Tag: science

Martian glacier flowing past small peak

12:32 pm

Overview map

Martian glacier flowing past small peak
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on November 24, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

As is proper, the science team labels this vaguely as a “flow obstacle in lobate debris apron.” The obstacle is that small peak. The lobate debris apron is the material flowing past, resembling in almost all details what a glacier looks like on Earth. The scientists use vague terms because they don’t want to trap themselves into a conclusion before it is confirmed.

Nonetheless, based on all the data MRO and other Mars orbiters have been gathering for the past decade, we are almost certainly looking at near-surface ice flowing downhill and past that peak.

The white dot in the overview map above marks the location, on the western end of the 2,000-mile-long mid-latitude strip I label “glacier country,” because practically every image from this region shows features such as this.

The arrow in the inset shows the direction of the downhill grade, dropping from 2,000 to 3,000 feet from the surrounding plateau. The peak itself rises about 130 feet above the flow on the uphill side, but 650 feet above on the downhill side. Apparently the flow piled up somewhat as it hit the peak.

That flow however is likely inactive at this time. Though the researchers have repeatedly monitored the many glacial flows they have found on Mars in the decade since MRO arrived in Mars orbit, so far I have heard of no example showing any movement. And that covers about five Martian years.

These images do prove one thing: Mars is not dry. It has plenty of water near the surface, though locked in ice.

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Exposed weirdness on floor of Martian crater

12:18 pm

Crazy shapes on floor of Martian crater
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on November 27, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The science team labels this “exposed crater floor materials”. While properly vague, that hardly suffices. This image could easily fall into my “What the heck?!” category of Martian geology that is difficult to understand, no less explain.

The color strip suggests that dust dominates near the top and bottom, though dust is also present in the middle. The patches with the bluish tint in the middle suggests these lighter swirls and patches are bedrock.

Of course, none of that explains the weird shapes of these patches, nor why they exist at all.

Before delving into those weird shapes, we must note the two vertical black strips to the right of the color strip, indicating a gap in data. Such gaps have been appearing more frequently of late, suggesting MRO’s age, almost a decade in orbit around Mars, is beginning to show itself. A failure in 2023 in one filter band of the high resolution camera already leaves blank the color swath in black and white images. These new blank strips indicate further issues, warning us that we must be prepared for the loss of this camera and orbiter in the somewhat near future.
» Read more

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No alien civilizations? After analyzing two decades of data SETI@Home produces 100 signals “worth a second look”

9:08 am

For more than two decades, from 1999 to 2020, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) project asked millions of people worldwide to loan it the use of their computers so the project to could analyze twelve billion signal detections that were of interest.

After 10 years of work, the SETI@home team has now finished analyzing those detections, winnowing them down to about a million “candidate” signals and then to 100 that are worth a second look. They have been pointing China’s Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, a radio telescope referred to as FAST, at these targets since July, hoping to see the signals again.

Though the FAST data are not yet analyzed, [computer scientist and project co-founder David Anderson] admits he doesn’t expect to find a signal from ET.

At the link the SETI team outlined the many reasons, all quite reasonable, for the failure to detect any obvious signals from alien civilizations. The universe is vast, they only looked at a very tiny slice, the variations of signals are many, and the amount of data was still so gigantic analyzing it was endlessly time-consuming. Moreover, they might have been looking at the wrong wavelengths, and there is even the possibility that advanced civilizations simply don’t broadcast at any wavelengths.

Nonetheless, the project was not a failure. It showed it was possible to use a lot of home computers to create the equivalent of a super-computer. The technology and volunteer system it developed has since been used by other scientists on projects like looking for clouds on Mars and studying galaxy types.

The big question remains unanswered however. Considering the numbers of stars in the galaxy, and the recent data that shows most have planets, it seems strange that there have been so few candidate detections, and even these are questionable. Could it actually be the case that we are the first sentient intelligence species in the Milky Way?

