• Study Findings: Carbonate Formation and Fluctuating Habitability on Mars

    Nature abstract of the study findings: The cause of Mars’s loss of surface habitability is unclear, with isotopic data suggesting a ‘missing sink’ of carbonate. Past climates with surface and shallow-subsurface liquid water are recorded by Mars’s sedimentary rocks, including strata in the approximately 4-km-thick record at Gale Crater. Those waters were intermittent, spatially patchy and discontinuous,…

  • Russian Delivery Heading to ISS

    Russia launched another cargo mission to the International Space Station ((SS) yesterday. A Soyuz rocket launched the Progress 92 spacecraft towards the space station at 3:32 pm ET from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The spacecraft will dock with the ISS tomorrow afternoon, ensuring critical supplies are available to the crew member. In the meantime,…

  • Pic of the Week: Spiral Galaxy UGC 11397

    This week’s image is from the Hubble Space Telescope. It is an image of the spiral galaxy UGC 11397, which is located about 250 million years light-years away. At the time the light we are now seeing left UGC 11397, the Earth was a very different place. It was dealing with the Permian–Triassic mass extinction,…

  • Space Quote: Maybe We Will See Another Astronaut in the Senate

    It is a disaster. You know, NASA’s budget overall is cut by a quarter — this is proposed — and the science budget is cut by half. Here in Houston — you know, I’m from Houston — it’s going to be a disaster. Thousands and thousands of people are going to lose their jobs. They’re…

  • Space Stories: New Stars in the Heavens, Moon Budget Passes Senate, and Lunar Trailblazer Needs to Call Home

    Here are some recent space-related stories of interest. —Live Science: “2 ‘New Stars’ Have Exploded into the Night Sky in Recent Weeks — and Both are Visible to the Naked Eye“ A second “new star” has unexpectedly appeared in the night sky, less than two weeks after a near-identical point of light first burst into view…

  • Watching NASA on Netflix

    I’m glad to hear that NASA is working with Netflix to expand the amount of space stories available to the public. This summer Netflix will make NASA+ live programming available to its customers, meaning more of the public can watch interviews with astronauts, the launch of space missions, and the happenings aboard the International Space…

  • Study Findings: The Influence of Passing Field Stars on the Solar System’s Dynamical Future

    Icarus abstract of the study findings: The long-term dynamical future of the Sun’s planets has been simulated and statistically analyzed in great detail, but most prior work considers the solar system as completely isolated, neglecting the potential influence of field star passages. To understand the dynamical significance of field star encounters, we simulate several thousand realizations of…

  • Upcoming Protest: NASA Needs Help!

    Even if you cannot attend the protest on Monday, the site notes: If you would rather not join this protest then there are still ways you can help. Please absolutely flood your representatives in Congress with pleas to save NASA. When you do, drive home the point that the cuts are happening now! Most of…

  • Mission Possible, But Not Yet

    A new European space company came close to success with its space capsule early this week until it had problems with reentry. The Exploration Company, discussing its Mission Possible vehicle, had this to say: The capsule was launched successfully, powered the payloads nominally in-orbit, stabilized itself after separation with the launcher, reentered and reestablished communication…

  • Pic of the Week: Trifid and Lagoon Nebulas

    This week’s colorful image is from the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile. It is part of the initial images being released as the observatory comes online. This particular image was created by combining 678 separate images. It shows clouds of gas and dust that comprise the Trifid nebula (top of image) and the…