A new study published in Nature features the mineralized remains of what the team of scientists from University College London think to be bacteria that lived some 3.77 billion to 4.28 billion years ago. The oldest fossils to date before this, in Greenland last August, were found to be 3.7 billion years. The microscopic bacteria aren’t much to look at, and there’s even some controversy as to whether or not these fossils were actually once living. But on the assumption that they were, these organisms were quite tiny - smaller than the width of a human hair, in fact. The tiny filaments and tubes formed that formed the fossils would have been made by bacteria that lived on iron erupting from hot vents in the 140F (60C) oceans which covered the early planet. They were found encased in quartz layers in the Nuvvuagittuq Supracrustal Belt (NSB), Quebec, Canada, according to ScienceDaily. Time Magazine writes that the microscopic filaments and tubes were discovered in a rock type called jasper. The filaments are composed of an iron oxide called hematite and one strand may represent a chain of cells. "Our discovery supports the idea that life emerged from hot, seafloor vents shortly after planet Earth formed. This speedy appearance of life on Earth fits with other evidence of recently discovered 3,700 million year old sedimentary mounds that were shaped by microorganisms," explained first author, PhD student Matthew Dodd (UCL Earth Sciences and the London Centre for Nanotechnology). Which is why the scientists are interested in extrapolating this discovery to learn more about early-Mars. Their evidence suggest that similar organisms could also have evolved on Mars, “which at the time still had oceans and an atmosphere, and was being bombarded by comets which probably brought the building blocks of life to Earth,” reports the Telegraph UK. The obvious curiosity within this investigation is if life exists or existed on other planets. “Early Mars and early Earth are very similar places, so we may expect to find life on both planets at this time,” said Dodd, the lead author of the study which was co-funded by NASA. “We know that life managed to get a foothold and evolve rapidly on Earth. So if we have life evolving in hydrothermal vent systems maybe even 4.2 billion years ago when both planets had liquid water on their surface, then we would expect both planets to develop early life. “If we do future sample returns from Mars and look at similarly old rocks and we don’t find evidence of life then this certainly may point to the fact that Earth might have been a very special exception, and life may just have arisen on Earth.” Sources: Time Magazine, ScienceDaily, Telegraph UK

NASA’s Opportunity rover fell silent last Summer when a planet-wide dust storm enveloped Mars. The dust storm lasted for several months, but it came and went; unfortunately, engineers have yet to reestablish contact with the rover since it succumbed to the dust storm, and the optimism that this might change is quickly fading. Image Credit: NASA “We’re getting close to the end,” said Mars Exploration Rover project manager John Callas from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “At some point, in an emotional sense, you have to say ‘enough’ and move on, to say goodbye.” Related: Will we ever hear from the Opportunity rover again? You’ve probably discerned already from the hopelessness in Callas’ tone of voice that those involved with the recovery attempts are getting somewhat exhausted with all the failed efforts to restore communication with Opportunity over the last several months. Nevertheless, the team still has a few tricks up its sleeve. With the seasons now changing on Mars, the red planet is about to get a whole lot windier. NASA and those involved with the communication attempts are hopeful that the wind gusts will kick enough of the dust buildup off Opportunity’s solar arrays to let the rover charge up and turn back on. It’s a long shot, but perhaps not too far-fetched. On the other hand, Opportunity has been dormant for so long that engineers think its batteries could be depleted. Just as a dead battery in a car would reset radio settings and timekeeping, engineers are concerned that the same might have happened with Opportunity. That said, if the rover ever did wake up, then its clock would be out of whack, potentially hampering communication efforts at certain times of the day. In response to this potential pitfall, engineers use the Deep Space Network (DSN) antenna to listen for signals from Opportunity during all hours of the day and night. Sadly, they still haven’t heard anything, and options are becoming limited. “There are still some techniques we want to try to account for multiple failure scenarios on the vehicle,” Callas added. “We’re trying to look at all the possible things that could explain why we haven’t heard from the rover that are potentially recoverable. Things like if both transmitter amplifiers failed, could we use just the UHF (radio)? Those are the kinds of things we’re looking at. We’d like to give those a try.” Related: The Curiosity rover's wheels are beginning to break If the team fails to contact the Opportunity rover as the windy season ensues, then they could be out of luck. If they can’t get things up and running before the Martian Winter, then Opportunity will have no hope of receiving enough sunlight to power on again, and NASA will have no choice but to abandon it. “NASA makes the decision about this,” Callas concluded. “Until they tell us otherwise, we’ll keep going.” NASA’s Opportunity rover has ridden out dust storms before, but the one that enveloped Mars last Summer was intense; in fact, it was the worst of its kind that humans have witnessed since astronomers first started peering at the red planet through telescopes. Only the Curiosity rover with its nuclear-centric power source continued to operate as expected throughout the storm. Even if NASA doesn’t successfully reestablish a connection with Opportunity, the mission was more successful than anyone could have hoped. NASA’s newer Curiosity rover continues to explore the Martian surface, and it won’t be long now before the upcoming Mars 2020 rover joins it. Without a doubt, NASA has a lot to look forward to regarding Martian exploration whether it successfully revives the Opportunity rover or not. Source: Spaceflight Now

A whole host of landers, orbiters, and rovers study the Martian surface day in and day out for clues about its environment and its puzzling past, but despite having so much going on to explore Mars at any given time, many unanswered questions remain. Perhaps one of the most famous Martian missions of all is a rover named Curiosity. It’s a vehicle-sized mobile laboratory that rolls around, snaps pictures, and zaps Martian rocks with lasers to learn more about their chemical composition. Image Credit: NASA While Curiosity has roamed the Martian surface since 2012 and signs of wear and tear are beginning to show on the rover’s large aluminum wheels, NASA isn’t leaving any rock unturned. The space agency has officially assigned a new project to the persistent little explorer. According to a public statement issued by the space agency this week, Curiosity is now ascending to the top of Vera Rubin Ridge, a location of interest that has piqued researchers’ curiosity for years. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Curiosity has already studied the base of the ridge in detail, but this will be the first time the rover climbs to the top to investigate unexplored regions. In doing so, Curiosity will travel over one-third of a mile and climb almost 213 feet higher than its current elevation. "We're on the climb now, driving up a route where we can access the layers we've studied from below," said Abigail Fraeman, a Curiosity science-team member with NASA. "As we skirted around the base of the ridge this summer, we had the opportunity to observe the large vertical exposure of rock layers that make up the bottom part of the ridge," Fraeman, continued. "But even though steep cliffs are great for exposing the stratifications, they're not so good for driving up." Related: Check out this rad selfie taken by NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars Among many of the features that make this ridge unique is its dense concentration of the iron oxide mineral hematite. Scientists hope that by exploring the ridge up close, they'll learn more about why the structure isn’t corroding like other Martian features do and figure out the source of the hematite. On the other hand, it won’t be an uninterrupted drive. Curiosity will make a series pit stops throughout the climb, sampling rocks as it goes to learn more about how the rock appearance and chemical composition changes along the way Mars orbiters have helped planetary scientists mark important regions where the rover will stop and conduct testing. Curiosity is already programmed to handle everything autonomously, so all we have to do now is sit back and wait for the data to roll in. Source: NASA

NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan said Tuesday that, within a decade, humanity will have found 'strong indications' of extraterrestrial life.Humanity is on the verge of discovering alien life, high-ranking NASA scientists say."I think we're going to have strong indications of life beyond Earth within a decade, and I think we're going to have definitive evidence within 20 to 30 years," NASA chief scientist Ellen Stofan said Tuesday (April 7) during a panel discussion that focused on the space agency's efforts to search for habitable worlds and alien life."We know where to look. We know how to look," Stofan added during the event, which was webcast live. "In most cases we have the technology, and we're on a path to implementing it. And so I think we're definitely on the road."Former astronaut John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, shared Stofan's optimism, predicting that signs of life will be found relatively soon both in our own solar system and beyond."I think we're one generation away in our solar system, whether it's on an icy moon or on Mars, and one generation [away] on a planet around a nearby star," Grunsfeld said during Tuesday's event.Many habitable environmentsRecent discoveries suggest that the solar system and broader Milky Way galaxy teem with environments that could support life as we know it, Grunsfeld said.For example, oceans of liquid water slosh beneath the icy shells of the Jupiter moons Europa and Ganymede, as well as that of the Saturn satellite Enceladus. Oceans covered much of Mars in the ancient past, and seasonal dark streaks observed on the Red Planet's surface today may be caused by salty flowing water.Further, NASA's Curiosity rover has found carbon-containing organic molecules and "fixed" nitrogen, basic ingredients necessary for Earth-like life, on the Martian surface.Farther afield, observations by NASA's Kepler space telescope suggest that nearly every star in the sky hosts planets - and many of these worlds may be habitable. Indeed, Kepler's work has shown that rocky worlds like Earth and Mars are probably more common throughout the galaxy than gas giants such as Saturn and Jupiter.And just as the solar system is awash in water, so is the greater galaxy, said Paul Hertz, director of NASA's Astrophysics Division.The Milky Way is "a soggy place," Hertz said during Tuesday's event. "We can see water in the interstellar clouds from which planetary systems and stellar systems form. We can see water in the disks of debris that are going to become planetary systems around other stars, and we can even see comets being dissipated in other solar systems as [their] star evaporates them." [6 Most Likely Places for Alien Life in the Solar System]Looking for lifeHunting for evidence of alien life is a much trickier proposition than identifying potentially habitable environments. But researchers are working steadily toward that more involved and ambitious goal, Stofan and others said.For example, the agency's next Mars rover, scheduled to launch in 2020, will search for signs of past life and cache samples for a possible return to Earth for analysis. NASA also aims to land astronauts on Mars in the 2030s - a step Stofan regards as key to the search for Mars life."I'm a field geologist; I go out and break open rocks and look for fossils," Stofan said. "Those are hard to find. So I have a bias that it's eventually going to take humans on the surface of Mars - field geologists, astrobiologists, chemists - actually out there looking for that good evidence of life that we can bring back to Earth for all the scientists to argue about."NASA is also planning out a mission to Europa, which may launch as early as 2022. The main goal of this $2.1 billion mission will be to shed light on the icy moon's potential habitability, but it could also search for signs of alien life: Agency officials are considering ways to sample and study the plumes of water vapor that apparently erupt from Europa's south polar region.In the exoplanet realm, the agency's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an $8.8 billion instrument scheduled to launch in 2018, will scope out the atmospheres of nearby "super-Earth" alien planets, looking for gases that may have been produced by life.JWST will scan the starlight that passes through the air of super-Earths, which are more massive than our own planet but significantly less so than gaseous worlds such as Uranus and Neptune. This method, called transit spectroscopy, will likely not work for potentially habitable Earth-size worlds, Hertz said.Searching for biosignature gases on small, rocky exoplanets will instead probably require direct imaging of these worlds, using a "coronagraph" to block out the overwhelming glare of their parent stars, Hertz added.NASA's potential Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope, which may launch in the mid-2020s if given the official go-ahead, would include a coronagraph for exoplanet observations.Article by By Mike Wall, SPACE.comSource: csmonitor.com

For the next month, sky gazers will get the opportunity see a rare event in the sky just before the crack of dawn each morning. Five planets will be lining up in the sky and will be visible with the naked eye without the need for telescopes, binoculars, or other eye-aiding equipment, although if you want a better look, they’ll certainly be helpful to have. From January 20th to approximately February 20th, Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter will all be visible in alignment in clear skies approximately 45 minutes before dawn each morning. These planets haven’t been visible in alignment like this to the naked eye for about 10 years, so it’s a spectacular visual event that everyone should get outside to see while they have the chance. Despite being called “naked eye planets,” they aren’t always that easy to point out in the night sky. Unfortunately, there are so many stars out there in the night sky that only some of the planets are actually easy to point out from the rest. Some of the planets are too dim to distinguish from stars. So how can you tell the difference? Jason Kendall of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York has a tip for you that involves using just your thumb and one of your eyes. Depending on how the light from the source in the sky behaves, you’ll be able to distinguish whether you’re looking at a planet or a star because of the way that the light is being transmitted. Will you be looking out for these planets in coming weeks? Source: EarthSky

