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Within Mars’ Craters, Ice Deposits Have Recorded the History of the Planet

Mars has experienced multiple ice ages, with each one leaving less ice than the last. By studying craters that serve as “ice archives,” researchers traced how the red planet stored and lost its water over hundreds of millions of years. These frozen records not only reveal Mars’ long-term climate history but also identify hidden resources beneath the surface that could provide drinking water, oxygen, and even rocket fuel for future astronauts. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/WlJT05d via IFTTT
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Listening For Gravitational Waves In The Rhythm of Pulsars

Astronomers are listening for cosmic gravitational waves in the rhythm of pulsars. But even after finding them, they will need to distinguish between cosmic waves and the more local waves of black holes. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/5r7XHWY via IFTTT

Starship Could Cut The Travel Time To Uranus In Half

The ice giants remain some of the most interesting places to explore in the solar system. Uranus in particular has drawn a lot of interest lately, especially after the 2022 Decadal Survey from the National Academies named it as the highest priority destination. But as of now, we still don’t have a fully fleshed out and planned mission ready to go for the multiple launch windows in the 2030s. That might actually be an advantage, though, as a new system coming online might change the overall mission design fundamentally. Starship recently continued its recent string of successful tests, and a new paper presented at the IEEE Aerospace Conference by researchers at MIT looked at how this new, much more capable launch system, could impact the development of the Uranus Orbiter and Probe (UOP) that the Decadal Survey suggested. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/xivYOo1 via IFTTT

ESA’s Swarm Constellation Sees Growth in the Magnetic Field’s 'Weak Spot'

Earth is a dynamic place, both on its surface and down to its very core. The European Space Agency (ESA) recently released findings from its Swarm constellation of Earth-observing satellites highlighting this fact, documenting activity in the planet’s magnetic field during its decade plus of extended operations. One key finding shows the well-known Southern Atlantic Anomaly is expanding in size. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/qCbQ9L0 via IFTTT

What Happened to Those "Little Red Dots"?

An international team of astronomers addressed the mystery of the "Little Red Dots" (LRDs) observed by Webb. They conclude that they are likely to be "black hole stars," the early seeds of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) we see at the center of galaxies today. Their findings have implications for our understanding of cosmic evolution. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/IWm42sB via IFTTT

Research on Previously Unexamined Apollo 17 Moon Rocks Reveals Exotic Sulfur

Samples from one of the Apollo 17 drive tubes was recently opened and analyzed by Brown University researchers, who found surprising sulfur isotopes signatures inside. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/KSylsVe via IFTTT

Microbes Or Their DNA Could Survive In Martian Ice And A Future Rover Could Dig For It

Frozen in time, ancient microbes or their remains could be found in Martian ice deposits during future missions to the red planet. By recreating Mars-like conditions in the lab, a team of researchers from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Penn State demonstrated that fragments of the molecules that make up proteins in E. coli bacteria, if present in Mars' permafrost and ice caps, could remain intact for over 50 million years, despite harsh and continuous exposure to cosmic radiation. from Universe Today https://ift.tt/cnD7tyb via IFTTT