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Every Martian year (which last 686.98 Earth days), the Red Planet experiences regional dust storms that coincide with summer in the southern hemisphere. Every three Martian years (five and a half Earth years), these storms grow so large that they encompass the entire planet and are visible from Earth. These storms are a serious hazard for robotic missions, causing electrostatic storms that can mess with electronics and cause dust to build up on solar panels. In 2018 and 2022, the Opportunity Rover and InSight Lander were lost after dust storms prevented them from drawing enough power to remain operational.

But what about crewed missions? In the coming decades, NASA and the Chinese Manned Space Agency (CMS) plan to send astronauts and taikonauts to Mars. These missions will include months of surface operations and are expected to culminate in the creation of long-duration habitats on the surface. According to new research by the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California (USC), Martian dust storms can potentially cause respiratory issues and elevated risk of disease, making them yet another health hazard space agencies need to prepare for.

The research was led by Justin L. Wang, a Doctor of Medicine at USC, along with several of his colleagues from the Keck School of Medicine. They were joined by researchers from the UCLA Space Medicine Center, the Ann and HJ Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at UC Boulder, and the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The paper detailing their findings appeared on February 12th in the journal GeoHealth.

Sending crewed missions to Mars presents many challenges, including logistics and health hazards. In the past 20 years, the shortest distance between Earth and Mars was 55 million km (34 million miles), or roughly 142 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon. This was in 2003 and was the closest the two planets had been in over 50,000 years. Using conventional methods, it would take six to nine months to make a one-way transit, during which time astronauts will experience physiological changes caused by long-term exposure to microgravity.

These include muscle atrophy, loss of bone density, a weakened cardiovascular system, etc. Moreover, a return mission could last as long as three years, during which time astronauts would spend at least a year living and working in Martian gravity (36.5% that of Earth). There’s also the risk of elevated radiation exposure astronauts will experience during transits and while operating on the surface of Mars. However, there are also the potential health effects caused by exposure to Martian regolith. As Wang described to Universe Today via email:

“There are many potential toxic elements that astronauts could be exposed to on Mars. Most critically, there is an abundance of silica dust in addition to iron dust from basalt and nanophase iron, both of which are reactive to the lungs and can cause respiratory diseases. What makes dust on Mars more hazardous is that the average dust particle size on Mars is much smaller than the minimum size that the mucus in our lungs is able to expel, so they’re more likely to cause disease.”

During the Apollo Era, the Apollo astronauts reported how lunar regolith would stick to their spacesuits and adhere to all surfaces inside their spacecraft. Upon their return to Earth, they also reported physical symptoms like coughing, throat irritation, watery eyes, and blurred vision. In a 2005 NASA study, the reports of six of the Apollo astronauts were studied to assess the overall effects of lunar dust on EVA systems, which concluded that the most significant health risks included “vision obscuration” and “inhalation and irritation.”

Artist’s depiction of a dust storm on Mars. Credit: NASA

“Silica directly causes silicosis, which is typically considered an occupational disease for workers that are exposed to silica (i.e., mining and construction),” said Wang. “Silicosis and exposure to toxic iron dust resemble coal worker’s pneumoconiosis, which is common in coal miners and is colloquially known as black lung disease.”

Beyond causing lung irritation and respiratory and vision problems, Martian dust is known for its toxic components. These include perchlorates, silica, iron oxides (rust), gypsum, and trace amounts of toxic metals like chromium, beryllium, arsenic, and cadmium – the abundance of which is not well understood. On Earth, the health effects of exposure to these metals have been studied extensively, which Wang and his team drew upon to assess the risk they pose to astronauts bound for Mars in the coming decades:

“It’s significantly more difficult to treat astronauts on Mars for diseases because the transit time is significantly longer than other previous missions to the ISS and the Moon. In this case, we need to be prepared for a wide array of health problems that astronauts can develop on their long-duration missions. In addition, [microgravity and radiation] negatively impact the human body, can make astronauts more susceptible to diseases, and complicate treatments. In particular, radiation exposure can cause lung disease, which can compound the effects that dust will have on astronauts’ lungs.”

In addition to food, water, and oxygen gas, the distance between Earth and Mars also complicates the delivery of crucial medical supplies, and astronauts cannot be rushed back to Earth for life-saving treatments either. According to Wang and his colleagues, this means that crewed missions will need to be as self-sufficient as possible when it comes to medical treatment as well. As with all major health hazards, they emphasize the need for prevention first, though they also identify some possible countermeasures to mitigate the risks:

“Limiting dust contamination of astronaut habitats and being able to filter out any dust that breaks through will be the most important countermeasure. Of course, some dust will be able to get through, especially when Martian dust storms make maintaining a clean environment more difficult. We’ve found studies that suggest vitamin C can help prevent diseases from chromium exposure and iodine can help prevent thyroid diseases from perchlorate.”