We live on Earth, the so-called blue planet. Without water, Earth would not be "blue" at all, not to mention the life that is bred on the planet because of the existence of the universal solvent. Although minerals at the Earth's crust contain ingredients for making water, the majority of water, which exist on the surface of the planet, is believed to be delivered from the space. Scientists contemplated two possible carriers that might have brought us water: asteroids and comets. There are millions of asteroids in a belt shape zone between Mars and Jupiter, with the size ranging from 1 to 1000 kilometer in diameter, no wonder some of them are considered minor planets, especially those of the inner Solar System. The composition of asteroids varies, but some of them have a lot of water. For example, Ceres the most massive object in the asteroid belt is covered by an icy mantle. Comets, the second possible carrier of water, are small icy bodies that have highly eccentric orbits. When a comet gets close enough to the Sun, the irradiated heat from the Sun evaporates its water and gaseous molecules, producing a visible tail. Comets are made of loosely packed ice, dust, and small rocky particles. Through isotopic analysis of the hydrogens, scientists have concluded that asteroids are likely the primary source of Earth's water because their deuterium to hydrogen ratio match better. Source: It's Okay to Be Smart via Youtube

SpaceX quickly became popular because of their Falcon 9 rocket, which routinely blasts off from the launch pad to send equipment into space - be it a satellite or supplies for the International Space Station. Once it completes its primary mission, the rocket booster falls back to Earth and lands upright on a landing pad or a drone ship to get refurbished. But now, SpaceX has a crazy new idea. At an international meeting on Friday, Elon Musk announced how he wants to create a new form of commercial transportation using the company's rocket technology that could ferry a person from one side of the planet to the other in under an hour. Airplanes can take almost 15 hours to fly from New York City to Shanghai, but SpaceX claims that a rocket could perform the same transportation needs in less than 39 minutes. Many other trips could take less than 30 minutes. It would involve the creation of a new type of spacecraft that could carry multiple people at once. It would launch high into Earth's atmosphere with the help of a rocket, where it will then travel up to 27,000 km/h toward its destination. Once there, the spacecraft would make a controlled landing with all its occupants, all while the original rocket booster lands upright on Earth to get refurbished. Not only could this be a breakthrough new use for SpaceX's space rockets, but it could help the company raise funds to eventually send people to Mars, which is a goal that Musk aims to complete as soon as 2024. It seems like it might be pretty expensive, but would you want to ride in a space rocket to get to another part of the world?

Remember all those science fiction movies that showed space travelers encased in sleep chambers? The premise was that humans could be put into a deep sleep, thus making it possible for manned missions to reach far away planets and galaxies without the necessity of keeping crew members awake the entire time. Perhaps it's not just science fiction any more. A NASA funded study on the feasibility of placing astronauts in a prolonged state of sleep-known as torpor---has recently shown that the idea may not be as farfetched as Hollywood makes it seem. NASA has contracted with SpaceWorks Enterprises in Atlanta, GA to look into the technology of long-term human stasis. The study, Torpor Inducing Transfer Habitat for Human Stasis to Mars, is showing early signs of successfully putting crewmembers into a kind of hibernation.With current spacecraft technology, a flight to Mars would take about 180 days. In order to keep astronauts busy, healthy and fed on a journey that long, the baseline weight of the spacecraft would be around 400 tons. That includes food, galley space, exercise equipment, clothing and other crew equipment. The astronauts would be "fed" via an intravenous administration of nutrients, reducing the need for six months worth of food and water to be on board. If astronauts spent their transit time asleep, in a specific stasis habitat built into the spacecraft, the weight could be reduced to about 220 tons. In addition, the energy needs of a lighter craft would be significantly reduced. How can this state of torpor be induced though? One method that is already used in medical science is known as "therapeutic hypothermia" where a patient's body temperature is deliberately lowered in an attempt to prevent brain damage and tissue injury following cardiac arrest, spinal cord injury or stroke. The preferred method of cooling the body is an intranasal system RhinoChill. An inhaled gas cools the body by about 1-degree Fahrenheit per hour and a torpor state can be fully achieved in about six hours. Stopping the gas will allow the body temperature to begin to rise, however warming pads are also planned so that a crewmember could be awakened faster in the event of an emergency.So far, scientists have only been able to keep a person in this state for about a week. Research is ongoing into how to safely extend this time as well as how to wake crewmembers remotely if there were medical complications or a change in the mission. In addition, vital signs and health status of astronauts in stasis would need to be monitored in real-time. One option being considered is to rotate crew member sleep shifts, keeping one astronaut awake for a few says doing scientific research and other chores required while the rest of the crew is in kept in stasis for two weeks. By staggering stasis and awake times, the potential for complications from long-term damage would be greatly reduced and there would always be one crewmember awake to handle any unforeseen events.While it seems an impossible task, the concept of a successful mission to Mars by astronauts who have been kept in a prolonged stasis could soon be a reality. NASA has made it a priority in backing this study and the knowledge gained could be a game changer in the race to send a manned spacecraft to Mars.

NASA’s InSight mission touched down on the Martian surface at the end of November, and less than a month later, deployed its Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) seismometer instrument in preparation for observing the red planet’s internal mechanisms. But we knew it wasn't ready for science just yet; InSight still needed to take care of some tedious ground-leveling and then shield the seismometer instrument from the surrounding elements. It has now been just over a month since InSight first positioned SEIS in its permanent home on Mars, and according to one of NASA’s latest public statements, the lander has been somewhat busy for the last several weeks. Not only has InSight been working around the clock to adjust the seismometer’s tilt on the Martian terrain, but it just recently encased the seismometer inside of its specialized Wind and Thermal Shield. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Just as the name implies, the Wind and Thermal Shield is designed to keep the SEIS instrument sealed away from wind interference and temperature changes. Even the slightest amount of wind interference can introduce false positives when investigating Mars’ internal vibrations, and rapid temperature changes are just as harmful to the collection of accurate scientific data. Related: Everything InSight has accomplished since landing on the Martian surface SEIS particularly sensitive to thermal oscillation, such as what transpires as day turns into night, and vice-versa, and InSight’s landing site just so happens to exhibit unstable temperatures throughout the day. According to NASA, the surrounding temperature fluctuates by as much as 170 degrees Fahrenheit from day to night, a difference that is significant enough to impact the metal springs and components that SEIS uses to capture measurements. "Temperature is one of our biggest bugaboos," elucidated Bruce Banerdt, the InSight mission’s principal investigator at JPL. "Think of the shield as putting a cozy over your food on a table. It keeps SEIS from warming up too much during the day or cooling off too much at night. In general, we want to keep the temperature as steady as possible." Related: NASA still hasn't heard back from its Opportunity rover, and hope is dwindling Earth-based seismometers are often buried underground to protect against wind and thermal interference, but InSight isn’t equipped to put SEIS below the Martian surface. Instead, the Wind and Thermal Shield provides an above-ground equivalent to being buried, and integrated software corrects any deviations before they ever reach NASA scientists. With SEIS now carefully deployed on the Martian surface, it will soon be ready to begin collecting scientific data to help scientists learn more about Mars' mysterious past. Meanwhile, the InSight lander will prepare to deploy its heat flow probe, a specialized device that will be placed underground to measure the planet’s internal temperature. It should be interesting to see what the InSight mission turns up, especially given all the hype surrounding Mars, its formation, and its part in the modern solar system. Source: NASA

