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Life Beyond Biosignatures: A New Method In The Search For Life
Two factors dominate our search for life and habitability elsewhere in the galaxy. The first is liquid water, which, as far as we know, is necessary for life. When we find exoplanets, scientists try to determine if they’re in their stars’ habitable zones. Under the right atmospheric conditions, liquid water could persist there. The second
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Comet R3 PanSTARRS at Perihelion
Comet R3 Pan-STARRS is about to put on its climatic perihelion act. We’re one comet down, and one to go for spring season 2026. We recently wrote about prospects for sungrazer C/2026 A1 MAPS and comet C/2025 R3 Pan-STARRS in April 2026. While the bad news is, Comet A1 MAPS disintegrated like so many sungrazers
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To Survive Deep Space, Astronauts May Owe a Debt to Microscopic Worms
Living long-term on the Moon means surviving the devastating toll that deep space takes on a human body. Astronauts in low gravity environments suffer muscle and bone loss, vision-altering fluid shifts, and heavy radiation exposure – all of which are incredibly hazardous to our biology. So, to help future lunar explorers survive, a new crew
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Watch This Dark Volcanic Ash Creep Across the Red Planet
Mars is well known as a static, frozen desert. We tend to think of the only thing changing on the surface of the Red Planet is due to the occasional dust storm. But if you look closely – and are willing to wait decades – you’ll see the planet is very much alive – at
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What Happens When Light Goes Boom? Part 2: The Crowd, the Molasses, and the Speed of Light (Sort Of)
(This is Part 2 of a series on Cherenkov radiation — the “light boom.” Read Part 1 first.) Before we get to Brad Bradington sprinting down the red carpet, we need to talk about the crowd itself. Because the crowd is where all the magic happens, and the crowd has some very specific properties that
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Early Galaxies Were Surrounded by Huge Clouds of Hydrogen, and Astronomers Found a Whole Bunch!
Based on the most widely accepted models of how the Universe began – Big Bang cosmology and the LCDM model – scientists theorize that massive clouds of neutral hydrogen permeated the Universe. From this material, the first stars and galaxies formed rapidly over the next several hundred eons, an event that astronomers and cosmologists refer
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The Moon Might Be More Prone To Fires
Engineers love a good practical challenge, especially when it comes to spaceflight. But there’s one particular challenge facing the crewed missions of the near future that scares mission planners above almost all others – fire. For decades, we’ve relied on a NASA test known as NASA-STD-6001B to screen material flammability for flight. But space is
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Why NASA’s Cheapest Missions Produce the Least Science
To say NASA has been undergoing some massive administrative changes lately is a huge understatement. One of the more concerning ones, according to a new paper at the 57th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference by Ari Koeppel and Casey Dreier of the Planetary Society, is the trend towards the Silicon Valley mindset of “move fast
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What Happens When Light Goes Boom? Part 1: The Scientist Who Stared at a Glow
I want you to imagine a scene. It’s the red carpet. It’s the night of the Oscars, or the Emmys, or the participation trophy ceremony for your kid’s soccer team. That’s not the essential part of the metaphor. What matters is who is there: Brad Bradington’s adoring fans, curious onlookers, and of course the paparazzi,
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Where’s the Dividing Line Between A Star and A Planet? Ask the JWST.
Some of the most scientifically important astronomical objects are the ones that push the boundaries of definitions. These objects can exist in the grey areas between competing definitions. They motivate astronomers to develop a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of Nature. One of these important dividing lines places planets on one side and stars on
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