Global Sea Levels Rose by 0.27 cm from 2021 to 2022

It probably comes as no surprise to people living in low-lying coastal regions, but sea waters are rising by large, measurable amounts. That assessment comes from NASA, which has analyzed 30 years of sea-level satellite measurements. The news is not good. Since 1993, the seas rose by a total of 9.1 centimeters. Two years ago, it went up by 0.27 centimeters.

That one-year rise from 2021 to 2022 may sound small by comparison, but it’s a harbinger. And, it adds up over time. Even taking into account slight shifts due to natural influences like La Niña (which periodically cools the oceans), sea heights continue to rise. Based on continued long-term satellite measurements, the projected rate of sea level rise will hit 0.66 centimeters per year by 2050.

To bring that idea home, last year NASA estimated that levels along the U.S. coastlines could rise as much as 30 centimeters above where they are today by 2050. It could get worse in other parts of the world.

We’re Causing This Sea Level Rise

The culprit for all this is human-caused climate change. It’s driven by the excess amounts of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide humans pump into the atmosphere. Climate change has a number of effects across the globe, but it’s particularly obvious in Earth’s ice sheets and glaciers. Just this past year alone, the Antarctic ice sheet has experienced above-average melting, even accounting for summer temperatures.

The stability of Greenland’s ice pack has changed a great deal, and today the Greenland Ice Sheet is a major contributor to sea level rise. That’s because its runoff and water from the Antarctic ice add more fresh water to the ocean while warming causes the expansion of seawater. The result is rising seas which override other natural effects on sea surface height.

This image of Earth shows sea level measured by the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite in 2021. Red areas are regions where sea level is higher than normal while blue indicates where it’s below normal. (Does not include the blue limb.) The satellite collects measurements for about 90% of Earth’s oceans.
Credits: NASA Earth Observatory

Tracking Sea Height from Space

The best and most accurate way to track ocean height rise is with space-borne instruments on satellites. The U.S.-French TOPEX/Poseidon mission began measuring sea surface height in 1993. Since then, sea-level observations continued through missions led by NASA, ESA, and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Scientific and technical innovations such as radar altimeters help produce ever-more precise measurements of sea levels around the world. To calculate the sea height, they bounce microwave signals off the ocean’s surface. Then, they record the time the signal takes to travel from a satellite to Earth and back, as well as the strength of the return signal.

“We have this clear view of recent sea level rise – and can better project how much and how quickly the oceans will continue to rise – because NASA and Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES) have gathered decades of ocean observations. By combining that data with measurements from the rest of the NASA fleet, we can also understand why the ocean is rising,” said Karen St. Germain, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division in Washington.

An illustration of the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite. Launched in November 2020, it is one of the latest in a series of spacecraft – starting with TOPEX/Poseidon in 1992 and continuing with the Jason series of satellites – that have been gathering ocean height measurements for nearly 30 years.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The 30-year satellite record not only shows long-term trends but allows scientists to see through naturally occurring shorter-term shifts. “That helps us identify the trends that tell us where sea level is headed,” said JPL’s Ben Hamlington, a researcher who leads NASA’s Sea Level Change science team. These measurements are coupled with nearly a century of land-based observations and long-term measurements of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Data from ice mass and land motion measurements give scientists a better idea of how and why seas are rising.

Ground-Level Effects of Sea-Level Rise

All these fundamental observations are important to understand the effects of climate change. But, they also help shape the types of services that federal and international agencies offer to coastal communities. These are the front-line places that have to prepare for rising waters.

As this rise continues, at least 800 million people will be facing at least a half-meter rise in water levels. In practical terms, that places such as Miami, New York, Bangkok, Shanghai, Lima (Peru), Cape Town, and many others, will suffer continual seawater incursions.

Coastal regions in the U.S. alone are home to more than half the country’s population. They contain major shipping ports, as well as recreational areas, and other facilities. The major physical impacts of sea level rise also threaten wildlife populations, delta regions, marshes and wetlands. These are just a few effects of climate change and how it is pushing sea levels up. That’s why fleets of satellites are not only tracking the rise of seawater, but the atmospheric concentrations of gases like carbon dioxide.

