Chebucto Regional Softball Club

Astronomers have detected an X-ray signal from the very center of the Helix Nebula, at the site of its central white dwarf star. These burned-out stellar remnants don't typically release flashes of X-rays. Now, researchers think that the dead star smashed up one of its surviving planets, and the X-rays are coming from planetary debris that's falling onto its surface. A Neptune-sized planet was already found orbiting the white dwarf, so another could be even closer.

Chandra Press Room :: X-ray Signal Points to Destroyed Planet, Chandra Finds :: 4 March 2025

(chandra.si.edu)

Astronomers don't know what dark matter is, only that it's most of the mass of the Universe and doesn't interact with regular matter and energy, or itself. Unlike neutrinos, it's probably heavy, slow-moving, and cold. And according to new research, it doesn't decay quickly, if ever. Astronomers looked at the light from galaxies and didn't see any additional infrared radiation coming from decaying dark matter, meaning it lasts at least ten octillion seconds.

New limits found for dark matter properties from latest search

Tokyo, Japan – A team led by a member of Tokyo Metropolitan University have made advances in the search for dark matter, observing galaxies using new spectrographic technology and the Magellan Clay Telescope. With a mere 4 hours of observations, precise measurements in the infrared range have set new limits on the lifetime of dark matter. Their findings highlight the crucial utility of their technology and extend the search to less explored parts of the spectrum.

EurekAlert! (www.eurekalert.org)

A rotating black hole contains an enormous amount of energy, which an advanced civilization could hope to harness with up to 29% efficiency. There are two main mechanisms: the Penrose Process, which involves sending pairs of particles into a black hole's ergosphere and extracting one particle that gets spit out, and the Blandford-Znajek Mechanism, which extracts energy from a black hole's magnetic field as it interacts with its environment.

Rotating black holes: The most fantastic source of energy in the universe

Abstract page for arXiv paper 2502.15784: Rotating black holes: The most fantastic source of energy in the universe

arXiv.org (arxiv.org)

Astronomers have used JWST to image a bizarre ultra-hot Neptune exoplanet, revealing a dramatic difference in its hemispheres. The planet orbits so close to its star that it is "tidally locked," always showing the same side to the star. Temperatures reach 2000°C on the dayside but are cooler and darker on the other side. According to their observations, astronomers say the dayside has bright reflective clouds on its cooler western hemisphere but not on its eastern side.

Today's forecast: partially cloudy skies on an "ultra-hot Neptune"

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers led by doctoral student Louis-Philippe Coulombe investigate the extreme weather patterns and atmospheric properties of LTT 9779 b.

(nouvelles.umontreal.ca)

There are plenty of binary asteroids and Kuiper Belt Objects, but add a third object to the mix and things get unstable. Hubble has potentially found the second triple-Kuiper Belt Object ever seen, designated Altijira. It's located about 44 AU away, with two objects orbiting one another at 7,600 km apart. Hubble observations showed co-orbital motion, indicating that the inner object is actually two objects too close together to be distinguished.

NASA's Hubble Finds Kuiper Belt Duo May Be Trio

STScI (www.stsci.edu)

Good news! It turns out that safely landing on the Moon isn't impossible. After a string of lunar landers failed, Firefly's Blue Ghost touched down on March 2nd in Mare Crisium on the near side of the Moon, becoming the first privately built lander to complete this feat. Blue Ghost is carrying ten experiments, which will operate over the next two weeks before the lunar night sets in. It will take the first images of a total solar eclipse seen from the Moon.

Touchdown! Carrying NASA Science, Firefly’s Blue Ghost Lands on Moon - NASA

Carrying a suite of NASA science and technology, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 successfully landed at 3:34 a.m. EST on Sunday near a volcanic

NASA (www.nasa.gov)

The Moon is the perfect spot for a giant interferometer of infrared telescopes. There's no atmosphere, its ground is stable, and it has a perfect view of the cosmos. Researchers have completed a Phase 1 NIAC investigation into the Artemis-enabled Stellar Imager Observatory. This would be a collection of 15 telescopes arranged into a 1-km array on the surface of the Moon. They could be delivered and set up by Artemis astronauts as part of future missions.

NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Phase I Final Report -- A Lunar Long-Baseline UV/Optical Imaging Interferometer: Artemis-enabled Stellar Imager (AeSI)

Abstract page for arXiv paper 2503.02105: NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Phase I Final Report -- A Lunar Long-Baseline UV/Optical Imaging Interferometer: Artemis-enabled Stellar Imager (AeSI)

arXiv.org (arxiv.org)

NASA's New Horizons mission flew past Pluto and later the Kuiper Belt Object Arrokoth. It still has enough propellant in the tanks to make more flybys, but it has no viable targets. Fortunately, the mighty Vera Rubin Observatory is online and can soon search the sky for targets. Researchers have proposed to use the observatory with 30 hours of telescope time to carefully examine New Horizons' location in the Kuiper Belt to find more flyby opportunities.

An Extremely Deep Rubin Survey to Explore the Extended Kuiper Belt and Identify Objects Observable by New Horizons

Abstract page for arXiv paper 2503.02765: An Extremely Deep Rubin Survey to Explore the Extended Kuiper Belt and Identify Objects Observable by New Horizons

arXiv.org (arxiv.org)

When new stars form, they gather an accretion disk of gas and dust around them, eventually turning into planets. This period lasts less than 10 million years, as the increasing radiation from the young star eventually clears out the remaining material. New observations from JWST have shown a protoplanetary disk in a system that's probably 30 million years old, triple the normal lifespan of a disk like this. Astronomers have ruled out a debris disk from colliding planets.

James Webb Telescope reveals planet-forming disks can last longer than previously thought | University of Arizona News

Researchers at the University of Arizona have discovered that planet-forming disks of gas and dust around tiny stars live much longer than previously thought. The findings provide new insights into planet formation and the habitability of planets outside our solar system.

(news.arizona.edu)

On April 20th, NASA's Lucy mission will come within 960 km of the asteroid Donald Johanson, completing another appetizer of science before it reaches its destination in Jupiter's Trojan belt. It's a tiny moving point of light today, but over the next few months, it will get bigger and bigger until Lucy can resolve features on its 3-km-wide surface. The asteroid was named for anthropologist Donald Johanson, who discovered the original "Lucy" skeleton.

NASA’s Lucy Spacecraft Takes Its 1st Images of Asteroid Donaldjohanson - NASA

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft has its next flyby target, the small main belt asteroid  Donaldjohanson, in its sights. By blinking between images captured by

NASA (www.nasa.gov)

About 14 million years ago, the Solar System flew through the Orion star-forming complex - home of the Orion Nebula - which might have compressed the heliosphere, allowing more interstellar dust to reach Earth. This transition seems to match the Middle Miocene Climate Transition, when a warm variable climate shifted to a cooler climate, creating an early version of the Antarctic ice sheet. This could mean that interstellar dust has influenced past Earth's climate.

The Galactic Journey of our Solar System

Our sun and its planets crossed the Radcliffe Wave in the well-known Orion complex

(medienportal.univie.ac.at)

Any satellite launched into space has to handle Earth's gravity and the rigors of launch until it can finally arrive in the weightless environment it was built for. But what if you could launch durable raw materials and then construct your satellite in orbit? DARPA is partnering with several universities to demonstrate 3D printing and orbital assembly of satellite parts and recently put out a new request for proposals to explore biological growth mechanisms in space.

DARPA demos will test novel tech for building future large structures in space | DARPA

(www.darpa.mil)

Neutrinos are produced by fusion reactions in the Sun, passing effortlessly through its dense interior. Different reactions produce neutrinos with different energies, and researchers think this could be a way they could probe the interior of the Sun. Various Earth-based solar neutrino observatories are catching neutrinos hurled by the Sun, which can be compared to those produced by nuclear reactors. This will allow astronomers to build up an interior map of the Sun.

