Space Stories: A New Lunar Spacesuit, a Map of the Cosmos, and Modeling Planetary Systems

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Image by PixelLabs from Pixabay.

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—Ars Technica: “Wary of Artemis IV Timeline, NASA is Changing Lunar Spacesuit Design”

NASA has decided to use a simpler spacesuit for its initial missions to the lunar surface, Ars has learned. The agency announced the decision during an internal meeting this week as it seeks to accelerate its program to land humans at the south pole of the Moon as early as 2028. At the direction of Artemis Program Manager Jeremy Parsons, NASA will work with Axiom Space to develop a “Sortie Suit” variant of the planned spacesuit for the lunar surface. Sources said the Sortie Suit will be used for the initial landing missions flown on landers developed both by SpaceX and Blue Origin. Among the goals of the initiative are to lower the mass of the spacesuit, reduce its complexity, and simplify interfaces between the spacesuits and lunar landers.

—Wired: “Astronomers Have Completed the Largest Map of Space. Yes, You Can Play With It.“

The driving force behind our universe’s accelerated expansion remains one of the greatest mysteries in astronomy. While this force, which scientists refer to as dark energy, pervades our universe, we know almost nothing about it. Located on a remote mountain in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has spent the past five years mapping the cosmos with the goal of unraveling this mystery. The result is the largest three-dimensional map of the universe ever created. And now—with the release of the latest version of the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys, a free online tool for exploring the vast imaging data—you too can poke around the universe.

—Phys,org: “New Solar System Models Show Earth is No Fluke“

Over the past three decades, computer models of planetary system formation have gone from fairly crude representations to sophisticated simulations using thousands of different starting points. A paper presented at the Origins 2026 conference in Paris details innovative simulations of how our solar system might have formed without making assumptions about the planetary architecture with which we are so familiar. In his paper, Nader Haghighipour, a planetary scientist at the University of Hawaii in Manoa, argued that his models, unlike previous models, incorporate many completely random starting points and, in turn, let physics drive the models’ ultimate evolution. As a result, these new models are much more complete and allow physics to dictate their outcomes.

Study Findings: Deimos’s Shape and Geology Explained by a Subcatastrophic Impact

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Image of Mars (left), Phobos (center), and Deimos (right). (NASA)

Nature Astronomy abstract of study findings:

Small planetary bodies record the processes that shaped the Solar System, but their surfaces and interiors often evolve in unexpected ways. Deimos, the potato-shaped, 12-km-diameter outer satellite of Mars, has a strikingly smooth surface covered by fine regolith, in contrast to its heavily cratered and grooved sibling, 22-km-diameter Phobos. Moreover, Deimos’s topography is dominated by a single large south-polar depression, whose formation we simulate to constrain the moon’s interior and surface geomechanical properties and to explain the origin and distribution of its regolith. Here we find that an oblique impact by a 320-m-diameter projectile can quantitatively account for this depression, the global regolith layer and surface features such as bright streaks and crater infill. Our results show that Deimos’s upper layers are extremely weak and that its interior is highly porous and dissipative, resembling the recently visited rubble-pile asteroids rather than lunar regolith. This suggests that small dark moons and asteroids, despite their specific histories, may converge on similar physical states.

Citation: Raducan, S.D., Agrusa, H.F., Asphaug, E. et al. Deimos’s shape and geology explained by a subcatastrophic impact. Nat Astron (2026).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02956-w

Study-related stories:

Science Daily – “One Asteroid Strike May Explain Two Mysteries of Mars’ Moon Deimos”

Phys.org – “A Single Asteroid Impact May Explain the Appearance of Mars’ Moon Deimos”

Universe Today– “Mars’s Funky Moon Deimos was Shaped by an Impact”

Space Quote: Blue Origin to be Key Link With Red Planet

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Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the MTO orbiting Mars. (Blue Origin)

“[Mars Telecommunications Orbiter] is the backbone of America’s Mars exploration program for the next decade and beyond and will provide the reliable communications capacity that will keep future robotic and human missions connected to each other and to Earth…This awarded contract is a testament to the Blue Origin team that has been building Blue Ring with exactly this kind of mission in mind. We’re ready, and so is the hardware.”

–Statement by Tory Bruno, president, Blue National Security at Blue Origin, discussing the role of the planned MTO mission for NASA. The MTO is a firm-fixed-price contract with a maximum potential value of approximately $700 million. Part of the Moon to Mars Artemis program, the MTO is expected to be delivered to NASA no later than December 31, 2028.

Television: Blade Runner 2099

Posted on by onespaceman2000

If you are not in the mood this weekend to see The Dog Stars, the latest Ridley Scott film, remember we still have another Ridley Scott show coming later this year.

Blade Runner 2099, a new 8-episode series, premieres on Amazon Prime this November 25th. While Mr. Scott was not involved with this production, his view of the future continues to amaze and haunt us.

Set in Los Angeles 50 years after the last film, the new series includes plenty of humans and Replicants, but this time it is the Replicants who are on top. It is quite a twist in the story at a time when AI is everywhere and AI-related unemployment is a continual worry.

This trailer on Youtube shows you what to expect from the new series.

Unfortunately, Harrison Ford will not be returning for this new series, but it still boasts a good number of well known talent, including Michelle Yeoh (Star Trek: Discovery), Hunter Schafer (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Dimitri Abold (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes), Lewis Gribben (Somewhere Boy), Matthew Needham (House of the Dragon), Maurizio Lombardi (Ripley), and others.

I want to walk into the future with my eyes wide open, so I am eager to watch the new series.

Update: As far as the role of AI in books, movies and television, I recommend a YouTube video by The Art of Storytelling titled “Sci-Fi Was Right About AI.” It touches on Blade Runner and Dune, as well as Star Trek, Star Wars, The Matrix, and many earlier works as well.

Pic of the Week: A Halloween Preview – N44

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Nebula LHA 120-N44, or N44, as captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. (NASA, ESA/Hubble, D. Gouliermis)

Talk about eerie. This week’s image is from the NASA/European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hubble Space telescope. The ghostly image shows nebula LHA 120-N44, or N44, which is about 160,000 light-years away. It is within the Large Magellanic Cloud that orbits our galaxy.

Here is more from NASA describing what you are seeing:

N44 is dominated by two features: a vast central void and a shell of dense, dusty gas. The central void is a ‘superbubble’ spanning roughly 210 by 140 light-years across. The glittering stars at the center of the void are responsible for its creation; through their powerful stellar winds and explosive supernovae, these stars expelled much of the gas from which they were born.

When the stars of N44’s central star cluster swept away this gas, the expelled gas compressed and formed a shell around the superbubble. New stars are forming in this compressed gas shell, making N44 an interesting target for astronomers who are using the nebula to study how stars form in this environment. Their goal is to understand how long it takes from the collapse of cold gas clouds into dense knots to the moment nuclear fusion ignites in the heart of a newborn star.