“Tracking the greenhouse gases that we add to the atmosphere tells us how hard we’re pushing the climate, but sea levels show us how much it’s responding,” said Josh Willis, an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “These measurements are a critical yardstick for how much humans are reshaping the climate.”

For More Information

NASA Uses 30-year Satellite Record to Track and Project Rising Seas
NASA Study: Rising Sea Level Could Exceed Estimates for U.S. Coasts
National Snow and Ice Data Center
C40: A Coalition of City Mayors Around the World

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A Stellar Explosion Mimicked the End of the Death Star

In 1997, George Lucas released the special edition remaster of his Star Wars trilogy, making changes to the special effects that both delighted and divided fans worldwide (did Han shoot first?). Among the myriad additions was a visually spectacular ring-shaped shockwave emanating from the exploding Death Star, and Alderaan too. Star Trek fans will delightedly point out that this particular special effect had previously been used in the 1991 film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, in which the Klingon moon Praxis explodes, giving the effect its name: the Praxis ring. Hollywood lore suggests Lucas was so impressed with the effect in that film that he added it to Star Wars too.

Praxis rings look cool on the silver screen, but we all know explosions in space are supposed to be spherical. With no preference for up, down, left, or right, the material blown off an exploding star should push outward in all directions.

Except when it doesn’t. A paper published at the end of March described the flattest explosion ever observed, with a disc of material ejecting out from the core along one plane, just like the Praxis effect.

The explosion is AT2018cow, nicknamed ‘The Cow’ because of the letters in its procedurally generated designation. The Cow is a Fast Blue Optical Transient (FBOT), a rare class of explosion of which only five have ever been seen. FBOTs tend to be in the blue end of the spectra range, and they happen quickly on astronomical time scales: The Cow exhausted most of its energy in 16 days. But FBOTs are also incredibly bright – brighter than most supernovas.

The Location of AT2018cow within its galaxy in the constellation Hercules, as seen by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Credit: SDSS

Justyn Maund, the lead author of the paper, said in a press release that “very little is known about FBOT explosions – they just don’t behave like exploding stars should, they are too bright and they evolve too quickly. Put simply, they are weird, and this new observation makes them even weirder.”

At 180 million light years away, The Cow, which was observed in 2018, is the nearest FBOT ever seen. Maund’s team has been pouring over the observation data, and by studying the polarization of the light received from the explosion, they were able to discern details about its shape.

Polarization is the property of light waves that describes the orientation of the waves. Sunglasses use this principle to filter out sunlight by blocking waves in one orientation while allowing waves in other orientations to pass through.

In a stellar explosion, a uniform, spherical debris cloud will produce light that is not polarized in any particular direction, effectively being canceled out across the sphere. But if there are irregularities in the shape of the debris cloud, the light will be partially polarized.

Observations of The Cow show a bright peak in polarization 5.7 days after the start of the explosion, which declined rapidly within a day, followed by a second peak on day 12. “Such a high polarization requires an extremely aspherical geometry,” the paper suggests, “such as shock breakout through an optically thick disk.”

Artist Rendering of AT2018cow, showing a flat disc-shaped explosion. Image credit: Philip Drury, University of Sheffield.

In other words, The Cow seems to have exploded like Praxis.

What causes FBOTs like The Cow? It’s going to take more work to find out for sure. New sky survey instruments like the Vera Rubin Observatory (slated for first light later this year) will be able to capture a bigger sample size of FBOTs and make the task of characterizing them easier.

For now, Maund and his team think that the most likely explanation is that there is an accreting object like a neutron star or black hole at the center of these objects driving the explosion, but the exact mechanism is unclear. It does not appear to be a typical supernova – the collapse of a star into a black hole or neutron star – because there is a lack of radioactive nickel, which supernovas usually produce in great quantities.

The Cow isn’t the only explosion to produce ring shapes. Supernova 1987a is seen here in x-ray and visible light. A similar mechanism may be at work. Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/U.Colorado/S.Zhekov et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI/CfA/P.Challis.

But there are clues that suggest that the explanation for the disc shape lies in what happened before the explosion. Astronomers have seen similar, though not identical, ring structures in some supernovae. During the last stages of a star’s life, it can grow into a blue supergiant, and the speed of its solar wind picks up dramatically. The fast wind collides with the slower wind, piling up material and grouping it around the poles and equator due to the star’s magnetic field. Later, when the star explodes, the explosion impacts the concentrated material, lighting it up in visible rings.

