Space Stories: Earth Gives Extra Juice, Starship’s First Orbit, Starliner Returns, and the Missing Moon

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the Juice spacecraft with Jupiter in the background. (ESA)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—European Space Agency: “Successful Earth Flyby Improves Juice’s Course to Jupiter”

The European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) skimmed the very outer edge of Earth’s atmosphere on 28 September, using the gravity of our home planet to alter its route to Jupiter using very little fuel. The flyby deflected Juice by an angle of 20° compared to its pre-flyby path and increased its velocity by 3.5 km/s. In the four weeks before the flyby, spacecraft operators only had to give Juice one tiny nudge (out of six opportunities set aside) to put it on exactly the right approach trajectory to make the most of Earth’s gravity. They have been tracking the spacecraft extra carefully since 17 August, and will continue to do so until 10 October.

—Fox Business News: “SpaceX Launches Starship Into Orbit for First Time Ever But Cuts Mission Short“

SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket blasted off from Texas Monday morning on its most ambitious test flight yet, aiming for a roughly 10-hour mission that would have sent the spacecraft around Earth six times, though the company ultimately decided to end the flight earlier than planned…The launch marks Starship’s 14th test flight and its first attempt to reach orbit, a major step beyond previous suborbital missions that ended with splashdowns about an hour after liftoff.

—CBS News: “NASA Plans Unpiloted Starliner Test Flight After Astronauts Got Stuck at Space Station in 2024“

NASA is working with Boeing to launch an unpiloted Starliner capsule in the December-to-January time frame to test upgrades and improvements ordered in the wake of a 2024 mission that suffered multiple propulsion system failures, stranding two astronauts on the space station for more than nine months. If the unpiloted test flight goes well, NASA and Boeing hope to launch a piloted Starliner flight in the mid-2028 time frame, officials said Monday, incorporating redesigned propulsion system valves, more robust subsystems and other modifications expected to prevent the sort of failures that occurred in 2024. Veteran astronaut Warren “Woody” Hoburg will command the mission.

—Sky & Telescope: “Did Venus Swallow Its Moon?“

It’s a question that has perplexed planetary astronomers for decades: Why does Venus — so similar in size to Earth and not all that far from Earth’s orbit — have no moon, while our planet has such a relatively large one? Earth’s Moon likely formed after a massive collision early in solar system history. But according to calculations, Venus should have been even more likely than Earth to have experienced such a catastrophic crash during its formative years. Yet today it has no moon at all. Now, a series of simulations published in the September 20th Astrophysical Journal, have demonstrated that Venus might once have had a moon — but the planet’s relative proximity to the Sun and its massive atmosphere both created conditions under which no moon could have survived. If there ever was a moon, it would have disintegrated and fallen back to the surface long ago.

Note: Here is the podcast version of this post.

Space Stories: English Observatory Closing, an Early Warning System for Astronomers, and Accessing Europa’s Ocean

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, England. (Jodrell Bank)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—The Guardian: “Jodrell Bank Observatory Facing Closure After Major Funder Cuts Support“

Jodrell Bank Observatory, the hub of a world-leading network of radio telescopes, is facing closure after government funding for the facility was slashed. Scientists say decision is blow to UK astronomy as deep space observatory is home to world-leading facilities. The deep space observatory includes the Grade I-listed Lovell telescope and is prized by astronomers who study galaxies, black holes, star formation, planets beyond the solar system and the afterglow of the big bang.

—ZME Science: “Astronomers Are Building an ‘Artificial Retina’ to Protect Telescope Images From Satellites“

A telescope can spend hours collecting the faint light of a distant galaxy. A fast-moving satellite needs only a few seconds to cross its field of view, leaving a bright streak that contaminates (and sometimes ruins) the long exposure. As the number of satellites around Earth grows, astronomers increasingly need ways to predict and avoid these crossings. Researchers at the University of Warwick are now developing an early-warning system that could spot an approaching satellite and alert a telescope before it enters the image.

—Rutgers: “Why Europa’s Hidden Ocean May Be More Difficult to Reach Than Scientists Thought“

Europa, one of Jupiter’s icy moons, long has fascinated scientists because of what may lie beneath its frozen shell: a global ocean of liquid water. That hidden ocean has made Europa one of the most compelling places in the solar system to study the conditions that might support life. But new research led by Rutgers scientist Lujendra Ojha suggests one of the most promising shortcuts to Europa’s ocean may be far more complicated than previously thought.

Note: Here is the podcast version of this post.

Space Stories: A Massachusetts Meteor, The Red Dwarf Diet, and an Extra Ice Giant in Our Solar System

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): A exploding meteor off the coast of Massachusetts as captured by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Geostationary Lightning Mapper on May 30, 2026. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Here are some recent space-related stories.

—WCVB5 News: “Meteor That Rattled Massachusetts Was Bigger Than First Thought, NASA Says“

A meteor that created a sonic boom heard by thousands in Massachusetts and parts of the Northeast Saturday afternoon was larger than previously believed, NASA said Monday. Scientists now say the meteor was 5 feet in diameter, up from the initial thought of 3 feet, NASA said. “The meteor was about 5 feet (1.6 meters) in diameter with a mass of 5.6 metric tons and entered Earth’s atmosphere at roughly 42,000 mph,” NASA said Monday. Scientists believe it traveled through the atmosphere from northwest to southeast for 26 miles before breaking up at an altitude of 31 miles and producing a meteorite fall into Cape Cod Bay.

