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Category: space – Page 9

Moss spores survive 9 months outside International Space Station

Mosses thrive in the most extreme environments on Earth, from the peaks of the Himalayas to the sands of Death Valley, the Antarctic tundra to the lava fields of active volcanoes. Inspired by moss’s resilience, researchers sent moss sporophytes—reproductive structures that encase spores—to the most extreme environment yet: space.

Their results, published in the journal iScience on November 20, show that more than 80% of the spores survived nine months outside of the International Space Station (ISS) and made it back to Earth still capable of reproducing, demonstrating for the first time that an early land plant can survive long-term exposure to the elements of space.

“Most living organisms, including humans, cannot survive even briefly in the vacuum of space,” says lead author Tomomichi Fujita of Hokkaido University. “However, the moss spores retained their vitality after nine months of direct exposure. This provides striking evidence that the life that has evolved on Earth possesses, at the cellular level, intrinsic mechanisms to endure the conditions of space.”

Electric discharges detected on Mars for the first time

On Mars, winds constantly stir up whirlwinds of fine dust. It was at the center of two of these dust devils that the SuperCam instrument’s microphone, the first ever to operate on Mars, accidentally recorded particularly strong signals.

Analyses carried out by scientists at the Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie (CNES/CNRS/Université de Toulouse) and the laboratoire Atmosphères et observations spatiales (CNRS/Sorbonne Université/Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines) showed that they were the electromagnetic and acoustic signatures of electric discharges comparable to the small static electricity shocks that can be experienced on Earth when touching a door handle in dry weather. Long theorized, the existence of electric discharges in the Martian atmosphere has now been confirmed by observation for the first time.

The findings are published in the journal Nature.

Scientists Detect “Switchback” Phenomenon In Earth’s Magnetosphere For The First Time

The study was led by Emily McDougall, an astrophysicist who conducted the work while at the University of New Hampshire. McDougall’s research focuses on a phenomenon called magnetic reconnection, in which nearby magnetic fields—like those of the Earth and the Sun—interact and release huge amounts of energy. These energy releases, far from our planet, kickstart processes that produce phenomena here on Earth, such as dramatic auroras.

Switchbacks are kink-shaped plasma structures that form out of reconnection events. Switchbacks have been previously found near the Sun, by missions like the Parker Solar Probe, but not near Earth.

At BYU, Nobel Prize-winning modern Galileo talks about his work that helped prove Einstein right about gravitational waves

The universe occasionally produces a huge surprise that proves physicists wrong, says Kip Thorne, who grew up in Logan, Utah, with Elder Quentin L. Cook and Merlin Olsen.

Asteroid loaded with amino acids offers new clues about the origin of life on Earth

One of the most elegant theories about the origins of life on our planet is that it was kick-started by a delivery from outer space. This idea suggests that prebiotic molecules—the building blocks of life—were transported here by asteroids or other celestial bodies. While these molecules have been found in meteorite samples that have crash-landed on Earth, the findings have been complicated by the possibility of contamination from our environment.

But now these building blocks have been found on an ancient asteroid untouched by Earth’s environment. That asteroid is called Bennu, a primitive object that hasn’t changed much since the birth of our solar system around 4.6 billion years ago. It last swung by our neighborhood in 2020, when a NASA spacecraft landed on its surface, scooped up some samples, and brought them back home.

Quasi-periodic oscillations detected in unusual multi-trigger gamma-ray burst

A new study led by the Yunnan Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has detected quasi-periodic oscillation (QPO) signals in an unusual gamma-ray burst (GRB) event. The findings are published in The Astrophysical Journal.

GRBs are short-timescale, highly energetic explosive phenomena typically associated with the collapse of massive stars or the mergers of compact objects. On July 2, 2025, the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) aboard NASA’s Fermi satellite detected an unusual high-energy burst—designated GRB 250702DBE—that triggered the Fermi/GBM system three times.

Despite being named in accordance with standard GRB conventions, the event exhibited striking anomalies: its duration spanned several hours, far exceeding that of typical GRBs. The same source, also detected in the X-ray band by the Einstein Probe (EP) as EP250702a, has drawn scientific interest due to its long duration and unclear physical origin and radiation mechanisms.

The universe is a puzzle that fits together only one way

Heraclitus famously argued that you can’t step into the same river twice. Here, philosopher JB Manchak argues that the whole universe is like that – and that such a universe has some interesting knock-on consequences. One being that although one can add more structure to a Heraclitus spacetime – by adding a big sign saying “here is the centre of the universe!” What one can’t do, Manchak argues, is reduce symmetries in a Heraclitus spacetime by adding such a sign. To illustrate the point, imagine the universe is a giant puzzle in which each event in space and time is a piece. In a non-Heraclitus universe, some pieces would be able to fit in several places. But in a Heraclitus universe, Manchak argues, there is exactly only one way to put the puzzle pieces of the universe together.

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus is known for his theory of constant flux: “It is not possible to step twice into the same river.” It turns out that one can explore this idea within the context of Einstein’s general relativity. A four-dimensional “Heraclitus spacetime” is a model of the universe in which no two events have the same structure. This means that such models exhibit a radical type of spacetime asymmetry.

In what follows, I will first introduce the notion of Heraclitus spacetime within general relativity. To do this, a few basic definitions will be needed as well as a related discussion of spacetime symmetries. Next, I will highlight a curious result: if a model universe has the Heraclitus property, then its local structure completely fixes its global structure as well. In other words, bits of information encoded at each event allow one to piece together what the universe is like in its entirety (e.g. its shape). Finally, I will sketch a way in which the radical asymmetry present in a Heraclitus spacetime can be used to clarify a number of other topics in the philosophy of spacetime physics.

Space-inspired tech uncovers hidden differences in autistic children’s play

A pioneering interdisciplinary study has shown that how young children play a simple iPad game could support early identification of autism.

Led by researchers at the University of Strathclyde, the study, “Motor organization of social play in children with autism,” published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface, is believed to be the first in the world to combine methods from satellite communications with child psychology to analyze patterns in children’s play.

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