Whether the disc shape of The Cow is the result of a similar mechanism remains to be seen. Maund thinks it might also be a failed supernova, or the result of disruptions as a star passes a black hole.

Either way, its shape is highly unusual, but not impossible. So the next time you watch Star Wars, you’ll have to resist the urge to tell your friends that the Death Star should have a spherical explosion. If The Cow tells us anything, it’s that sometimes space explosions are just weird like that.

Learn More:

“Scientists observe flattest explosion ever seen in space.”The University of Sheffield.

J. Maund et al. “A flash of polarized optical light points to an aspherical ‘cow’” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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Meet the Four Astronauts Who’ll Fly Around the Moon for Artemis II

The four astronauts chosen for NASA’s Artemis II mission will check off a string of firsts during their flight around the moon, scheduled for next year. It’ll mark the first trip beyond Earth orbit for a woman, for a person of color and for a Canadian. Artemis II will represent yet another first for Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen: Based on the current crew schedule, it’ll be his first-ever space mission.

Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch round out the first crew for NASA’s Artemis moon program, which picks up on the legacy of the Apollo moon program. If all goes according to plan, they’ll be the first humans to go into lunar orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.

As NASA Administrator Bill Nelson geared up to introduce the crew, he echoed the moonshot vision that President John F. Kennedy laid out in 1962 in his famous “We Choose to Go to the Moon” speech.

“We choose to go to back to the moon, and on to Mars,” Nelson said. “And we’re going to do it together, because in the 21st century, NASA explores the cosmos with international partners. We will unlock new knowledge and understanding. We’ve always dreamed about what more is ahead. Why? Because it’s in our DNA. It’s part of us. It’s who we are, as adventurers, as explorers, as frontierspeople.”

Dozens of astronauts and scores of VIPs attended today’s big reveal at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Texas. Joe Acaba — the chief of the Astronaut Office — joked onstage about the secrecy that surrounded the selection of the four Artemis II crew members. “I’ll give you one hint: I am not one of them,” he told the crowd. “Don’t be so happy about that.”

Metaphorically speaking, the stage was set for Artemis II last fall when NASA’s Space Launch System sent an uncrewed Orion deep-space capsule on a weeks-long Artemis I mission around the moon and back. That flight was designed to test NASA’s hardware and procedures for Artemis II — and for the even more ambitious Artemis III mission, which currently aims to put astronauts on the lunar surface in late 2025.

The flight plan is for the 10-day Artemis II mission is analogous to the Apollo 8 round-the-moon mission in 1968. As was the case for Artemis I, the trip would begin with an SLS launch — but this time with people instead of test dummies inside the Orion capsule. After an initial systems checkout in high Earth orbit, the crew would fly past the moon and then make a gravity-assisted turnaround 6,400 miles beyond lunar orbit. The return to Earth would feature a 25,000 mph re-entry and an Apollo-style splashdown.

This NASA infographic lays out the flight plan for Artemis II. Click on the image for a larger version.

“Am I excited? Absolutely,” Christina Koch, who would become the first woman to see the moon’s far side with her own eyes, told today’s audience. “But my real question is, are you excited? I see you and I ask that, because the one thing I’m most excited about is that we are going to carry your excitement, your aspirations, your dreams with us on this mission.”

Jeremy Hansen, the only space rookie on the Artemis II crew, gave a shout-out to America’s leadership in space and Canada’s “can-do attitude.” His role on the mission recognizes Canadian contributions to NASA’s space effort, including the robotic arms for the space shuttle and the International Space Station as well as a lunar utility vehicle that Canadian companies are building for moon missions.

“For decades now, literally thousands upon thousands of Canadians have risen to that challenge to bring real value to the international partnership with respect to space exploration, to bring real solutions,” Hansen said.

Victor Glover, who became the first Black astronaut to join a long-duration crew on the International Space Station in 2020, said the hoopla surrounding the Artemis II mission had a Hollywood feel to it. “I feel like Denzel Washington should be up here talking to you, but you just got us,” he said with a laugh.