2019 was one of the most exciting years for space fans. Therefore it’s hard to believe that 2020 could bring something even more fascinating. However, space is unpredictable so we could never be sure when and what to expect. Today we’re going to look through all the exciting space missions which are expected to set in 2020. SpaceX and Boeing Private firms are playing an increasingly important role in reducing the cost of space travel, and this year the first astronauts are likely to fly on board of a commercial spacecraft like SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Boeing's Starliner. The exact launch dates are not announced yet. Both spacecrafts are still in testing mode in order to make them as safe as possible for transporting humans. In December 2019, Starliner launched an uncrewed test flight. Although the spacecraft did not reach the International Space Station due to burning too much fuel during launch, this flight was still a big success for Boeing. Elon Musk’s SpaceX is expected to launch Crew Dragon, its first manned mission, in 2020. An unmanned version reached the International Space Station in March 2019. If successful, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon would probably become one of the main transportations for US astronauts to and from the space station. Currently, they are flying with Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft after the US’s main launcher, the space shuttle, was retired back in 2011. Solar Orbiter The Solar Orbiter is a joint mission of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). It is expected to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on 5th February. The spacecraft’s mission will be to get as close as 0.28 astronomical units (one astronomical unit equals the distance between the Sun and the Earth) to the Sun. Its main purpose will be to study our star and tell us more about its nature, processes and behavior. This mission is expected to last seven years. Mars as a priority 2020 will be the year of Mars. Several missions are expected to head towards the Red planet this year. On July 17 NASA will launch its long-awaited Mars 2020 rover to explore possible sites of ancient habitability. The European Space Agency and Russia are planning to do the same with their ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover several days later, on July 25. The United Arab Emirates and China will also send their own missions to Mars. China is heading to the Moon and China's space agency is expected to launch its next moon mission, called Chang'e-5, this year, but they have not announced a launch date yet. They intend to take samples from the Moon and send them back to the Earth for further analysis. China is going to the Moon after its successful Chang'e-4 mission which landed on the far side of the moon at the beginning of 2019. If Chang'e-5 succeeds it will be the first mission to bring back samples from the Earth’s satellite since the last Apollo mission. Asteroids Nasa’s Osiris-Rex, which launched in 2016, is currently orbiting Bennu, a small, spheroidal asteroid with a diameter of about 520 meters, made of carbon-rich rock – a material that scientists believe is representative of the cloud of swirling gas and dust from which the solar system formed 4,6 billion years ago. This summer, Osiris-Rex will move closer to Bennu’s surface, extend a robot arm and release a puff of gas that will send pieces of rock and dust flying up from the surface – and into a collection tube. The spacecraft will then start its journey back home, releasing a container with samples from the asteroid inside as it comes closer to Earth in September 2023, so that the container drops on to the Utah desert. Sources: Space.com, The Guardian

You've probably heard of the Orion space capsule. It's part of the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle or (MPCV), NASA's next manned spacecraft. Weighing 21 tons, it will be boosted into space by a rocket and carry up to six astronauts to the International Space Station, possibly to the Moon, a nearby asteroid, or Mars.But back in the fifties and early sixties there was a serious plan for another spacecraft called Orion. One version would have been as tall as a sixteen-story skyscraper, and in the shape of a giant bullet. It would weigh roughly 4000 tons and have a crew of up to a hundred and fifty people, each of whom would have their own private cabin. Designers of this Orion would not be concerned with weight. Their design would be intentionally massive, and tough, built like an ocean going ship, with a hull of heavy steel plate. Their Orion would blast off from the Nevada desert, or some other remote location, directly into space- and eventually accelerate to about one tenth of the speed of light. In about three months few months it would land on Mars. Using their massive ship, stocked with all of the provisions, scientific equipment, even full laboratories required, the crew would spend a year completing an extensive study of Mars.At the end of that year, Orion would blast off from Mars, not to return to Earth, but to head deeper into space, to Saturn, where it would orbit for a year, studying the planet's rings and moons. Then Orion would head for home. At the end of its five-year mission, this Orion would return to Earth with samples from Mars, Phobos, Deimos, Enceladus, Iapetus and Saturn's rings, all of which they would have already been studying in the Orion's extensive laboratories during the year and a half voyage home, all accomplished before 1975.Sounds like a thrilling science fiction novel, right? Well, actually, from 1958 to 1964, American scientists undertook a very serious, very well-funded project to realize this very vision they called Project Orion. If you've never heard of it, that's because until quite recently the entire project was highly classified. But how could such a thing even be possible? And if it was possible, why was it never constructed? Well, there was, you could say, a hitch. This massive, super-fast interplanetary starship would have been propelled by nuclear bombs. Yes, nuclear bombs. Crazy? Well, actually not at all.You may think that when a nuclear bomb goes off, everything in its wake gets vaporized, right? Actually, scientists were surprised to discover that the tower that suspended the first ever nuclear device detonated in the Nevada desert was not turned into atoms. The tower was blown into pieces, yes, but the pieces were all flung, in tact, in some cases, many miles away. During one of the first underground nuclear tests called Operation Plumbbob, high speed photography showed the massive metal cap placed on top of the detonation pit was not destroyed or melted. It was flung far into the air, possibly into orbit. These surprising results gave scientists an idea: what if you could design a craft that could ride the shockwave not just from one nuclear device, but from a series of them ejected out of the back of the craft? As they started doing the math, they realized that, properly engineered, a truly massive spaceship could not just ride these detonations into space and eventually accelerate to a little over one tenth the speed of light. A team was assembled, and work began on this epic enterprise. Over time, the team worked out designs for the ship, the small nuclear bombs to propel it, the system to eject them from the rear of the craft, how to keep the pusher plate that would absorb the shockwaves from melting. They had even identified the shipyard that would build Orion and devised a number of possible methods for launching Orion into orbit without contaminating the Earth with radiation and electromagnetic pulses. But then came the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that outlawed any further atmospheric detonation of nuclear devices. And that was pretty much it. The project was shelved. By that point NASA was already devoting all of its resources toward chemical rockets in the race to the Moon. And without the public ever knowing, a very buildable, highly capable, truly massive starship went from being very close to being a scientific mission, back into the realm of science fiction.(Source: ArmaugPlanet.com)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve undoubtedly caught wind about SpaceX’s ambitious Starship project. Starship is still very much in its prototype stages, and despite a recent setback that transpired during a scheduled pressure test at SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas-based facility, the team continues to press on with the project to bring the concept to life. Starship, paired with the commercial space company’s upcoming Super Heavy rocket booster, will be the most powerful and versatile deep space launch vehicle for ever conceived. The Super Heavy rocket booster alone will sport 37 of its own cryogenic fuel-powered Raptor engines, while the Starship payload itself will come equipped with an addition 6 Raptor engines for thrust beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. Starship will be crafted out of stainless-steel due to its ideal density and thermal properties, and it will be large enough to seat 100 passengers and plenty of cargo on top of that. The size and seating capacity are no coincidence; Elon Musk hopes that Starship will eventually contribute to the colonization of Mars, a long-term goal shared by SpaceX and NASA alike. SpaceX plans to fund the development of Starship by using later prototypes for commercial resupply missions to the International Space Station for a smaller price tag than what is currently being paid to use the Falcon rockets. Moreover, it could even be used to send astronauts to the International Space Station. Much like the Falcon rockets, the Starship system will be reusable, enabling SpaceX to save money as it conducts business. There’s still a lot of work to be done before Starship is ready for anything serious, but SpaceX appears to be moving very rapidly to get things ready for the future.