Austin Langton, a researcher at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, creates a fine spray of the regolith simulant BP-1. Credits: NASA/Kim Shiflett

They also stressed that these and other potential countermeasures need to be taken with caution. As Wang indicated, taking too much vitamin C can increase the risk of kidney stones, which astronauts are already at risk for after spending extended periods in microgravity. In addition, an excess of idione can contribute to the same thyroid diseases that it is meant to treat in the first place. For years, space agencies have been actively developing technologies and strategies to mitigate the risks of lunar and Martian regolith.

Examples include special sprays, electron beams, and protective coatings, while multiple studies and experiments are investigating regolith to learn more about its transport mechanisms and behavior. As the Artemis Program unfolds and missions to Mars draw nearer, we are likely to see advances in pharmacology and medical treatments that address the hazards of space exploration as well.

Further Reading: GeoHealth

The post Should Astronauts Be Worried About Mars Dust? appeared first on Universe Today.

If Intermediate-Mass Black Holes (IMBHs) are real, astronomers expect to find them in dwarf galaxies and globular clusters. There’s tantalizing evidence that they exist but no conclusive proof. So far, there are only candidates.

The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has found 300 additional candidate IMBHs.

Logic says that IMBHs should exist. We know of stellar-mass black holes, and we know of supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Stellar-mass black holes have between five and tens of solar masses, and SMBHs have at least hundreds of thousands of solar masses. Their upper limit is not constrained. Astrophysicists think these black holes are linked in an evolutionary sequence, so it makes sense that there’s an intermediate step between the two. That’s what IMBHs are, and their masses should range from about 100 to 100 thousand solar masses. IMBHs could also be relics of the very first black holes to form in the Universe and the seeds for SMBHs.

The problem is that there are no confirmed instances of them.

Omega Centauri, the brightest globular cluster in the Milky Way, is one of the prime candidates for an IMBH. There’s an ongoing scientific discussion about the cluster and the potential IMBH in its center. Stars in the cluster’s center move faster than other stars, indicating that a large mass is present. Some scientists think it’s an IMBH, while others think it’s a cluster of stellar-mass black holes.

This is Omega Centauri, the largest and brightest globular cluster that we know of in the Milky Way. An international team of astronomers used more than 500 images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope spanning two decades to detect seven fast-moving stars in the innermost region of Omega Centauri. These stars provide compelling new evidence for the presence of an intermediate-mass black hole. Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, M. Häberle (MPIA)

Other evidence for IMBHs comes from a gravitational wave detection in 2019. The wave was generated by two black holes merging. The pair of black holes had masses of 65 and 85 solar masses, and the resulting black hole had 142 solar masses. The other 8 solar masses were radiated away as gravitational waves.

By adding 300 more IMBH candidates to the list, DESI may be nudging us toward a definitive answer about the existence of these elusive black holes.

The 300 new candidates are presented in a paper soon to be published in The Astrophysical Journal. It’s titled “Tripling the Census of Dwarf AGN Candidates Using DESI Early Data” and is available at arxiv.org. The lead author is Ragadeepika Pucha, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Utah.

The 300 candidate IMBHs are the largest collection to date. Until now, there were only 100 to 150 candidates. This is a massive leap in the amount of available data, and future research will no doubt rely on it to make progress on the IMBH issue.

“Our wealth of new candidates will help us delve deeper into these mysteries, enriching our understanding of black holes and their pivotal role in galaxy evolution.”

Ragadeepika Pucha, University of Utah

The new candidates were identified in DESI’s early data release, which contains data from 20% of DESI’s first year of operations. The data included more than just IMBH candidates. DESI also found about 115,000 dwarf galaxies and spectra from about 410,000 galaxies, a huge number.

This mosaic shows a series of images featuring candidate dwarf galaxies hosting an active galactic nucleus, captured with the Subaru Telescope’s Hyper Suprime-Cam. Image Credit: Legacy Surveys/D. Lang (Perimeter Institute)/NAOJ/HSC Collaboration/D. de Martin (NSF NOIRLab) & M. Zamani (NSF NOIRLab)

The data allowed lead author Pucha and her colleagues to explore the relationship between the evolution of dwarf galaxies and black holes.

