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Space

A history of Martian illusions – Live Science

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Mars

Humans have been seeing strange things on the surface of Mars for centuries. Perhaps it’s because, other than Earth, Mars is the closest thing in the solar system to a habitable planet, or perhaps it’s simply because it’s close enough to get a pretty good look at. Either way, Earthlings have been fooled time and again by the rocky Martian surface and their own psychology. People have at various times reported finding everything from canals to spooky humanoid faces to alien Martian bases on the surface of the Red Planet — though each sighting has been thoroughly debunked. In this … Read more

SPACE: Are Buried Martian “Lakes” Just Frozen Clay?

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Mars

Bright reflections that radar detected beneath the south pole of Mars may not be underground lakes as previously thought but deposits of clay instead, a new study finds. For decades, scientists have suspected that water lurks below the polar ice caps of Mars, just as it does here on Earth. In 2018, researchers using the MARSIS radar sounder instrument on the European Space Agency’s Mars Express spacecraft detected evidence for a lake hidden beneath the Red Planet’s south polar ice cap, and in 2020, they found signs of a number of super-salty lakes there. If these lakes were remnants of … Read more

What If: The Earth Was Really Flat?

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Flat Earth - Deposit Photos

Earth — the blue marble — is our spherical home. But what if Earth were flat? After all, some people truly believe in this retrograde idea. How would everyday life function? Would it function at all? We explore how much of an oddball, or “oddslice” Earth would be if it were flat and whether there are any advantages to living on a strange disk with the sun and moon rotating overhead like a cosmic carousel. Say goodbye to gravity (at least as we know it) On spherical Earth, gravity tugs equally on objects no matter where in the world they … Read more

SPACE: Water Vapor Detected on Ganymede

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Ganymede - NASA

In the wisp-thin sky of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, the largest satellite in the solar system, astronomers have for the first time detected evidence of water vapor, a new study finds. The discovery could shed light on similar watery atmospheres that may envelop other icy bodies in the solar system and beyond, researchers said. Previous research suggested that Ganymede — which is larger than Mercury and Pluto, and only slightly smaller than Mars — may contain more water than all of Earth’s oceans combined. However, the Jovian moon is so cold that water on its surface is frozen solid. Any liquid … Read more

SPACE: Astronomers Find Giant, Ghostly Hand in Space

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Ghostly Hand

An enormous ghostly hand stretches through the depths of space, its wispy fingers pressing against a glowing cloud. It sounds like science fiction, but it’s quite real, as imagery gathered by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows. The “hand” was spawned by the death of a massive star in a supernova explosion, which left behind a fast-spinning, superdense stellar corpse known as a pulsar, Chandra team members said in a description of the dramatic images. Full Story From Live Science

SPACE: Venus Has A Yummy, Gooey Exterior

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Venus - NASA

Venus may still be geologically active today, which could mean that Earth’s planetary sibling is a good place for scientists to learn about early Earth and faraway worlds. An international team of scientists used old radar images from NASA’s Magellan mission, which ended operations in 2004, to study the Venusian surface. They found places where chunks of crust were sliding and turning like “pack ice,” according to the researchers. Since the lowlands the observations focused on are relatively young, the geological activity that triggers the motions happened not too long ago and may even be continuing today. The work suggests … Read more

WHAT IF: Earth Stopped Spinning?

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Earth - pixabay

Earth is steadily spinning like a top, even if we can’t see, touch, hear or feel it. So, what would happen if Earth were to abruptly stop rotating?  If the spinning were to stop, the angular momentum of every object on Earthwould rip the surface apart, resulting in a really, really bad day. “This is just a thought experiment,” said James Zimbelman, senior geologist emeritus at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. “There is no natural force that would stop the Earth from spinning. That is part of why the planet has been spinning since it formed, … Read more

Spaceflight Grinches Your Heart

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Human Heart - Deposit Photos

What do extreme long-distance swimming and spaceflight have in common? They can both shrink the heart, according to a new study. Both activities reduce the pressure of gravity on the heart, making it so that it doesn’t have to work as hard to pump blood upwards through the body. The heart is a muscle, and just like any other muscle in the body, if it’s not used as much as it used to be, it will shrink. To understand what effect weightlessness has on the heart, a group of researchers analyzed health data from retired astronaut Scott Kelly’s year aboard … Read more

What If: The Moon Were Twice as Close to the Earth?

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moon - pixabay

In the 2003 Jim Carrey movie “Bruce Almighty,” Carrey’s character suddenly acquires God-like powers, and uses those powers to lasso the full moon and pull it closer to Earth to woo his beloved. Later in the movie, background shots show TV news reports about massive, unprecedented flooding around the world. While the film is obviously fantastical, it does raise a question: What would happen if the moon were twice as close to Earth than it is today? In fact, the flooding scenario from the movie isn’t far from what might actually happen if the moon were suddenly much closer to … Read more

SPACE: Did Mars Rover Curiosity Just Detect an Alien Belch?

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Curiosity Rover - NASA

A group of scientists may have just pinpointed the location on Mars of a mysterious source of methane, a gas most often produced by microbes — and NASA’s Curiosity rover could be right on top of it. Methane blips have pinged on Curiosity’s detection systems six times since the rover landed in Mars’ Gale crater in 2012, but scientists weren’t able to find a source for them. Now, with a new analysis, researchers may have traced the methane burps to their origin. To calculate the unknown methane source, researchers at the California Institute of Technology modeled the methane gas particles by … Read more