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NASA’s Artemis campaign will use human landing systems, provided by SpaceX and Blue Origin, to safely transport crew to and from the surface of the moon, in preparation for future crewed missions to Mars. As the landers touch down and lift off from the moon, rocket exhaust plumes will affect the top layer of lunar “soil,” called regolith, on the moon. When the lander’s engines ignite to decelerate prior to touchdown, they could create craters and instability in the area under the lander and send regolith particles flying at high speeds in various directions.
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Quasicrystals, exotic states of matter characterized by an ordered structure with non-repeating spatial patterns, have been the focus of numerous recent physics studies due to their unique organization and resulting symmetries. Among the quasicrystals that have sparked significant interest among the physics community are so-called quantum quasicrystals, which are comprised of bosons (i.e., subatomic particles that have spin in integer values, such as 0, 1, 2, and so on, and can occupy the same quantum state simultaneously).
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Classical physics theories suggest that when two or more electromagnetic waves interfere destructively (i.e., with their electric fields canceling each other out), they cannot interact with matter. In contrast, quantum mechanics theory suggests that light particles continue interacting with other matter even when their average electric field is equal to zero.
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Whether we are simply characters in an advanced virtual world is a much-debated theory, challenging previous thinking about the universe and our existence.
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An international team including astronomers from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) has announced the discovery of a planet about twice the size of Earth orbiting its star farther out than Saturn is to the sun.
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NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team shared Thursday the designs for the three core surveys the mission will conduct after launch. These observation programs are designed to investigate some of the most profound mysteries in astrophysics while enabling expansive cosmic exploration that will revolutionize our understanding of the universe.
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When NASA astronauts return to the moon under the Artemis campaign and eventually venture farther into the solar system, they will encounter conditions harsher than any humans have experienced before. Ensuring next-generation spacesuits protect astronauts requires new varieties of tests, and a one-of-a-kind chamber called CITADEL (Cryogenic Ice Testing, Acquisition Development, and Excavation Laboratory) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California is helping.
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For NASA, sending a crewed mission to Mars has been the long-term goal for over two decades. China has joined the club in recent years, with plans to send crewed missions to the red planet ahead of NASA. In both cases, the plans envision a stepping stone approach, using habitats and infrastructure in cis-lunar space to ensure that regular missions can be possible someday. They also envision how regular missions to Mars could lead to permanent habitats on the planet’s surface.
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A spaceship carrying three astronauts docked Thursday with China’s space station in the latest crew rotation, marking a further step in the country’s ambitions for a crewed mission to the moon and explore Mars.
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The Institut für Sonnenphysik (KIS) located in Freiburg, Germany, has installed a high-precision measuring instrument for the world’s largest solar telescope, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope on the Haleakalā volcano located on Maui/Hawaii.
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NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has never been camera shy, having been seen in selfies and images taken from space. But on Feb. 28—the 4,466th Martian day, or sol, of the mission—Curiosity was captured in what is believed to be the first orbital image of the rover mid-drive across the red planet.
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A team of astronomers and astrophysicists at the Chinese Academy of Science’s National Astronomical Observatories has found evidence suggesting that a “gas clump” in a fast-moving cloud in the neighborhood of the Milky Way may be a dark galaxy. Their findings are published in the journal Science Advances.
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Researchers have developed a new portable Raman analyzer that can accurately measure very low concentrations of hydrogen gas in ambient air. The instrument could be useful for detecting hydrogen leaks, which pose serious safety risks due to the gas’s flammability and tendency to accumulate in confined spaces.
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To learn more about the nature of matter, energy, space, and time, physicists smash high-energy particles together in large accelerator machines, creating sprays of millions of particles per second of a variety of masses and speeds. The collisions may also produce entirely new particles not predicted by the standard model, the prevailing theory of fundamental particles and forces in our universe. Plans are underway to create more powerful particle accelerators, whose collisions will unleash even larger subatomic storms. How will researchers sift through the chaos?
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Filipino scientists have discovered a simple, affordable way to make dynamically adjustable water-based lenses that have a wide variety of potential future applications—from classrooms and research labs to cameras and even wearable gadgets. Their research is published in the journal Results in Optics.
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