Despite their extreme masses, black holes are difficult to find. Their presence is inferred from their effect on their environment. In their presence, stars are accelerated to high velocities. Fast-moving stars were one of the clues showing that the Milky Way has an SMBH.

Astronomers are pretty certain that all massive galaxies like ours host an SMBH in their centers, but this certainty fades when it comes to dwarf galaxies. Dwarf galaxies are so small that our instruments struggle to observe them in detail. Unless the black hole is actively feeding.

When a black hole is actively consuming material, it is visible as an active galactic nucleus (AGN.) AGNs are like beacons that alert astronomers to the presence of a black hole.

“When a black hole at the center of a galaxy starts feeding, it unleashes a tremendous amount of energy into its surroundings, transforming into what we call an active galactic nucleus,” lead author Pucha said in a press release. “This dramatic activity serves as a beacon, allowing us to identify hidden black holes in these small galaxies.”

The team found 2,500 dwarf galaxies containing an active galactic nucleus, an astonishing number. Like the new IMBH candidates, this is the largest sample ever discovered. The researchers determined that 2% of the dwarf galaxies hosted AGN, a big step up from the 0.5% gleaned from other studies.

“This increase can be primarily attributed to the smaller fibre size of DESI compared to SDSS <Sloan Digital Sky Survey>, which aids with the identification of lower luminosity AGN within the same magnitude and redshift range,” the authors explain in their paper.

This artist’s illustration depicts a dwarf galaxy that hosts an active galactic nucleus — an actively feeding black hole. In the background are many other dwarf galaxies hosting active black holes, as well as a variety of other types of galaxies hosting intermediate-mass black holes. Image Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/M. Zamani

Astronomers think that black holes found in dwarf galaxies should be within the intermediate-mass range. However, only 70 of the newly discovered IMBH candidates overlap with dwarf AGN candidates. This is unexpected and raises yet more questions about black holes, how they form, and how they evolve within galaxies.

This scatter plot, adapted from the research, shows the number of candidate dwarf galaxies hosting active galactic nuclei (AGN) from previous surveys compared with the number of new dwarf galaxy AGN candidates discovered by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). Image Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/R. Pucha/J. Pollard

“For example, is there any relationship between the mechanisms of black hole formation and the types of galaxies they inhabit?” Pucha said. “Our wealth of new candidates will help us delve deeper into these mysteries, enriching our understanding of black holes and their pivotal role in galaxy evolution.”

DESI is only getting started. These discoveries were made with only a small portion of data from the instrument’s first year of operation, and there are several more years of operation to come.

“The anticipated increase in the sample of dwarf AGN candidates over the next five years with DESI will accelerate studies of AGN in dwarf galaxies,” the authors write in their research. “The statistical sample of dwarf AGN candidates will be invaluable for addressing several key questions related to galaxy evolution on the smallest scales, including accretion modes in low-mass galaxies and the co-evolution of galaxies and their central BHs,” they conclude.

• Press Release: DESI Uncovers 300 New Intermediate-Mass Black Holes Plus 2500 New Active Black Holes in Dwarf Galaxies
• Research: Tripling the Census of Dwarf AGN Candidates Using DESI Early Data
• Research: Properties and Astrophysical Implications of the 150 M? Binary Black Hole Merger GW190521
• Research: New constraints on the central mass contents of Omega Centauri from combined stellar kinematics and pulsar timing

The post DESI Found 300 Candidate Intermediate Mass Black Holes appeared first on Universe Today.

There are plenty of types of stars out there, but one stands out for being just a little weirder than the others. You might even say it’s strange. According to a paper from researchers at Guangxi University in China, the birth of one might have recently been observed for the very first time.

A strange star is a (so far theoretical) compact star that is so dense it literally breaks down regular parts of atoms (like neutrons) into their constituent quarks. Moreover, even those quarks (the up and down that comprise a neutron) get compressed into an even rarer type of quark called a strange quark – hence the name strange star.

Technically, the “strange” matter that a strange star would be composed of is a combination of up, down, and strange quarks. But, at least in theory, this mix of sub-hadronic particles could even be more stable than a traditional neutron star, which is similar to a strange star but doesn’t have enough gravity to break down the neutrons.

Fraser discusses strange stars.

Strange stars, though they exist in theory, are exceedingly rare. No one has ever proven that one exists. But Xiao Tian and his co-authors think they might have found evidence of one.