Determining the Density of the Sun with Neutrinos

Abstract page for arXiv paper 2502.17546: Determining the Density of the Sun with Neutrinos

arXiv.org (arxiv.org)

Chemical rockets can only get us so far. In order to reach another star system, we'll need a more energy-dense propellant or use a beam of energy to accelerate a spacecraft to relativistic speeds—a photonic lightsail. A new paper explores the benefits and downsides of lightsails, calculates what configuration would be best to carry a small payload to another star within a human lifetime, and investigates the materials that could make it possible.

Photonic Lightsails: Fast and Stable Propulsion for Interstellar Travel

Abstract page for arXiv paper 2502.17828: Photonic Lightsails: Fast and Stable Propulsion for Interstellar Travel

arXiv.org (arxiv.org)

The Milky Way has about 5 times as much dark matter compared to its regular matter, but what form does it take? Is it a vast, smooth halo of invisible particles or in clumps, concentrated in different areas? For the last few years, astronomers have used binary millisecond pulsars, recording the signals of their radio pulses, but these are rare. Now, researchers have also developed a way to measure the signals from solitary pulsars, which are much more common.

UAH | News | The University of Alabama in Huntsville

(www.uah.edu)

In even the smallest backyard telescope, you can see the prominent ice caps at both of Mars's poles. Although the planet was probably warm enough to have liquid water on its surface, all that remains are these thick ice sheets at its poles. Astronomers assumed that these caps were ancient, formed at some point in the last few billion years when Mars lost its water. But new evidence shows that the northern sheet is young, forming between 2 and 12 million years ago.

Mars's northern ice cap is young with a cold, stiff mantle beneath

To understand the properties of the rocky mantle beneath Earth's continents, researchers use a little geophysical trick: they measure how fast large areas of land, once covered by kilometres of ice during the last ice age around 20,000 years ago, continue to rise today.

(www.dlr.de)

Magnetars are a type of neutron star with the most powerful magnetic fields in the universe. They're formed by the death of massive stars, like pulsars and other neutron stars. So, what creates such intense magnetic fields? Thanks to a new simulation, astronomers have discovered that a magnetar probably forms when material ejected by the supernova explosion falls back down onto the star's surface, amplifying its dynamo effect.

At the Origin of Mega-Magnetic Stars - Medias - UNIGE

(www.unige.ch)

Mars is the "Red Planet" because of its red soil, and it was long believed that it was caused by the same chemical process that creates rust on Earth, emerging from dry conditions on Mars. Now, researchers have mimicked the conditions of Mars in the lab and have a new explanation: it's actually a chemical called ferrihydrite, an iron oxide that contains water. This would mean that its characteristic red color is due to a time when the planet was covered in water.

Why Mars could be red

An international research team led by the University of Bern and Brown University in the US state of Rhode Island may have solved the mystery of the reddish color of Mars. The team identified the water-rich iron mineral ferrihydrite as the main culprit of the characteristic reddish Martian dust. This discovery could not only explain the planet's color, but also point to a wetter, potentially habitable Martian past.

Media Relations (mediarelations.unibe.ch)

Mars is cold and dry today, but the Red Planet was believed to be covered in oceans. Now, scientists examining data sent home by China's Zhurong rover think they've identified the shoreline, with sandy beaches lapped by waves. Zhurong's landing spot was chosen with this exact goal: going to a place on Mars that was thought to be the transition from an ocean to land. Its radar looked under the surface and found a structure that matched beach deposits on Earth.

Ancient beaches testify to long-ago ocean on Mars - Berkeley News

Chinese rover finds underground evidence of beach sediments likely deposited 4 billion years ago

Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu)

Astronomers have completed more observations of asteroid 2024 YR4, charting its future trajectory with even more accuracy. Previous estimates put the chance of an impact with Earth in 2032 as high as 2.8%. The new conclusion is that the asteroid's chance of striking Earth is down to 0.001%. This is a very common story: when an asteroid is first found, the uncertainty is high, and it could be a future threat to Earth. Then, later observations bring that down to zero.

Asteroid 2024 YR4 no longer poses significant impact risk

The latest analysis from the European Space Agency (ESA) Planetary Defence Office has reduced the probability that asteroid 2024 YR4 might impact Earth in 2032 to 0.001%.

(www.esa.int)