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    Category Astronomy/Space

    An Earth-like Stellar Wind for Proxima Centauri c

    November 30, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    An Earth-like stellar wind for Proxima Centauri c
    An optical image of the starfield near Proxima Cen. The two bright stars are (left) Alpha and (right) Beta Centauri. Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, is the faint red dot inside the red circle. A second planet, Proxima c, was recently discovered orbiting Proxima Cen every 5.3 years. Astronomers calculating the likely effects of the star’s wind on the planet conclude that a possible atmosphere would experience Earth-like conditions. Credit: Skatebiker

    Proxima Centauri is the closest star to the Sun, and its planet, Proxima Cen b (“Proxima b”), lies in its habitable zone (the distance range within which surface water can be liquid), making the planet a prime target for exoplanet characterization. The star is an M-dwarf with a mass of only 0...

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    New insights on Health effects of Long-duration Space Flight

    November 29, 2020, Categories  Health/Medical, Astronomy/Space

    snow-capped peaks of the Andes Mountains, seen from the International Space Station
    The snow-capped peaks of the Andes Mountains in southern Chile are pictured from the International Space Station as it orbited above South America in November 2020. Photo: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

    Among the new findings, the research team found that chronic oxidative stress during spaceflight contributed to the telomere elongation they observed. They also found that astronauts had shorter telomeres after spaceflight than they did before.

    The historic NASA Twins Study investigated identical twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly and provided new information on the health effects of spending time in space.

    Colorado State University Professor Susan Bailey was one of more than 80 scientists across 12 universities who conducted research on the textbook experiment; M...

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    Neutrinos yield first Experimental Evidence of Catalyzed Fusion Dominant in many Stars

    November 29, 2020, Categories  Physics, Astronomy/Space

    Borexino detector. courtesy Borexino Collaboration.
    Borexino detector. courtesy Borexino Collaboration.

    The CNO energy-production mechanism in the universe is detected. An international team of about 100 scientists of the Borexino Collaboration, including particle physicist Andrea Pocar at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, report in Nature this week detection of neutrinos from the sun, directly revealing for the first time that the carbon-nitrogen-oxygen (CNO) fusion-cycle is at work in our sun.

    The CNO cycle is the dominant energy source powering stars heavier than the sun, but it had so far never been directly detected in any star, Pocar explains.

    For much of their life, stars get energy by fusing hydrogen into helium, he adds. In stars like our sun or lighter, this mostly happens through the ‘proton-proton’ chains...

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    Space Travel can Adversely Impact Energy Production in a cell

    November 27, 2020, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Studies of both mice and humans who have traveled into space reveal that critical parts of mitochondria can be made dysfunctional due to changes in gravity, radiation exposure and other factors, according to investigators at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. These findings are part of an extensive research effort across many scientific disciplines to look at the health effects of travel into space. The research has implications for future space travel as well as how metabolic changes due to space travel could inform medical science on earth.

    The findings appeared November 25, 2020, in Cell and are part of a larger compendium of research into health aspects of space travel that appears concurrently in Cell, Cell Reports, Cell Systems, Patterns, and iScience.

    “My gr...

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