In two connected studies published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, “Fundamental Science and Engineering Questions in Planetary Cave Exploration” and “Planetary Caves: A Solar System View of Processes and Products”, an international team of researchers led by Northern Arizona University (NAU) examined the potential for finding life in caves on worlds other than Earth. The first study involved more than 100 scientists in narrowing down a list of questions pertaining to exploration of caves on planetary bodies outside of Earth, specifically why they should be explored. The second study built off the first and examined caves on 15 solar system bodies and how they formed. The purpose of both studies was to ultimately establish a framework of both robotic and human exploration of these sites over the coming years. "With the necessary financial investment and institutional support, the research and technological development required to achieve these necessary advancements over the next decade are attainable," said Dr. Jut Wynne, who is an assistant research professor of cave ecology at NAU, and lead author of both studies. "We now have what I hope will become two foundational papers that will help propel planetary cave research from an armchair contemplative exercise to robots probing planetary subsurfaces." "Caves on many planetary surfaces represent one of the best environments to search for evidence of extinct or perhaps extant lifeforms," Wynne said. "For example, as Martian caves are sheltered from deadly surface radiation and violent windstorms, they are more likely to exhibit a more constant temperature regime compared to the surface, and some may even contain water ice. This makes caves on Mars one of the most important exploration targets in the search for life." Sources: Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets (1), Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets (2) As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has a long-term goal of sending humankind to Mars such that we can colonize the red planet and exist in more places in our solar system than Earth alone. The concept challenges not only modern technology, but also science, and that’s why SpaceX alone has taken much of the burden of developing a rocket capable of such a feat. Starhopper is the nickname given to a prototype of SpaceX’s upcoming interplanetary rocket, which will be powered by a brand-new Raptor engine. SpaceX recently performed a test ignition of Starhopper’s Raptor engine, enabling the prototype to ‘hop’ off the ground for a short period. SpaceX will gradually increase the height at which Starhopper jumps until the company is confident that it will perform to expectations. Assuming the Starhopper project goes according to plan, SpaceX will move forward with an orbital version of the rocket that will still use SpaceX’s in-house Raptor engines. This orbital version will endure additional testing to ensure the stability of the platform before SpaceX finally moves forward with the final design for its interplanetary rocket. Designing such a rocket for interplanetary travel is no easy feat, as SpaceX will need to make it light and powerful enough to transport several tons’ worth of cargo from one world to another – this includes people. The rocket will need to be capable of entering a planet’s atmosphere unscathed and being re-used several times. It should be interesting to see how this project goes, especially since Martian colonization is a shared goal among SpaceX and NASA. Of course, only time will tell…

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) EnVision mission to Venus will perform optical, spectral, and, and radar mapping of Venus. EnVision is a van-sized spacecraft and it will need to “aerobrake” – lower its orbit with thousands of passages – through the planet’s hot and thick atmosphere for up to two years. Candidate spacecraft materials are currently being tested at a special ESA facility to see if they can safely withstand this incredibly challenging process. EnVision will be injected into Venus orbit at a very high altitude (approximately 250,000 km or 156,000 mi), and then the craft needs to get down to an altitude of approximately 500 km (310 mi) for science operations. This is historically done with extra propellant to slow the craft down on its way into orbit, but ESA cannot afford this extra weight on board the Ariana 62, on which EnVision will launch, so the team is hoping to use the aerobraking process to lower the craft to the appropriate orbit. The team plans to slow the craft down through repeated passes through the upper atmosphere of Venus, coming as low as 130 km (81 mi) from the surface at times. To test this process, Venus Express performed aerobraking tests during the final months of its mission in 2014 to gather valuable data on the technique. This technique was used successfully for the first time in 2017 by ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) to lower its orbit around Mars over an 11-month period. Aerobraking around Venus will be much more challenging than around Mars because the gravity of Venus is about 10 times higher than that of Mars. This means that EnVision will experience velocities twice as large as those experienced by TGO. Additionally, heat will be generated during this process, and much more so than the Mars mission, as heat generation goes as a cube of the value of the velocity. Thus, EnVision will experience high levels of heat and it will have to go through an aerobraking phase that is twice as long to reach a lower aerobraking regime in order to not damage the craft in the process. EnVision will also be exposed to highly-erosive atomic oxygen – or individual atoms of oxygen at the edges of the atmosphere, which are a result of standard oxygen molecules being broken apart by ultraviolet radiation from the Sun. Before this process was understood, the thermal blankets of the Space Shuttle were severely eroded, and now, all missions need to be designed to resist atomic oxygen. The challenge now is that atomic oxygen is widespread in the atmosphere of Venus and more than 90 times thicket than in Earth’s atmosphere. The EnVision team needs to test a range of materials and coatings for different parts of the craft to ensure these parts will be resistant to erosion and be able to maintain their optical properties. The team is simulating the atomic oxygen levels EnVision would experience in orbit at a special facility built by ESA – the Low Earth Orbit Facility (LEOX) in the Netherlands. The results of these tests are expected by the end of this year. Source: The European Space Agency