There always has to be a first. That humanity might be that first is a mind-blowing thought.

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SpaceX launches NASA’s Pandora exoplanet space telescope

9:32 am

SpaceX today successfully launched a new NASA space telescope, Pandora, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

Pandora is a smallsat focused on studying 20 stars known to have transiting exoplanets. It will look at each repeatedly to draw as much information about the star and the exoplanet as possible. Also deployed were two other NASA smaller astronomy cubesats.

The Falcon 9 first stage completed its 5th flight, landing back at Vandenberg. The two fairing halves completed their first and seventh flights respectively.

At this moment, SpaceX is the only entity to have launched in 2026. This was its fourth launch.

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The first preliminary research into landing a Mars helicopter in the Starship landing zone

12:58 pm

Map of rotorcraft images in Starship landing zone

In early November 2025 I posted a cool image from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) that had the very provocative label “Characterize Possible Rotorcraft Landing Site”. While this was not the first such image taken by scientists using MRO to scout out potential landing zones for future Mars helicopter missions (see here and here), this particular image was one of several taken recently that were all within the candidate landing zone for SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft, focused specifically on the low Erebus mountain chain that sits within this part of Mars’ northern lowland plains.

In the January image download from MRO, I found another such image, taken on December 1, 2025. The map to the right shows that Starship candidate landing zone, with all the images taken for SpaceX indicated. The inset adds all the recent images taken for this “possible rotorcraft” mission, including the December image and the previous four (here, here, here, and here), with orange representing images already obtained and yellow those requested but pending.

I decided I needed to find out more, and tracked down the scientist who had requested the images, Eldar Dobrea of the Planetary Science Institute in Arizona. In response to my email, he explained:
» Read more

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Another spiral galaxy that should not exist discovered in the early universe

9:40 am

Early spiral galaxy
Click for original.

Using the Webb Space Telescope, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh has discovered another barred-spiral galaxy that should not exist because it exists only two billion years after the Big Bang,.

The false color Webb image of this new galaxy is to the right, reduced to post here. This is the second such early spiral galaxy discovered, with the previous discovery announced in December 2025.

In essence, Ivanov said, “It’s the highest redshift, spectroscopically confirmed, unlensed barred spiral galaxy.” He wasn’t necessarily surprised to find a barred spiral galaxy so early in the universe’s evolution. In fact, some simulations suggest bars forming at redshift 5, or about 12.5 billion years ago. But, Ivanov said, “In principle, I think that this is not an epoch in which you expect to find many of these objects. It helps to constrain the timescales of bar formation. And it’s just really interesting.”

I think he is being careful with his words. Based on present theories of galaxy evolution as well as Big Bang cosmology, spiral galaxies like this should not yet exist this early.

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Icy Mars

2:26 pm

Overview map

Icy Mars

Today’s cool image once again illustrates the fact that most of Mars Mars is not a dry desert like the Sahara, as most news sources and the general public still believes, but a cold icy place similar to Antarctica, with plenty of near surface ice covering almost the whole planet, except for the dry equatorial regions (the one region we have sent almost all our landers and rovers).

The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on November 26, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows one small section of the floor of an unnamed very old and eroded 82-mile-wide crater located in the northern mid-latitudes of Mars.

That location is indicated by the white dot on the overview map above. This part of the mid-latitudes is a region I dub “glacier country”, a 2,000-mile long strip where practically every image taken there shows very obvious glacial features.

Today’s image is no different. The 2-mile-wide crater in the upper left appears blobby, as if the impact had landed in mud. Its interior is filled with what the scientists believe is glacial debris. The surrounding landscape has a similar appearance, as if the ground was slushy and easily misshapen by seasonal temperature changes. To the southwest of the crater, within what appears to be a surrounding splash apron, there appears to be an eroded drainage channel, likely created by the flow of glacial ice downward.

