Category Astronomy/Space

A potentially better way to make oxygen for astronauts in space using magnetism has been proposed by an international team of scientists, including a University of Warwick chemist.

The conclusion is from new research on magnetic phase separation in microgravity published in npj Microgravity by researchers from the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, University of Colorado Boulder and Freie Universität Berlin in Germany.

Keeping astronauts breathing aboard the International Space Station and other space vehicles is a complicated and costly process. As humans plan future missions to the Moon or Mars better technology will be needed.

Lead author Álvaro Romero-Calvo, a recent Ph.D...

Below Europa’s thick icy crust is a massive, global ocean where the snow floats upwards onto inverted ice peaks and submerged ravines. The bizarre underwater snow is known to occur below ice shelves on Earth, but a new study shows that the same is likely true for Jupiter’s moon, where it may play a role in building its ice shell.

The underwater snow is much purer than other kinds of ice, which means Europa’s ice shell could be much less salty than previously thought. That’s important for mission scientists preparing NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will use radar to peek beneath the ice shell to see if Europa’s ocean could be hospitable to life...

Astronomers have long sought the launch sites for some of the highest-energy protons in our galaxy...

A Northwestern University astrophysics team is aiming for the stars—well, a dead star, that is.

On Aug. 21, the NASA-funded team will launch its “Micro-X” rocket from White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico. The rocket will spend 15 minutes in space—just enough time to snap a quick image of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, a star in the Cassiopeia constellation that exploded approximately 11,000 light-years away from Earth. Then, the rocket will parachute back to Earth, landing in the desert—about 45 miles from the launchpad—where the Northwestern team will recover its payload.

Short for “high-resolution microcalorimeter Xray imaging rocket,” the Micro-X rocket will carry a superconductor-based X-ray imaging spectrometer that is capable of measuring t...