Month: March 2023

The first map of the distribution of water on the moon could be used by future explorers traveling to Earth’s natural satellite under the Artemis program.  Astronomers have built the first map that shows how the supply of water on the moon changes with local geography, like the many mountains and craters that dominate the moon’s airless, battered surface. The map, which covers one-quarter of the moon’s Earth-facing side, was put together with data gathered by NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) telescope during its final year of observations…

A new study of red dwarf stars has revealed that even the quietest examples of this stellar class are more active and wild than the sun.  Red dwarfs, officially known as “M dwarfs” by astronomers, are the most common stars in the Milky Way and can remain placid for long periods of time before erupting with huge “superflares.” These flares have previously been measured to be 100 to 1,000 times more powerful than similar flares from the sun, with young red dwarfs particularly tumultuous. These outbursts, as well as eruptions…

An illustation showing a twinkling burst of starlight at the center of a turbulent field of crackling orange radiation and glowing black holes. (Image credit: ESA) The first stars in the cosmos may have topped out at over 10,000 times the mass of the sun, roughly 1,000 times bigger than the biggest stars alive today, a new study has found.  Nowadays, the biggest stars are 100 solar masses. But the early universe was a far more exotic place, filled with mega-giant stars that lived fast and died very, very young,…

Longtime aurora watchers will know the Earth’s two equinoxes — late March and late September — mark the most colorful times of the year. Aurora hunters claim that, to look to the night sky in search of these beautiful displays, the dates around the equinoxes are the best. Science supports their wisdom. The data show (opens in new tab) that auroras peak around the two equinoxes and, on the other hand, auroras decline around June and December, the two solstices. The sun, of course, is not tied to Earth’s rotation.…

Europe’s CHEOPS spacecraft will continue investigating planets outside our solar system until at least 2026. The European Space Agency (ESA) announced on March 9 that CHEOPS will continue its exoplanet-studying mission — which includes selecting “golden target” worlds for deeper investigation by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) — for at least another three years, with the potential to extend this further until 2029. Launched in December 2019 from ESA’s spaceport in French Guiana, CHEOPS (short for “Characterising Exoplanet Satellite”) is designed to study planets with sizes between that of…