Holiday Message from the ISS

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Astronauts aboard the ISS showing the boots ready for Santa. (NASA)

Santa’s gift-giving territory is pretty wide, but it is not clear whether he will make it to the International Space Station (ISS). However, the astronauts are ready if he does show up. They have hung their space boots by the airlock with cheer.

For the complete ISS holiday message, play this video from NASA astronauts Mike Fincke, Zena Cardman, and Chris Williams, along with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Kimiya Yui. The message was recorded on December 17, 2025.

Merry Christmas to all!

Space Quote: Should We Worry About Space Monopolies?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Image by Jim Cooper from Pixabay

“The comparison I often like to make is with the East India Company: a private British enterprise that became so powerful it could shape the politics of nations and at times had an army twice the size of Britain’s. It began as trade; it ended in domination. Could a similar dynamic unfold locally in our solar system, where a handful of today’s tech giants and billionaires control access to orbit, communications, and eventually, extraterrestrial resources? A monopoly in space would be dangerous for humanity. The challenge is to encourage innovation and investment without ceding ownership of the cosmos to a few individuals or organisations.”

-Taken from a Guardian article titled “There’s a New Space Race – Will the Billionaires Win?” by Maggie Aderin-Pocock. One only needs to read the book series by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, starting with Leviathan Wakes, or watch the televised version, The Expanse, to have some idea of what the future may hold.

Space Stories: Russia to Re-purpose ISS Section, Second Mars Probe Approaching Lifespan, and Titan’s “Oceans” More Likely Ice

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Image (Credit): A portion of the International Space Station’s Russian segment is pictured with docked spacecraft including Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) and the Soyuz TMA-20 crew vehicle. (NASA)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—ARSTecnica: “Russia is About to do the Most Russia Thing Ever with its Next Space Station“

For several years now, in discussing plans for its human spaceflight program beyond the International Space Station, Russian officials would proudly bring up the Russian Orbital Station, or ROS…Oleg Orlov, director of the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said ROS will no longer be composed of entirely new modules. Rather, its core will be the Russian segment of the International Space Station. “The Scientific and Technical Council of Roscosmos supported this proposal and approved the deployment of a Russian orbital station as part of the Russian segment of the ISS,” Orlov reportedly said.

—Daily Galaxy: “NASA Faces Major Setback: One Mars Orbiter Lost and Another Is Expected to Shut Down Soon!“

NASA is losing critical communication links with its Mars missions. After recently losing contact with the MAVEN spacecraft, the agency faces the impending loss of the Mars Odyssey orbiter, which has been circling the Red Planet for over two decades. As both orbiters approach the end of their operational lifespans, NASA will soon have to find ways to maintain data relay capabilities for its rovers and other missions on the fourth planet.

—NASA/JPL: “NASA Study Suggests Saturn’s Moon Titan May Not Have Global Ocean“

A key discovery from NASA’s Cassini mission in 2008 was that Saturn’s largest moon Titan may have a vast water ocean below its hydrocarbon-rich surface. But reanalysis of mission data suggests a more complicated picture: Titan’s interior is more likely composed of ice, with layers of slush and small pockets of warm water that form near its rocky core. Led by researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, the new study could have implications for scientists’ understanding of Titan and other icy moons throughout our solar system.

Study Findings: A Carbon-rich Atmosphere on a Windy Pulsar Planet

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of of an exoplanet orbiting a rapidly spinning neutron star called a pulsar. (NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI))

Abstract of pre-publication study findings:

A handful of enigmatic Jupiter-mass objects have been discovered orbiting pulsars. One such object, PSR\,J2322-2650b, uniquely resembles a hot Jupiter exoplanet due to its minimum density of 1.8 g/cm^3 and its ~1900 K equilibrium temperature. We use JWST to observe PSR J2322-2650b’s emission spectrum across an entire orbit. In stark contrast to every known exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star, we find an atmosphere rich in molecular carbon (C3, C2) with strong westward winds. Our observations open up new exoplanetary chemical (ultra-high C/O and C/N ratios of >100 and >10,000, respectively) and dynamical regimes (ultra-fast rotation with external irradiation) to observational study. The extreme carbon enrichment poses a severe challenge to the current understanding of “black widow” companions, which were expected to consist of a wider range of elements due to their origins as stripped stellar cores.

Citation: Michael Zhang et al. A carbon-rich atmosphere on a windy pulsar planet. ApJL (2025).

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2509.04558

Study-related stories:

University of Chicago – “NASA’s Webb Telescope Finds Bizarre Atmosphere on a Lemon-shaped Exoplanet”

Scientific American – “This Planet Is the Shape of a Lemon. That May Be the Least Weird Thing about It”

Space Daily – “Webb Maps Carbon Rich Atmosphere on Distorted Pulsar Planet”