Exomoons Could Be Habitable for Billions of Years, Provided they have Hydrogen Atmospheres

Liquid water is considered essential for life. Surprisingly, however, stable conditions that are conducive to life could exist far from any sun. A research team from the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS at LMU and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) has shown that moons around free-floating planets can keep their water oceans liquid for up to 4.3 billion years by virtue of dense hydrogen atmospheres and tidal heating—that is to say, for almost as long as Earth has existed and sufficient time for complex life to develop.

Mars-Like Worlds Near M-Dwarfs May Lose Air in Millions of Years

The criteria for finding an Earth-like planet unofficially comes down to two things: water and the habitable zone. But a phenomenon known as atmospheric escape often “escapes” the minds of many astronomy fans, and it turns out that atmospheric escape is one of the key characteristics for finding an Earth-like world. Although extensive research has been conducted on how the planet Mars might have lost its atmosphere, and potentially the ability to sustain life, how would the atmosphere enveloping a Mars-like exoplanet respond to stars different from our own?

Hunting Moon Water With Neutrons

Water is the difference between a temporary visit and a permanent home. If humanity is serious about building a lasting presence on the Moon, finding usable ice near the lunar south pole isn't just a scientific curiosity, it's a practical necessity. Now NASA is sending a clever instrument that hunts for water without digging a single hole, using the behaviour of subatomic particles to sniff out hidden ice deposits up to three feet underground.

Hera Aces A Massive Engine Burn On Its Way To Didymos

In September 2022, humanity crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid - on purpose. The objective of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was to see if we could intentionally modify the orbit of Dimorphos, the small moonlet orbiting the larger asteroid Didymos. According to all accounts, the mission worked spectacularly, but it was a one-way trip, so our ability to see what happened to the binary asteroid system has so far been limited to ground-based telescopes. That wasn’t good enough for the planetary defense community, so they planned a follow up mission called Hera, which, according to a recent press release from its operator, the European Space Agency (ESA), just successfully completed its most dramatic deep-space orbital maneuver.

Uncovering the Effects of Microgravity on Liver Metabolism

A team led by Professor Mian Long from the Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, investigated the effects of space microgravity on cultured liver cells aboard the China Space Station.

Jupiter's Lightning Could Be Almost Unbelievably Powerful

Juno observations show that Jupiter's lightning, already known to be powerful, is far more energetic than thought. Lightning triggered by a stealth superstorm in 2021-22 could be up to one million times more powerful than terrestrial lightning.

How Did Venus Become a Hellscape? 234,000 Simulations Reveal Four Possible Paths

Venus is increasingly becoming a touch point for our studies of the exoplanets, as missions like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)and the upcoming Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) begin to characterize rocky exoplanets around other stars. Understanding the difference between the evolutions of Venus and Earth, which ended up with such different results, is a key to understanding whether we might be looking at an Earth-analogue or a hellish landscape like Venus. A new paper by Rodolfo Garcia of the University of Washington and his colleagues, which is available in pre-print form on arXiv, simulates Venus’ 4.5 billion year evolution as part of the solar system to try to understand some of those differences.