So, when you read articles telling you Mars is dry and scientists are still hunting for water there, know that whomever wrote that article had no idea what he or she were talking about. The scientists studying Mars know that Mars has lots of water. Except for the tropics below 30 degrees latitude, there is near surface ice everywhere. Their questions revolve instead on figuring out how deep and extensive it is, and how it has shaped Mars’ overall geology.

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Billionaire to fund construction of an orbiting optical telescope larger than Hubble

10:42 am

Lazuli
Figure 1 from the proposal paper [pdf].

Schmidt Sciences, a foundation created by one of Google’s founders, announced yesterday it is financing the construction of four new research telescopes, one of which will be an orbiting optical telescope with a mirror 3.1 meters in diameter, larger than the 2.4 meter primary mirror on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Today at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Schmidt Sciences, a foundation backed by billionaires Eric and Wendy Schmidt, announced one of the largest ever private investments in astronomy: funding for an orbiting observatory larger than NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, along with funds to build three novel ground-based observatories. The project aims to have all four components up and running by the end of the decade.

“We’re providing a new set of windows into the universe,” says Stuart Feldman, president of Schmidt Sciences, which will manage the observatory system. Time on the telescopes will be open to scientists worldwide, and data harvested by them will be available in linked databases. Schmidt Sciences declined to say how much it is investing but Feldman says the space telescope, called Lazuli, alone will cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

Eric Schmidt was once CEO of Google, and in recent years has been spending his large fortune (estimated to exceed $50 billion) on space ventures. For example, in March 2025 he acquired control of the rocket startup Relativity.

While the three new ground-based telescopes will do important work, the Lazuli space telescope is by far the most important, not only scientifically but culturally. » Read more

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Second Escapade Mars orbiter completes a delayed engine burn

10:03 am

Engineers have now successfully placed both Escapade Mars orbiters in their parking orbit, the second orbiter completed the required engine burn after it was delayed due to unexpected telemetry during an earlier mid-course correction burn.

That unexpected telemetry suggested the engine was firing at a lower thrust than expected. Today’s update did not provide any additional information as to how the thrust issue had been solved or overcome. All it said was that both spacecraft will fire their engines in November 2026 as planned to head to Mars.

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Scientists: Methane from spacecraft landing on the Moon could “obscure” evidence of life

12:31 pm

Chicken Little rules!
Chicken Little rules!

Chicken Little stupidity now abounds everywhere! Scientists using computer models say the methane fuel that many lunar landers will use can spread quickly across the entire Moon and then “obscure” any evidence of life that might be found there.

Sinibaldi and Francisca Paiva, a physicist at Instituto Superior Técnico and lead author of the study, built a computer model to simulate how that contamination might play out, using the European Space Agency’s Argonaut mission as a case study. The simulations focused on how methane, the main organic compound released during combustion of Argonaut propellants, might spread across the lunar surface during a landing at the moon’s South Pole. While previous studies had investigated how water molecules might move on the moon, none had done so for organic molecules like methane. The new model also accounted for how factors like solar wind and UV radiation would impact the methane’s behavior.

…The model showed exhaust methane reaching the North Pole in under two lunar days. Within seven lunar days (almost 7 months on Earth), more than half of the total exhaust methane had been “cold trapped” at the frigid poles — 42% at the South Pole and 12% at the North.

Though this result is of interest, as it suggests such exhaust can spread quickly on a low-gravity planet with no atmosphere, these scientists then make themselves look like fools by claiming this quick spread will contaminate the Moon, thus hindering the search for evidence of life there, and thus require new “planetary protection” measures. From their paper’s conclusion:

As lunar exploration unfolds, prioritizing effective and informed planetary protection measures will be key for safeguarding the Moon’s pristine scientific value and paving the way for a sustainable and responsible lunar exploration.

The level of foolishness in these claims is hard to measure. The Moon is the least likely place to search for evidence of past life. And regardless, limiting the use of methane fuel but allowing other exploration is not going to solve their problem. The mere presence of human activity is going to “contaminate” the Moon’s “pristine” environment. To make believe it is possible to impose some rules to prevent it is idiocy.

