Astronomy

Extreme Climate Survey Science News is collecting reader questions about how to navigate our planet's changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can lead to extreme weather events? Since the dawn of the Space Age, when robotic probes first left the atmosphere, scientists have known that the solar wind — a stream of charged particles released from the sun’s atmosphere — accelerates as it blows out into the solar system (SN: 8/18/17). Theoretical calculations also indicate that the solar wind’s temperature should drop as it expands into space. This drop does occur, but measurements find that it happens slower than predicted. Observations from Earth have previously spotted Alfvén waves swaying near the sun. Such waves are oscillations in t...

NASA’s Cold Atom Lab leverages quantum technology to enhance space science, exploring gravitational variations, dark matter, and dark energy, and testing general relativity in a microgravity environment.. Credit: NASA NASA’s Cold Atom Lab on the International Space Station uses quantum technology for advanced space science, offering new insights into gravitational fields, dark matter, and dark energy, and testing aspects of general relativity in microgravity. Future space missions could use quantum technology to track water on Earth, explore the composition of moons and other planets, or probe mysterious cosmic phenomena. NASA’s Cold Atom Lab, a first-of-its-kind facility aboard the International Space Station (ISS), has taken another step toward revolutionizing how quantum science can be...

Multi-wavelength images of the SNR HB9, the H II region G159.2+3.3, and the surrounding area. Credit: Li et al., 2024. Chinese astronomers have performed multi-wavelength observations of a galactic supernova remnant known as HB9. Results of the observational campaign, published August 9 on the preprint server arXiv, shed more light on the remnant's properties and its possible physical connection with a nearby region of ionized atomic hydrogen (H II region). Supernova remnants (SNRs) are diffuse, expanding structures resulting from a supernova explosion. They contain ejected material expanding from the explosion and other interstellar material t...

The idea of terraforming Mars, making its atmosphere and environment more Earth-like for human settlement, goes back decades. During that time, many proposed methods have been considered and put aside as “too expensive” or requiring technology well in advance of what we have today. Nevertheless, the idea has persisted and is often considered a part of long-term plans for establishing a human presence on Mars. Given the many plans to establish human outposts on the Moon and then use that infrastructure to send missions to Mars, opportunities for terraforming may be closer than we think. Unfortunately, any plans for terraforming Mars suffer from unresolved hurdles, not the least of which are the expense, distance, and the need for technologies that don’t currently exist. Triggering a greenh...

A Perseid meteor from 2015. Image: Alan Tough. The annual Perseid meteor shower has been underway since last month and it predicted to reach its usual eagerly-anticipated maximum early next week, on 12 August between 13h and 16h UT. The Perseids is the year’s most popular meteor shower and one of the major highlights on the observing calendar, with many astronomical societies and keen individuals having made plans for trips to observe this special spectacle from a dark-sky site  The Perseids are active from 17 July to 24 August, with cameras of the UK Meteor Network having already recorded activity. In particular, a dazzling Perseid fireball, estimated at magnitude –4.4, was just recently captured, on the night of 1/2 August at 01:19 UT (see image). A Perseid fireball recently captured, o...