundamental constant of the Sun.

Other stars prove to be remarkable for their extremes and differences. There are salty stars: Liberal sprinkling of salt discovered around a young star and the canonball pulsar: Fermi Satellite clocks 'cannonball' pulsar speeding through space, and we're also now witnesses the birth of a binary pair of neutron stars: For the first time, astronomers see the birth of a neutron star binary system


EARTH

Ooh - let's have some news about the Earth for once, starting with: Part of the Earth's crust is missing: Earth is missing a huge part of its crust. Now we may know why.. In the meantime, chains of volcanic islands have long been thought to be the process of plate movements over hotspots - but research this week suggests the hotspots are also moving: Researchers solve 'hot spot' debate. Even stranger, soundings appear to suggest a giant mountain chain running beneath the Earth's crust: Mountain chain 600km beneath the crust: Massive Bolivian earthquake reveals mountains 660 kilometers below our feet

And then a few inevitable stories about recent discoveries in paleontology, firstly one suggesting that Icythosaurs werewarm-blooded: Soft tissue shows Jurassic ichthyosaur was warm-blooded, had blubber and camouflage. Keeping to the seas, here's a fossil record showing a sea urchin that survived a mesosaur attack: Danish sea fossil reveals ancient drama. Another oddity - were Pterosaurs furry? Fur flies over new pterosaur fossils. Meanwhile, T-Rex skulls may have been uniquely flexible: T. rex possessed a unique flexible skull


LIFE

Current thinking suggests that hydrothermal vents may have been the first place life developed, but a study has suggested it could have been Darwin's originally hypothesized ponds: Earliest life may have arisen in ponds, not oceans. Life can be very tenacious, living in the most extreme environments, yet some of these have now been found living in residential water heaters: Extremophile microbes found in residential water heaters. More complex life continues to challenge our understanding, as biologists discover deep-sea fish living where there is virtually no oxygen: Biologists discover deep-sea fish living where there is virtually no oxygen.

Going into space, and it appears that fungi are resistant enough to radiation to survive on the International Space Station: Space station mold survives high doses of ionizing radiation. As the search for life continues, the possibility of life using different amino acids is being explored Research creates DNA-like molecule to aid search for alien life. As for where we could find life, the possibilities increase as scientists suggest even stars close to black holes might be able to support life: Voracious Black Holes Could Feed Alien Life on Rogue Worlds

In the meantime, while the idea of panspermia suggests that asteroids moving between star systems could seed them with life, a new study suggests they could be essential to seeding the formation of planets in the first place: Plant seeding and panspermia

And to finish off this section with an oddity: we've long been taught that it's up to genes to pass on traits to offspring, though the expanding field of epigenetics has shown that the environment can modify them - now it's been shown that memory can apparently be inherited: Study finds that parental 'memory' is inherited across generations


Meanwhile, if you haven't seen them, here are some of the other interesting space stories I've posted recently:

Amazing Comet film from Rosetta

Hat tip to Phil Plait for this - starts properly at around 30s in:

www.sffchronicles.com

Triple Red Dwarf Planetary System

No science news for a while? I have a mega thread being prepared... In the meantime, here's a fascinating piece about a "super earth" discovered in orbit close by a red dwarf, which is part of a triple star system - you know, the sort that some people a few years ago insisted couldn't possibly...

www.sffchronicles.com

The reality of asteroids

Phil Plait does a good write-up of rubble asteroids, and in the process explains why asteroids in general nothing like what we've grown up expecting them to be like from sci-fi: What astronomers mean by 'rubble pile asteroids' Hopefully some of our science fiction writers will start using this...

www.sffchronicles.com

When World's Collide: The Solar System's violent past

A second article by me published for TechRadar's space week, in which I cover some of the astonishing violence - not least planetary collisions - that appear to have shaped the solar system as we know it: Our solar system's violent past

www.sffchronicles.com

Exploring the weird world of exoplanets

For Techradar's Space Week, Brian Turner (me!) takes us on an exploration through the weird world of exoplanets: Exploring the weird world of exoplanets

www.sffchronicles.com

NASA's Opportunity rover's last panorama

https://phys.org/news/2019-03-opportunity-shot-beautiful-panorama.html Over 29 days last spring, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity documented this 360-degree panorama from multiple images taken at what would become its final resting spot in Perseverance Valley. Located on the inner...

www.sffchronicles.com

Video of asteroid landing

Wow. Just wow. Video of the Japanese Hayabusa-2 probe briefly touching down on the asteroid Ryugu, as reported by the BBC website: Movie shows moment of asteroid landing Here's a version I can embed - from YouTube - look at all the rock scattering after touchdown!

www.sffchronicles.com

All of the Universe's missing matter found?