—Royal Astronomical Society: “Red Dwarf Stars Detected ‘Eating’ Earth-like Planets“

Astronomers have found some of the strongest evidence yet that stars can swallow their own planets. A new study, published in Monthly Notices of the Astronomical Society, supports the long-held belief that young stars are capable of ‘eating’ nearby worlds as planetary systems form. Researchers from Keele University and the University of Exeter studied thousands of stars and found evidence that six different red dwarfs – the smallest, coolest, and most common type of star in the universe – had engulfed Earth-like rocky planets.

—Phys.org: “One of Our Planets May Be Missing, And it Could Explain Why the Solar System Looks the Way it Does“

Our solar system has two ice giants, Uranus and Neptune, but there may have been a third. According to a new study published in the journal Icarus, this extra world might have triggered a violent planetary shuffling billions of years ago that could have disrupted some of Jupiter’s and Uranus’s moons and possibly led to the formation of others.

Note: Here is the podcast version of this post.

Study Findings: A Second Visit to Eps Ind Ab with JWST: New Photometry Confirms Ammonia and Suggests Thick Clouds in the Exoplanet Atmosphere of the Closest Super-Jupiter

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Juno mission image of Jupiter taken on Juno’s 22nd close pass by Jupiter on Sept. 12, 2019. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS / Image processing by Prateek Sarpal, © CC NC SA)

The Astrophysical Journal Letters abstract of study findings:

With JWST, we are directly imaging cold (∼200–300 K) solar-age giant exoplanets for the first time. At these temperatures, many molecular features appear, and water-ice clouds may condense and affect the emission spectrum; early photometric measurements of cold giant planets are already showing some tension with the predictions of cloud-free solar-metallicity atmosphere models. Here, we present new JWST/MIRI coronagraphic observations of the cold giant exoplanet Eps Ind Ab at 11.3 μm. Together with archival data, we use these new observations to study the atmosphere of this cold exoplanet, and we also refit its orbit, finding an updated mass of 7.6  ±  0.7MJup and an eccentricity of 0.24 +0.11/-0.08. The planet is significantly brighter (by 0.88  ±  0.08 mag) at 11.3 μm than at 10.6 μm, indicating the presence of ammonia. However, this ammonia feature is shallower than expected. This could indicate a low-metallicity or nitrogen-depleted atmosphere, but our preferred explanation is the presence of thick water-ice clouds that suppress the ammonia feature and the near-IR emission of Eps Ind Ab. Photometry of the small but growing sample of cold giant exoplanets demonstrates that they are consistently fainter than expected between 3 and 5 μm, consistent with the water-ice cloud hypothesis. 10.6 μm and 11.3 μm photometry of this cold exoplanet sample would be valuable to determine whether the suppressed ammonia feature is universal, and to frame a new open question about the underlying physical cause.

Citation: Elisabeth C. Matthews et al. a second visit to eps ind ab with JWST: new photometry confirms ammonia and suggests thick clouds in the exoplanet atmosphere of the closest super-Jupiter, ApJL 1002 L5 (2026).

DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ae5823

Study-related stories:

Max Planck Institute for Astronomy – “Cirrus Clouds Made of Water Ice May Surround a Jupiter-like Exoplanet”

Universe Today – “Webb Finds Water-Ice Clouds on Nearby Super-Jupiter”

Sci.News – “Webb Spots Icy Clouds on Distant Jupiter-Like Exoplane”

Space Stories: The Fate of Juno, the End of a NASA Probe, and “Extragalactic Archeology”

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Jupiter’s North Pole at minimum emission angle as captured by the Juno spacecraft. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Thomas Thomopoulos)

Here are some recent space-related stories of interest.

—Ars Technica: “A Mission NASA Might Kill is Still Returning Fascinating Science from Jupiter“

Jupiter’s colossal storms generate lightning flashes at least 100 times more powerful than those on Earth, according to scientists analyzing data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The findings were published March 20 in the journal AGU Advances. Researchers used data recorded by Juno in 2021 and 2022, after NASA granted an extension to the spacecraft’s operations upon completing a five-year science campaign at Jupiter. Juno remains in good health, but NASA officials have not said if they will approve another extension for the mission. The issue is money.

—Astronomy.com: “NASA’s Van Allen Probe A Burns Up Over the Pacific after 14 Years in Space“

NASA’s Van Allen Probe A re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on Wednesday, March 11, at 6:37 a.m. EDT, marking the final chapter for a spacecraft that reshaped scientists’ understanding of the radiation environment around our planet. The U.S. Space Force confirmed the spacecraft came down over the eastern Pacific Ocean. NASA said most of the 1,300-pound (600 kilograms) probe burned up during reentry, though some pieces may have reached the surface. Its twin, Probe B, remains in orbit and is not expected to re-enter before 2030. The twin probes launched together on Aug. 30, 2012, on what was supposed to be a two-year mission. They operated for nearly seven years instead, circling Earth inside the Van Allen radiation belts — zones of high-energy charged particles held in place by the planet’s magnetic field. 

—Carnegie Science: ““Extragalactic Archeology” Reveals Nearby Galaxy’s Evolution“

A team of astronomers, including Carnegie Science’s Jeff Rich and other former Carnegie Observatories astronomers, have for the first time traced the history of a galaxy outside our own Milky way by studying chemical fingerprints in deep space, a new approach they are calling “extragalactic archeology.” Their findings are published in Nature Astronomy. “This is the first time that a chemical archaeology method has been used with such fine detail outside our own galaxy,” said lead author Lisa Kewley of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard and Smithsonian.