Stephen Hawking has long had the attitude of a doomsayer, suggesting that humans will inevitably cause their own demise as a part of their nature. Of course, there is a way out: we must find another planet to live on simultaneously. Whether we will all perish by way of natural disaster, nuclear weapons, or artificial intelligence coming to life in a Terminator-like environment where it becomes machine vs. man, Hawking believes the only way to avoid killing off the entire human race is to have us living on more than one planet at once so that if one dies out, we will still have the other. Imagine a time where the galaxy is a lot like Star Wars, where mankind might be fighting a valiant battle on one planet, but yet remain perfectly peaceful on another – yup, that’s what it boils down to if you’re Stephen Hawking. The strong words came right from the man’s mouth at a talk at Oxford University Union in mid-November. "Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next 1,000 or 10,000 years," Stephen Hawking told his listeners. "By that time we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race." Although we’re nowhere near doing anything like this yet, Hawking’s words suggest the clock is ticking. NASA and SpaceX are looking into moving on from the International Space Station and colonizing Mars at some point in the next few decades, but surely this won’t mean everyone gets a fare to the red planet. It would be limited such that one a few astronauts at a time would be sent. Other space agencies are working on putting mankind on the Moon to settle there, a much closer and more feasible target, some say. On the other hand, Hawking’s vision is to put mankind on other planets in faraway star systems on planets that reside in their host stars' habitable zones, something that may be completely out of our reach because of the sheer distances required to travel. After all, when it comes to the length of a human life and the time required to travel from one star system to another, one could easy spend the rest of their days cooped up in a spacecraft and not even make it. So, will mankind be able to survive by cohabitating other planets? That remains to be seen, but if we’re to evade self-destruction, Hawking says it’s the best way to do so effectively. Source: CNN

Asteroids are rocky bodies that orbit the Sun along with all of the planets. Many of them are relatively close to the Sun, but others are further away and sometimes they get pretty close to the Earth in the process of making their orbit. This weekend, Sunday night to be exact, an asteroid valued at over $5.4 trillion because of the abundance of platinum thought to be present on it is set to pass incredibly close to our home planet Earth. The asteroid has been given the name UW-158. There are not only large abundances of platinum on this asteroid, but also fuels that could be harvested and used. And you'd bet astronomers are drooling with potential. "The comets and asteroids that are potentially the most hazardous because they can closely approach the Earth are also the objects that could be most easily exploited for their raw materials," NASA said in a statement. "It is not presently cost effective to mine these minerals and then bring them back to Earth; however, these raw materials could be used in developing the space structures and in generating the rocket fuel that will be required to explore and colonize our solar system in the twenty-first century." "It has been estimated that the mineral wealth resident in the belt of asteroids between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter would be equivalent to about 100 billion dollars for every person on Earth today." The asteroid will pass by at around six times the distance between the Earth and the Moon, so it won't be dangerously close, but it does leave us feeling like we're leaving a lot of untapped potential out there in space while we suck our own home planet dry. It seems like we should have the technology by now to get up into space, land on the comet, mine the heck out of it, and then bring it back here to Earth where the resources could be used productively. Instead, we'll be watching the asteroid pass by Earth tonight (Sunday, July 19th) at 10 PM. After all, we have spacecraft examining Pluto, billions of miles away, and even rovers exploring other planets and special bodies. In the near future, scientists are hoping to try and explore these asteroids and see what can be done to harvest their value. Source: NASA, Business Insider

Two NASA contractors, Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace, were recently awarded task orders to ramp up operations on designing new spacesuits for spacewalks on the International Space Station (ISS) and activities on the lunar surface during the upcoming Artemis III mission. Image from the International Space Station of a setting Full Moon as the orbiting science laboratory orbited 262 miles above the Pacific Ocean. (Credit: NASA) Axiom Space has been tasked for the spacesuit in low Earth orbit for the ISS while Collins Aerospace has been tasked for the spacesuits to be used on the lunar surface, with each task order being worth approximately $5 million. “These task orders position NASA for success should additional capabilities become necessary or advantageous to NASA’s missions as the agency paves the way for deep space exploration and commercialization of low Earth orbit,” Lara Kearney, who is manager of the Extravehicular Activity and Human Surface Mobility Program at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, said in the NASA statement. “Using this competitive approach we will enhance redundancy, expand future capabilities, and further invest in the space economy.” Task orders are generally given as a prelude to much larger contracts, which each contractor must compete for in the end. In the case of these current task orders, both companies were initially given task orders to complete work on spacesuits for the opposite of what they’ve currently been tasked with. For example, Axiom Space was initially tasked with designing a spacesuit for lunar activities while Collins Aerospace was initially tasked with designing a spacesuit for low Earth orbit activities. As part of their task orders, both companies will provide NASA with detailed information about each design, including how each will function in either microgravity or reduced gravity, radiation concerns, and varying gravitational fields. The results of these task orders will allow NASA to grow commercial space services for upcoming crewed missions to the Moon, and eventually Mars. How will these new spacesuits help astronauts on the ISS and the upcoming Artemis III mission? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! Sources: Axiom Space, Collins Aerospace, NASA, NASA (1), NASA (2) As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

Scientists have long had the interest in Earth-like exoplanets because it’s thought that exoplanets like Earth are the most likely to have similar breeding grounds for life forms. As a result, we study them as closely as possible, despite being light years away from them. Researchers are digging deeper to find out why some of these Earth-like exoplanets, which are anywhere from two to ten times larger than our own planet, seem to have no atmosphere. The one thing they all have in common is their distance from their host star. The findings are published in the journal Nature Communications. As it turns out, they are so close to their host star in many instances, that the radiation from the star may have actually stripped the planets of their atmosphere. Differences in magnetic fields may also play a big role in the atmosphere stripping, as we have learned from the differences between Earth and Mars. “For these planets it is like standing next to a hairdryer turned up to its hottest setting,” University of Birmingham’s Dr Guy Davies explained. “There has been much theoretical speculation that such planets might be stripped of their atmospheres. We now have the observational evidence to confirm this, which removes any lingering doubts over the theory.” The team used data collected by NASA’s Kepler space telescope and used a technique called asteroseismology in order to learn more about the host stars of these Earth-like exoplanets, as well as the exoplanets themselves. The findings reveal that the exoplanets would have looks significantly different at the start of their lives than they currently do, because with a gaseous atmosphere, they would have different colors, or even appear bigger than they actually are at the core. Could the Earth one day face a similar scenario? Thankfully, we've got a fair distance from the Sun, as well as powerful magnetic fields protecting our atmosphere, but like Mars, it's always possible that the magnetic fields could dissipate... Source: Nature Communications