“Human spaceflight is like a relay race,” Glover said. “And that baton has been passed from generation to generation, and from crew member to crew member, from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Apollo-Soyuz, Skylab, Mir, the shuttle, International Space Station, commercial crew and now the Artemis missions. We understand our role in that. And when we have the privilege of having that baton, we’re going to do our best to run a good race, to make you proud.”

Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman closed out the ceremony with a round of thanks to NASA’s workforce, its international partners — and particularly to his fellow astronauts, including the International Space Station’s current crew.

“If any of you over there are looking for heroes, go Google these folks, because they’re our heroes,” Wiseman said.

To save you a Google search, here are the basic stats for Artemis II’s crew:

Commander Reid Wiseman
Hometown: Baltimore, Md.
Born: 1975
Background: Naval aviator, test pilot, selected to become astronaut in 2009.
Spaceflight experience: Expedition 40/41 on International Space Station, 2014.

Pilot Victor Glover
Hometown: Pomona, Calif.
Born: 1976
Background: Naval aviator, test pilot, selected as NASA astronaut in 2013.
Spaceflight experience: SpaceX Crew-1 and Expedition 64 on International Space Station, 2020-2021.

Mission specialist Christina Hammock Koch
Hometown: Grand Rapids, Mich.
Born: 1979
Background: Engineer at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, research associate in U.S. Antarctic Program, electrical engineer at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, researcher at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, selected as NASA astronaut in 2013.
Spaceflight experience: Expedition 59/60/61 on International Space Station, 2019-2020.

Mission specialist Jeremy Hansen (Canada)
Hometown: London, Ontario
Born: 1976
Background: Fighter pilot, selected as Canadian Space Agency astronaut in 2009.
Training experience: Cave test subject with European Space Agency’s CAVES program in 2013, aquanaut with NEEMO 19 underwater test program in 2014.

And here are a few reactions from notables on Twitter:

The @NASA Artemis II crewed mission around the Moon will inspire the next generation of explorers, and show every child – in America, in Canada, and across the world – that if they can dream it, they can be it. pic.twitter.com/X8q3GLTBiQ

— President Biden (@POTUS) April 3, 2023

Congratulations to Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Reid Wiseman of NASA, and Jeremy Hansen, as the #NASA Artemis 2 crew in ‘24! This is a great honor, a proud moment for you and for the nation. Your role in carrying out America’s effort in space will be one of high inspiration! pic.twitter.com/oTYpWgB6JY

— Dr. Buzz Aldrin (@TheRealBuzz) April 3, 2023

Wiseman. Glover. Koch. Hansen.

The names of #Artemis II crew: the first humans to fly to the Moon in over 50 years, the first to launch on an @NASA_SLS rocket on a @NASA_Orion with the second European Service Module ?https://t.co/9P3j9EiLrw #ForwardToTheMoon pic.twitter.com/sNYEP4orWz

— ESA (@esa) April 3, 2023

Only 24 people have ever been to the Moon. And they’ve all been American. But that’s about to change – because the @CSA_ASC’s own @Astro_Jeremy is going there with the #Artemis II crew next year. Watch more of my chat with him here: https://t.co/0CvqLJ9wmO pic.twitter.com/BUD64ZGNAw

— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) April 3, 2023

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Astronomers Think They've Found One of the Biggest Black Holes Ever Seen

In 1931, Indian-American physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar proposed a resolution to Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity that postulated the existence of black holes. By 1972, astronomers obtained the first conclusive evidence that these objects existed in our Universe. Observations of quasars and the center of the Milky Way also revealed that most massive galaxies have supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at their cores. Since then, the study of black holes has revealed that these objects vary in size and mass, ranging from micro black holes (MBHs) and intermediate black holes (IMBHs) to SMBHs.

Using astronomical simulations and a technique known as Gravitational Lensing, an international team of astrophysicists detected what could be the largest black hole ever observed. This ultramassive black hole (UMBH) has a mass roughly 30 billion times that of our Sun and is located near the center of the Abell 1201 galaxy cluster, roughly 2.7 billion light-years from Earth. This is the first time a black hole has been found using Gravitational Lensing, and it could enable studies that look farther into space to find black holes and deepen our understanding of their size and scale.