Continuing from the following thread - Half the universe’s missing matter found - a new study suggests all of the mass that needs accounting for in current Cosmology exists between galactic clumps in the "warm-hot intergalactic medium " aka WHIM: Where is the universe hiding its missing mass...

www.sffchronicles.com

[Image] Far side of the Moon plus Earth

Here's an interesting image from the Chinese Longjiang-2 satellite, which is in orbit around the moon - showing the dark side of the moon (ie, always facing away from Earth), with our planet also visible: Phil Plait provides more information, and a timelapse of the Earth coming around the...

www.sffchronicles.com

 

[Robert Zwilling]

At least one galactic disaster can be put off farther into the far future. On the other hand, it seems to have already started.

Geology is now a little less static with the hot spots moving around. Push some more disasters farther into the future.

I'm not sure if the idea that ponds were a birthplace of life would work. The oceans have never dried out but ponds have very limited lifetimes. There are a few lakes that have lasted a long time but they don't have the same chemistry as shallow ponds. Perhaps something in the early environment could stabilize the active nitrogen produced by lightning or maybe there was another source of nitrogen the early environment produced. The nitrogen cycle of today heavily interacts with life, it was quite different before there was life. If the iron in the oceans was destroying the nitrogen, the oxygen didn't appear for 2 billion years that got rid of the iron. How wide spread was iron on the Earth's surface 4 billion years ago.

 

[CupofJoe]

I'm not sure if the idea that ponds were a birthplace of life would work. The oceans have never dried out but ponds have very limited lifetimes. There are a few lakes that have lasted a long time but they don't have the same chemistry as shallow ponds.

Up-front I will say I have not read the article - so I am not defending or proposing that position. But the very transience of pools may be what works in their favour as a source of Life.
If a pool or pond dries out and refills 100 times a year, that is one hundred times when a stable system is changes, one hundred times an anomaly could occur, that something different might happen.
I've always thought that [if hydro-thermal vents are ruled out] rock pools on the shore's edge were a good place for life to start. There would be a regular flow of ingredients from the sea and a regular change of state that could lead to anomalies from tides...

 

[Brian G Turner]

When the researchers refer to "ponds" they are talking about very large but very shallow features:

Researchers report that shallow bodies of water, on the order of 10 centimeters deep, could have held high concentrations of what many scientists believe to be a key ingredient for jump-starting life on Earth: nitrogen.

In shallow ponds, nitrogen, in the form of nitrogenous oxides, would have had a good chance of accumulating enough to react with other compounds and give rise to the first living organisms. In much deeper oceans, nitrogen would have had a harder time establishing a significant, life-catalyzing presence, the researchers say.

 

[thaddeus6th]

Very interesting stuff

 

[Robert Zwilling]

The article is talking about fresh water ponds not tidal pools. They are moving away from the ocean or anything connected to oceans.

The sediment at the time was sand and clay. I have seen ideas that talked about clay being the place where life started as it could trap all kinds of substances and provide a matrix where the various substances could interact under stable conditions allowing reactions that take a long time process complete.

There is no way to know what the weather was like at that time. I have the feeling the shallow ponds were envisioned as water that had been sitting for a long time. The land was basically rock. If the weather was very violent, there might not have been very much stability on land for water to sit around. The oceans presented a place where events could play out over long periods of time.

Things picked up on the oceans' surfaces by large powerful ocean currents that go deep underwater might have been insulated from materials that could have changed it before it reached the deep depths. Not knowing what the literature said about nitrogen chemistry, I would like to know if it covered events happening under extremely high pressure where things are completely unlike normal pressure events. If extreme pressure conditions are needed to make the chemistry happen that could limit how often life forms. It's a safer, predictable environment but the surface scenario might offer far more instances of places for life to start.

Another possibility is that the precursors for life could start up in either condition and it turns into a race to see which one becomes the standard model. Too many times the answer isn't either or, but a combination of options that don't work without the others being present. The process branches out appearing to split but recombines later on going back to a modified entity.

 

[Robert Zwilling]

Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons has a frozen crust with a warm water ocean underneath the crust that escapes through cracks in the moon's surface. The escaping water is salty, and has organic compounds in it. It is thought to have some kind of a core that is somehow generating heat which could be creating hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean. The heat could be generated by Saturn's gravity. There is speculation that the geological setup on Enceladus could generate some kind of life. This could show that the hydrothermal vents on Earth are not a one off geological function but something that comes standard with water planets.