This whole study and its focus on “planetary protection” is really aimed at protecting the turf of these scientists. If others are allowed to explore the planets with different goals (profit or settlement instead of pure scientific research), their playground will be spoiled. Thus, they write these reports designed to give them ammunition for convincing governments to impose regulations in their favor. And they know they have allies in the UN for this purpose.

They also know they have willing allies in the propaganda press. Be prepared for numerous mainstream stories in the next day or so, touting this study with no skepticism.

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Rubin Observatory’s first observations detects more than 2,000 asteroids

11:04 am

The first look patch, in which 2,103 asteroids were detected
The first look patch, in which 2,103 asteroids
were detected. Figure 1 of the paper.

Scientists have now published the first results from the Rubin Observatory in Chile during its on-going commissioning phase, during which they detected more than 2,000 asteroids in just one patch in the sky, most of which had been unknown previously and many rotating at record-breaking speeds.

You can read the paper here [pdf]. From the press release:

The study presents 76 asteroids with reliable rotation periods. This includes 16 super-fast rotators with rotation periods between roughly 13 minutes and 2.2 hours, and three ultra-fast rotators that complete a full spin in less than five minutes.

All 19 newly identified fast-rotators are longer than the length of an American football field (100 yards or about 90 meters). The fastest-spinning main-belt asteroid identified, named 2025 MN45, is 710 meters (0.4 miles) in diameter and it completes a full rotation every 1.88 minutes. This combination makes it the fastest-spinning asteroid with a diameter over 500 meters that astronomers have found.

All but one of these fast-rotators are in the main asteroid belt, with the exception a near-Earth asteroid.

This work essentially completes Rubin’s commissioning. It will begin full observations in 2026. From the paper:

Toward the start of 2026, the observatory will begin conducting the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), a decade-long campaign to repeatedly image the southern sky in multiple bands. The main LSST survey will use six filters spanning near-ultraviolet to near-infrared wavelengths, revisiting the same pointing twice each night, returning to take additional pairs every few nights. … The cadence is designed to result in a dataset capable of answering numerous and varied science cases, from understanding the nature of dark energy to discovering and characterizing millions of asteroids, comets, interstellar objects, and transneptunian objects (TNOs) in the solar system.

In building Rubin the astronomers have always thought their biggest problem was archiving and accessing this large dataset, and much work was spent developing a usable and accessible archive system. Even so, it will take thousands of scientists many decades to mine the discoveries that will be hidden there.

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Study: If Europa has an underground ocean, it is lifeless and dormant

9:43 am

Scientists analyzing the conditions that are believed to exist in Europa’s theorized underground ocean have concluded there is little geological activity within that ocean, reducing significantly the chances there is life there.

A new study led by Paul Byrne, an associate professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences, at Washington University in St. Louis, throws cold water on the idea that Europa could support life at the seafloor. Using calculations that consider the moon’s size, the makeup of its rocky core and the gravitational forces from Jupiter, Byrne and a team of scientists conclude that Europa likely lacks the tectonic motion, warm hydrothermal vents or any other sort of underwater geologic activity that would presumably be a prerequisite for life.

“If we could explore that ocean with a remote-control submarine, we predict we wouldn’t see any new fractures, active volcanoes or plumes of hot water on the seafloor,” Byrne said. “Geologically, there’s not a lot happening down there. Everything would be quiet.” And on an icy world like Europa, a quiet seafloor might well mean a lifeless ocean, he added.

You can read the paper here [pdf]. It admits in its conclusion that these results have a lot of uncertainty, and the Europa Clipper mission, set to arrive in orbit around Jupiter in 2031, will reduce that uncertainty but not eliminate it, adding that “Ultimately, however, the true test of our results here will require directly accessing the ocean and, perhaps one day, the ocean floor itself.”

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