The study was conducted by researchers from the Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy (CEA) at Durham University, the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPIA), and NASA’s Ames Research Center. It was led by Dr. James Nightingale, a post-doctoral research associate at the CEA, with support provided by the UK Space Agency (UKSA), the Royal Society, the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), and the European Research Council (ERC). A paper that describes their findings recently appeared in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

This illustration shows how gravitational lensing works. The gravity of a large galaxy cluster is so strong it bends, brightens, and distorts the light of distant galaxies behind it. Credit: NASA, ESA, L. Calcada

Gravitational Lensing (GL) refers to a phenomenon predicted by General Relativity, which describes how spacetime curvature is warped by the presence of massive objects. This technique involves astronomers using massive objects in the foreground (like galaxies or galaxy clusters) to amplify light from more distant objects. This enables astronomers to study objects that would otherwise be inaccessible to them, either because of distance or the presence of other objects along the same line of sight. This technique also allows astronomers to study distant objects in greater detail, such as the Abell 1201 cluster.

Dr. Nightingale and his associates began studying this cluster in 2004 when Prof. Alastair Edge, a fellow Durham University astronomer and a co-author of this paper, reviewed images of a galactic survey and noticed a giant lens in its vicinity. For this study, Dr. Nightingale, Prof. Edge, and their colleagues consulted data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in multiple bands – including visible light, X-rays, and other wavelengths. Following up on what Hubble saw years ago, the team compared the data to simulations on the new DiRAC COSmology MAchine 8 (COSMA8) supercomputer facilities at Durham University.

Using open-source software (PyAutoLens) that astronomers rely on to model strong lenses, the team simulated light traveling between Abell 2021 and Earth thousands of times. Each simulation included a black hole with a different mass and how this would influence the way the light traveled over 2.7 billion years to reach Earth. Their results showed that a UMBH located in the foreground galaxy, over 30 billion times as massive as our Sun, would account for what Hubble saw. Astronomers rarely see black holes this massive, and this find (if confirmed) would constitute the largest black hole ever detected.

On top of that, it was the first time astronomers used the GL technique to detect such a massive black hole. What’s more, it could help astronomers learn more about UMBHs and dormant black holes in the future. Ordinarily, astronomers are largely restricted to studying active black holes because of how bright they are in multiple wavelengths. This is caused by gas and dust being pulled in toward black holes and forming tightly-bound disks that are accelerated to velocities approaching the speed of light (aka. relativistic speed).

This causes the material in the disk to become highly energetic, emitting radiation in visible light, infrared, X-rays, radio waves, and other wavelengths. The same occurs when the material infalls and is accreted onto the face of the black hole, being torn apart at the subatomic level. This is characteristic of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), where a galaxy’s center shines brighter than all the stars in the galactic disks. This study has shown how dormant black holes, which are significantly less luminous, can be inferred by the presence of a powerful GL.

The team hopes that this study will lead to deeper explorations of black holes, which will benefit from the new class of 30-meter telescopes that will become operational in the near future. These include the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), which will combine greater sensitivity with adaptive optics and interferometers. Along with improved data analysis and new methods, astronomers will likely be able to study even more distant black holes and gain additional insights into these behemoths.

Further Reading: Durham University, MNRAS

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Leaky Soyuz Capsule Returns to Earth

Roscosmos has had quite the run of bad luck lately. In addition to sanctions putting pressure on their space program and the cancellation of agreements (all due to the war in Ukraine), the Russian space agency has experienced several problems in space. On December 14th, 2022, and February 11th, 2023, two space capsules reportedly suffered radiator coolant leaks (Soyuz MS-22 and Progress 82). In addition to delivering fresh supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), one of the spacecraft (M-22) was slated to bring three members of Expedition 68 back to Earth.

Luckily, on February 25th, Russia announced it was sending another Soyuz capsule to replace the M-22 (Soyuz M-23) and retrieve the three crew members, cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin, and astronaut Frank Rubio (who will return to Earth now on September 27th). In addition, Tuesday, March 28th, Russia undocked the M-22 from the ISS and successfully brought it home without crew. NASA provided live coverage of the undocking and departure of the uncrewed spacecraft via NASA TV, the agency website, and the NASA app.