Researchers led by the University of Maryland have found that the sun's magnetic field is the reason behind the large size of Mercury’s iron core. The study has been published in Progress in Earth and Planetary Science. The metal content of the four planets closest to the Sun- Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars- drops off as the planets get farther from the Sun. This means that Mercury has a relatively large amount of metal in comparison to more distant planets. Previously, scientists had speculated that collisions were the reason behind Mercury’s large iron core. They said that hit-and-run collisions with other bodies, while our solar system was forming, blew away much of Mercury’s rocky mantle and left a proportionally larger iron core behind. This new research however provides another explanation. Using a new model, the researchers were able to show that during the early years of our solar system, the sun’s magnetic field drew iron particles towards its center. When planets began to form from surrounding dust and gas, those that formed closer to the sun incorporated more iron into their cores than those further away. By incorporating this model into calculations of planetary formation, the researchers were able to find a gradient in metal content and density that perfectly matched what we currently know about planets in our solar system. Using these calculations, they were able to confirm that Mercury’s iron core makes up around three-quarters of its mass, the iron cores of Earth and Venus make up around a third of their mass, and that Mars's iron core makes up around a quarter of its mass. The researchers say that their new findings will influence how we study the composition of exoplanets. Now, rather than just looking at the composition of their stars, scientists may also consider the magnetic properties of the star during its early growth in its solar system. Sources: Progress in Earth and Planetary Science, University of Maryland

Chemical burn rockets can produce a lot of thrust, but only for a short period; this makes them ideal for lofting space vehicles out of Earth’s atmosphere and into outer space, but once they’ve reached space, that’s where their benefits quickly begin to fade. In outer space, rockets don’t need that much thrust; instead, they need longevity. Space is nearly frictionless, which means even the slightest bit of push can multiply exponentially with time. Ion thrusters are a type of technology that fits these criteria because they can generate small amounts of thrust for long periods. While ion propulsion thrusters have been used on satellites for years, they aren’t powerful enough to deliver crewed missions to other worlds, such as Mars. NASA and other organizations are working closely to shatter these constraints. By multiplying capabilities, they hope to develop a more powerful ion thruster capable of interplanetary trips. The X3 ion thruster is one of such developments. While it’s far from space-worthy, NASA is currently testing the 500-pound device at the Glenn Research Facility. It already set three records in 2018, including highest power level for a Hall thruster, the highest level of thrust produced by any Hall thruster, and the highest amount of current passed through a Hall thruster. NASA likely wants to take things a step further before using something like the X3 for crewed missions to Mars, but the X3 could one day see testing in outer space as the space agency moves forward with future projects, such as a Moon-orbiting space lab to replace the aging International Space Station. It should be interesting indeed to see how ion thrusters impact the future of space travel.

You might think that the weather can get nasty here on Earth, but it pales in comparison to the weather on other planets in the solar system. The weather conditions on both Mercury and Venus are so extreme that we wouldn’t be able to survive on either planet. Mercury resides so close to the Sun that it gets bombarded with coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and Venus sports corrosive clouds that drop acidic raindrops. Mars is perhaps the calmest planet next to Earth, but that’s not saying much. Mars frequently stirs up planet-wide dust storms that last for several months, and dust devils taller than Mount Everest commonly form amid it all. Jupiter and Saturn both sport powerful weather systems that many scientists compare to super hurricanes. Jupiter’s is known as the Great Red Spot and has been studied for decades. On Saturn, a large atmospheric hexagon forms at the North Pole, and a powerful atmospheric system appears at the center of it. Uranus rotates on its side, so it exhibits some of the most extreme seasons out of any other planet in the solar system. During the Winter months, part of the planet gets no sunlight, and its distance from the Sun means that Winter lasts almost 21 years. Throughout this span of time, temperatures drop below -216 degrees Celsius. Lastly, we have Neptune, which has been coined the ‘windiest’ place in the solar system. Winds on Neptune reach more than 1,930 kilometers per hour; that’s more than seven times gustier than a category five hurricane on Earth. So while the weather might not always be ideal here on Earth, take comfort in knowing that it’s not as hostile as some of the other places in the solar system.

New research from McGill University has discovered alive and active microbes in Canadian permafrost that could provide a blueprint for the kinds of life forms that might have once existed, or might currently exist, on the planet Mars. The study was published in The ISME Journal where researchers discuss the previously unidentified microbes found near Lost Hammer, Canada. This study is compelling because the water at Lost Hammer most closely resembles conditions on the Red Planet—extremely salty (approximately 24% salinity), very cold (approximately -5°C/23°F), and an almost oxygen-free environment (less than 1ppm dissolved oxygen). For context, fresh water typically contains less than 1% of salt. The study was led by Lyle Whyte of the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University, who is also a co-author on the study. Using state-of-the-art genomic tools and single cell microbiology methods, Whyte and the team were able to both identify and characterize the novel and active microbial community in this distinctive spring. However, both finding the microbes and then sequencing both their DNA and mRNA proved to easier said than done. "It took a couple of years of working with the sediment before we were able to successfully detect active microbial communities," explains Elisse Magnuson, a PhD student in Whyte's lab, and the first author on the paper. "The saltiness of the environment interferes with both the extraction and the sequencing of the microbes, so when we were able to find evidence of active microbial communities, it was a very satisfying experience." Once the research team was able to isolate and sequence the DNA from the spring communities, this allowed them to reconstruct genomes from approximately 110 microorganisms, the majority of which have never been seen before. Through these reconstructed genomes, the team was able to determine how such organisms survive, and even thrive, in this unique extreme environment. This ultimately acted as a blueprint for potential life forms in similar environments. "The microbes we found and described at Lost Hammer Spring are surprising, because, unlike other microorganisms, they don't depend on organic material or oxygen to live," adds Whyte. "Instead, they survive by eating and breathing simple inorganic compounds such as methane, sulfides, sulfate, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, all of which are found on Mars. They can also fix carbon dioxide and nitrogen gasses from the atmosphere, all of which makes them highly adapted to both surviving and thriving in very extreme environments on Earth and beyond." The microorganisms identified in this study are commonly referred to as extremophiles, which are organisms capable of surviving in extreme environments, such as hot springs or hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean. While this study could be used a blueprint for life forms on Mars, it could also serve the same purpose for finding life elsewhere, such as Jupiter’s moon Europa or Saturn’s largest moon Titan. Currently, NASA’s Perseverance Rover in searching for past life within Jezero Crater on Mars. What further discoveries will be made regarding extremophiles? Only time will tell, and this is why we science! As always, keep doing science & keep looking up! Sources: The ISME Journal, Ultimate Aquarium Services, National Ocean Service, PBS News Hour

