Category Astronomy/Space

A new study finds clues lurking in the Red Planet’s soil. The question of whether Mars ever supported life has captivated the imagination of scientists and the public for decades. Central to the discovery is gaining insight into the past climate of Earth’s neighbor: was the planet warm and wet, with seas and rivers much like those found on our own planet? Or was it frigid and icy, and therefore potentially less prone to supporting life as we know it? A new study finds evidence to support the latter by identifying similarities between soils found on Mars and those of Canada’s Newfoundland, a cold subarctic climate.

The study, published July 7th in Communications Earth and Environment, looked for soils...

A team of astronomers has identified a temperate exoplanet as a promising super-Earth ice or water world.

The findings, led by Université de Montréal, show that the habitable zone exoplanet, LHS 1140 b, is not likely a mini-Neptune, a small so-called gas giant—large planets composed mostly of gas—with a thick hydrogen-rich atmosphere...

Using the repurposed equipment, a team including Imperial College London researchers have measured parts of the Martian atmosphere that were previously impossible to probe. This includes areas that can block radio signals if not properly accounted for—crucial for future Mars habitation missions.

The results of the first 83 measurements, analyzed by Imperial researchers and European Space Agency (ESA) colleagues across Europe, are published today in the journal Radio Science.

To achieve this, ExoMars’ Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) teamed up with another ESA spacecraft orbiting the red planet: Mars Express (MEX). The two craft maintain a radio link, so that as one passes behind the planet, radio waves cut through the deeper layers of the Martian atmosphere.

Changes in the atmospher...

This new picture of the month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features the gravitational lensing of the quasar known as RX J1131-1231, located roughly six billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Crater.

It is considered one of the best lensed quasars discovered to date, as the foreground galaxy smears the image of the background quasar into a bright arc and creates four images of the object.

Gravitational lensing, first predicted by Einstein, offers a rare opportunity to study regions close to the black hole in distant quasars, by acting as a natural telescope and magnifying the light from these sources...