The Soyuz MS-22 begins to depart the station following its undocking from the Rassvet module. Credit: NASA TV

After undocking with the ISS at 5:57 AM EDT (2:57 AM PDT), the spacecraft made an automated, parachute-assisted landing in Kazakhstan less than two hours later at 5:46 PM Kazakhstan time (7:46 AM EDT; 4:46 AM PDT). This successful retrieval of this spacecraft and the safe return of the three Expedition 68 crewmembers will put this incident and the delays it imposed to rest. However, the incident raises questions about the state of Roscosmos, given that this is the latest in a recent string of technical failures and malfunctions.

Due to the rescheduled departure date, astronaut Frank Rubio is destined to set a new record for the longest time a U.S. astronaut spent in space. Whereas the record for longest stay goes to the late Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 continuous days in space aboard the Mir Space Station, Rubio’s 371-day stay will be edging out Scott Kelly and Christina Koch, who spent a total of 340 (March 2015 to March 2016) and 328 days (February to December 2019) aboard the ISS (respectively).

Meanwhile, Expedition 69 has started aboard the ISS, with cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev acting as Station Commander. Other crewmembers include NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen, Woody Hoburg, and Frank Rubio, United Arab Emirates (UAE) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Andrey Fedyaev and Dmitri Petelin. This Expedition will feature research into how cardiac cells behave in microgravity, pharmaceuticals that may protect astronaut health, tests involving the European Robotic Arm, and the Foam and Emulsions physics study.

Further Reading: NASA Blo

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JWST Reveals Trappist-1 Data, Earth-Sized Rogue Planet, Vulcan Delay

We finally got JWST data about TRAPPIST-1. An Earth-sized rogue planet was found. More information about China’s plans for the Moon.

JWST Reveals Trappist-1 Data

Finally! The data we’ve been hoping to see is rolling in JWST’s observations of the famous TRAPPIST-1 system, where seven Earth-sized worlds are orbiting a red dwarf star, several of which are in the habitable zone. Today we learned about the innermost planet in the system, TRAPPIST-1 b, which orbits so close to the star that its dayside temperatures reach 500 kelvin, midway between Earth’s average temperature and Mercury. JWST also failed to detect any atmosphere at 1b. Stay tuned for the next world in the system; it looks like we’re going to get them one at a time.

More about Trappist-1 by James Webb

Kazakhstan Seizes Russia’s Facility at Baikonur

Kazakhstan has seized control of the Biaterek launch complex at the Baikonur Cosmodrome. It’s not the main site where the Soyuz rockets are launched from. The Biaterek is mainly used for the development of the Soyuz 5 rocket, which Russia was working on with Kazakhstan. Roscomos has lost almost all their business connections since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. So, it looks like there are even more tensions with the partners they have left.

More about Roscosmos’ assets arrest

Rogue Planets Found in Older Data

Scientists have found what appear to be rogue planets hidden in old survey data. A terrestrial mass planet and a Neptune mass planet have been discovered free-floating in the Milky Way. They were found by analyzing micro-lensing events when a rogue planet passes in front of a background star and distorts its light.

More about Earth-size rogue planet

China’s Moon Plans

China proposed research goals for their future Moon base. They plan to establish a basic version of a station by 2028, and subsequently expand it into an international facility. There were also some new details about upcoming Chang’e landers and rovers. China’s traditionally not very public about their plans, but the Moon program is definitely looking serious.

More about China’s future Moon base

Water in Lunar Regolith

When China’s Chang’e-5 mission returned samples of the Moon’s south pole to Earth, scientists were excited to discover tiny glass beads mixed in with the rock and regolith. These are evidence of ancient asteroid impacts on the Moon, turning the regolith into glass with extreme heat and pressure. They were surprised to discover water was trapped inside the glass spheres, created by hydrogen from the solar wind striking the Moon, mixing with local oxygen atoms. They estimate trillions of tonnes of water bound up in lunar regolith that could be available to future lunar explorers.

