Category Astronomy/Space

In a typical Alfvén wave, the particles (yellow) move freely along the magnetic field lines (blue).
Credits: NASA Goddard’s Scientific Visualization Studio/Tom Bridgman, data visualizer

NASA scientists are reshaping the basic understanding of the kinetic Alfvén wave in space. When NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale – or MMS – mission was launched, the scientists knew it would answer questions fundamental to the nature of our universe – and MMS hasn’t disappointed. A new finding provides observational proof of a 50-year-old theory and reshapes the basic understanding of the kinetic Alfvén wave...

The Large Magelanic Cloud is a well-known satellite or dwarf galaxy that closely orbits the Milky Way and is visible in Earth’s southern hemisphere. RIT researchers make the case for the existence of “missing” satellite galaxies that are cloaked in dark matter and cannot be directly observed. Credit: ESA/NASA/Hubble

Research conducted by scientists at Rochester Institute of Technology rules out a challenge to the accepted standard model of the universe and theory of how galaxies form by shedding new light on a problematic structure...

Research into space farming has resulted in numerous Earth-based advances (e.g., LED lighting for greenhouse and vertical farm applications; new seed potato propagation techniques, etc.) There are still many technical challenges, but plants and associated biological systems can and will be a major component of the systems that keep humans alive when we establish ourselves on the Moon, Mars and beyond. Credit: NASA

How plants are grown beyond Earth? Plants, and specifically crop plants, will be a major component of proposed regenerative life-support systems as they provide food, oxygen, scrub carbon dioxide, and aid in water recycling – all in a self-regenerating or ‘bioregenerative’ fashion...

An illustration of the MAVEN spacecraft. Image courtesy NASA.

Solar wind and radiation are responsible for stripping the Martian atmosphere, transforming Mars from a planet that could have supported life billions of years ago into a frigid desert world, according to new results from NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission) spacecraft led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

“We’ve determined that most of the gas ever present in the Mars atmosphere has been lost to space,” said Bruce Jakosky, LASP Prof, principal investigator for MAVEN. “The team made this determination from the latest result, which reveals that about 65% of the argon that was ever in the atmosphere has been lost to space.”

MAVEN team members had previously announced measurements showing that atmosphe...