The astronaut Scott Kelly is about to take off for the International Space Station, and if he is like some space travelers, he may temporarily feel a bit foggy or disoriented once in orbit.Scientists have not had much luck measuring this subtle effect with standard cognitive tests, but now, a group of University of Pennsylvania researchers is trying a new tack.While Kelly is in space, they will compare his mental performance with that of a uniquely qualified individual who stays behind on Earth. An individual whose brain is about as similar to Kelly's as you can imagine: his identical twin, Mark.The Penn study of the twins, who grew up in West Orange, N.J., is one of 10 that NASA has approved for the one-year mission, which could launch as early as Friday.Scientists from other institutions are tackling such topics as space-induced changes in Kelly's immune system, intestinal bacteria, and genetic expression. All of it will be compared with test results from his brother, a retired astronaut.The goal is to get a better idea of what happens to the human body on a prolonged mission, in preparation for an eventual journey to Mars.(Source: Philly.com)

Innumerable amounts of asteroids exist in the asteroid belt that resides between Mars and Jupiter in orbit around the Sun, but one specimen in particular appears to stand out to planetary scientists more than any others – one commonly known as Psyche. While most asteroids are merely space rocks left behind from a violent beginning, Psyche is mostly metallic. More specifically, it’s comprised of iron and nickel metals, which are some of the same elements that reside in terrestrial planet cores. One theory speculates that Psyche could be the core of a failed protoplanet, and if that’s true, then we could learn a lot from studying it. After all, humankind has yet to dig to Earth’s core to study it in person, and doing so doesn’t seem particularly feasible. To learn more about Psyche, NASA plans to send a mission that will explore the world with a suite of scientific instruments. These will include cameras, multispectral imagers, magnetometers, and a gamma ray and neutron spectrometer. These tools will tell us what Psyche looks like, whether it sports a magnetic field, and hint us to its physical composition. It ought to be interesting to see what we might learn from this mission, especially if theories are to be believed.

After unforeseen delays, SpaceX officially deployed 60 of its Starlink satellites into space at the end of last month to kick off the company’s space-centric broadband internet array. With just 60 satellites orbiting the Earth at the time of this writing, Starlink is very much in its experimental stages; but SpaceX plans to have more than 12,000 satellites in space eventually. Broadband internet is already available to much of the world today, but this doesn’t apply everywhere. Some regions of the world are severely limited by seclusion, and as you might come to expect, this impacts the number of internet options available in those areas. Starlink aims to resolve this problem by offering a broadband internet solution to the entire globe. Even for regions that do already have access to broadband internet, SpaceX’s Starlink internet system promises incredibly low latency data transfers, as the information will be transmitted in the vacuum of space rather than through glass (fiber optics); this means that Starlink will be useful for low-latency communications, which many services depend on. Not only will Starlink serve a great purpose in connecting many parts of the world with a high-speed internet solution, but it will help SpaceX develop funding for future space-centric projects, including but not limited to exploring other planets like Mars.

It seems that a new species of ancient human has been discovered. The tiny hominin hails from the Philippine island of Luzon, where it is thought to have lived around 50,000 or 67,000 years ago. It was identified using seven teeth and six little bones, which have both ancient and advanced characteristics. This finding, reported in Nature, is the third time in fifteen years that ancient human activity has been revealed in the Philippines. It challenges the idea that the evolution of humans occurred as a tidy progression and suggests that ‘mosaic’ evolution was more common than assumed. Contacted for comment by National Geographic, María Martinón-Torres, the director of Spain's National Research Center on Human Evolution added that the mixed dental features of the specimen bear a resemblance to hominin remains from China, thought to date from 15,000 years ago. As the Pleistocene epoch was ending, Asian hominins carried a surprising amount of diversity. “I agree with [the] authors that the combination of features is like nothing we have seen before,” said Martinón-Torres. Sources: Nature, National Geographic

In the Summer of 2015, a solar storm reportedly wreaked havoc on the Earth’s magnetic field. During the freak event, which reportedly lasted just a couple of hours, the Earth’s magnetosphere reportedly shrunk from 11 times the Earth’s radius to just four. Image Credit: NASA The solar storm was so strong that not only did it get passed Earth’s natural defense against cosmic radiation, but it also impacted technology in certain regions of the world, particularly in the Northern hemisphere. Although it put on a spectacular Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) show, it may have also left a considerable dent in the Earth’s magnetic field permanently. Despite happening more than a year ago, a study has just popped up in Physical Review Letters that actually shows just how scary this kind of thing really is. Powerful solar winds capable of breaking through the Earth’s magnetic field could have dire consequences, as the magnetic field is the Earth’s only real defense against them. They have the potential to knock out various kinds of technology because they act a lot like electromagnetic pulses (EMPs). But aside from that, these solar winds carry harmful radiation that could harm life on Earth, or even the astronauts orbiting Earth. Humans in particular are sensitive to the Sun’s radiation, but if more radiation is allowed through the magnetic field, which normally deflects most of the harmful particles away from us, then skin cancers of all kinds could easily become far more widespread in the affected areas. The study referenced suggests that we must continue to be mindful of our magnetic field, because it allows our planet to be the beautiful planet it is today. Magnetic storms like this one could further damage the Earth’s magnetic field, eventually turning it into an ineffective means of protection against radiation from space. If this happened, we have an idea of what could happen to our planet already. You can turn your attention to Mars, a planet that was once thought to have a thriving magnetic field, but seems to have a very weak one today. Mars, which once had flowing water and possibly even life, is now a barren wasteland of sand and rock. It’ll probably be a very long, long, longggggg time before Earth’s magnetic field is ever ineffective, since it has lasted this long already, but space can be unpredictable. Fortunately, experts in the field have all kinds of observation equipment to keep track of this sort of thing. Source: Wired