More about water on the Moon

3D Printing Batteries on The Moon

Going to the Moon to stay means that we will need to bring a lot of heavy things there. One of the ways to minimize the required effort and cost is to make things from the stuff that’s already available on the Moon. One of the heaviest, yet very necessary things for future lunar exploration, will be batteries. So, there are several promising technologies that should be able to 3D-print batteries from lunar regolith. If this works, this can be a game changer.

More about printing batteries from lunar regolith

Europa’s Crust is Detached From Its Core

One of the most surprising discoveries made by NASA’s Voyager missions was the possibility of a vast ocean of liquid water on Jupiter’s moon Europa. This is surrounded by a thick sheet of ice that could descend for tens of kilometers. With further research, planetary scientists have discovered that the ice shell is detached from the solid core of the moon and pushed along by ocean currents under the ice. This could also explain why Europa’s surface is covered in enormous cracks.

More about Europa’s rotation

Delays for Vulcan and Starliner

Two setbacks were revealed this week. Boeing Starliner’s first manned flight will be delayed at least until summer, which was announced by NASA. Also, the maiden flight of Vulcan will be delayed. According to ULA’s Tory Bruno, there was an anomaly when testing the Centaur second stage. It’s unclear now what exactly was the problem and how serious it is. But, as Tory Bruno said, Vulcan will fly when it’s ready.

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Don’t Just Grow Potatoes on Mars, Use them for Concrete

A while back, we reported on a research group that was using an interesting mix of materials to create concrete on Mars. The University of Manchester researchers used blood and urine to create concrete bricks using Martian regolith stronger than concrete used on Earth. However, there was an obvious downside of literally requiring blood to make them, let alone the side effects of having astronauts potentially live in a building built partially out of their own bodily fluids. So the researchers thought up a different material whose usefulness in space will be familiar to anyone who has read Andy Weir’s most famous novel – potatoes.

Potatoes bring a lot of benefits to space exploration. Most importantly, they’re an extremely efficient and stable source of calories. But their starch can also be used as a binder when making concrete. Specifically, it can bind together materials, such as Martian or Lunar regolith, to create something akin to what we would typically consider concrete.

The resultant material, known as “StarCrete,” is twice as strong as typical concrete used here on Earth, at least from a compressive strength perspective. When the potato starch is mixed with lunar regolith, the resultant material is even stronger, clocking in at almost three times the compressive strength of concrete typically used on Earth.

UT video examining the extend of ISRU on Mars.

Another disadvantage of typical concrete is its environmental record – concrete production is responsible for 8% of all CO2 emissions, as it requires extremely high temperatures, typically up to 1300 C, to create. Starcrete can be made at temperatures closer to a typical home oven of around 190 C. So there is an environmentally friendly use case for using Starcrete to replace typically made Earth concrete back here on the ground.

To this end, the researchers at the University of Manchester have created a start-up company called DeakinBio which is seeking out potential use cases for StarCrete on Earth. They’re certainly not the only start-up seeking ways to decrease the CO2 emissions of the concrete industry. And it certainly won’t be as easy to get the raw ingredients of their material on Earth as it would be on Mars or the Moon. But it’s certainly worth a shot.

If the start-up route happens to fail, though, there could be a silver lining. It seems difficult for the researchers to move away from utilizing bodily fluids to construct their materials. To be honest, there’s a good reason for that – people can be viewed simply as bioreactors that can create blood, urine, and in some cases, tears, so there will always be a steady supply of those on any long-term space mission.

Another UT video looks at the technology discussed in this article.

Ironically, despite moving away from the first two bodily fluids, the University of Manchester researchers found a use case for the third. Magnesium chloride, which admittedly is also commonly found on the Martian surface (but not on the Moon), can dramatically improve the strength of their StarCrete. Chalk another point up for material scientists’ ingenuity (and strong stomachs).

Learn More:
University of Manchester – Scientists develop a ‘cosmic concrete’ that is twice as strong as regular concrete
UT – Astronaut Blood and Urine Could Help Build Structures on the Moon
UT – Mars Rocks Have the Right raw Ingredients to 3D Print Everything From Tools to Rocket Parts
UT – Mars Explorers are Going to Need air, and Lots of it. Here’s a Technology That Might Help Them Breath Easy

Lead Image:
An image of StarCrete made from potato binder and Martian regolith simulant.
Credit – Aled Roberts

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