Their paper describes a recent gamma-ray burst known as GRB 240529A that they think holds the clues to finding a strange star. Gamma-ray bursts, the gigantic implosions that sometimes result from creating a black hole, could also have other causes – or “central engines,” as they are called in the literature. One such central engine is the creation of a magnetar.

Magnetars are another type of neutron star that is even more extreme. Their magnetic fields could be up to 1,000 times that of a typical neutron star, giving them the largest magnetic fields in the known universe. In them, electrons and protons are forced together to create neutrons, hence the name neutron star.

Fraser discusses magnetars, the type of star that would theoretically collapse into a strange star.

However, they could also collapse upon themselves, as a part of cosmological theory allows for a magnetar to collapse into an even more dense form, which would be something akin to a strange star with the requisite mix of quarks. Doing so would undoubtedly produce a gamma-ray burst, which Dr. Tian and his co-authors believe they found in GRB 240529A.

The details of that particular GRB hold the clues. There were three distinct “emission episodes” that represented different phases of the collapse to a magnetar, then to a strange star, and then the spin-down of the strange star. A different spectrum of gamma rays represents each as part of the burst, and each episode was separated by a few hundred seconds of relative calm, which seems like an exceedingly short time considering how massive the objects were collapsing. 

Moreover, in the X-ray spectrum, another part of the light curve could be described as containing “plateaus.” According to the authors, each of these plateaus could represent a stage in the birth of the strange star, with the first representing its cooling and the second representing its “pin down” phase.

According to their calculations, the observed data best matches the theoretical values that would be seen if GRB represented the birth of a strange star. So it seems likely that, for the first time, astronomers have garnered some evidence to support a theory that was initially developed in the 1980s. But, as always, more testing is needed, and other researchers should confirm the authors’ calculations. But if they do, it would be a significant leap forward in experimental astrophysics – and may herald many more strange findings to come.

Learn More:
Tian et al – Signature of strange star as the central engine of GRB 240529A
UT – It Takes Very Special Conditions to Create This Bizarre Stellar Spectacle
UT – SLS Hurricanes, James Webb Fixed, Strange Quark Star
UT – The Mysterious Case of the Resurrected Star

Lead Image:
Illustration of the interior of a neutron star and a strange quark star
Credit – NASA/SAO/CXC/J.Drake et al.

The post Did Astronomers Just Witness the Formation of a “Strange Star”? appeared first on Universe Today.

The Trump administration’s pause on US foreign assistance could lead to an estimated 4.2 million unintended pregnancies and more than 8300 pregnancy-related deaths

Engineers have developed a versatile swimming robot that nimbly navigates cluttered water surfaces. Inspired by marine flatworms, the innovative device offers new possibilities for environmental monitoring and ecological research.

Engineers have developed a versatile swimming robot that nimbly navigates cluttered water surfaces. Inspired by marine flatworms, the innovative device offers new possibilities for environmental monitoring and ecological research.

For decades, scientists have sought ways to counter our dependence on lithium-ion batteries. These traditional, rechargeable batteries energize today's most ubiquitous consumer electronics -- from laptops to cell phones to electric cars. But raw lithium is expensive and is often sourced through fragile geopolitical networks. This month, chemists have announced an exciting alternative that relies on an organic, high-energy cathode material to make sodium-ion batteries, advancing the likelihood that this technology will find commercialization with safe, cheaper, more sustainable components.

Electrons are incredibly fast. Because of their ultrafast motions, directly observing their behavior has been challenging. Now researchers have suggested a new method to make visualizing electron motion a reality.

As far as we can tell, life needs water. Cells can’t perform their functions without it. Some have suggested that other exotic liquids, like liquid methane, could do the job on worlds like Saturn’s moon Titan. That idea is highly speculative, though.

So, it makes sense that NASA is launching a spacecraft dedicated to the search for water.

SPHEREx stands for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer. It’s scheduled to launch on February 27th. It has a single instrument and one observing mode. Part of its mission is to map the sky in near-infrared and measure the spectra of 450 million galaxies. The results will help scientists understand the expansion of the Universe and the origin and evolution of galaxies.

This image shows a semi-frontal view of the SPHEREx observatory during integration and testing at BAE Systems (Boulder, CO). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Its other scientific goal is to probe molecular clouds for water ice and other frozen pre-biotic molecules. These ices are frozen onto the surface of dust grains in molecular clouds, and somehow, through a long journey, they become part of planets, where they can form oceans and potentially foster the appearance of life.

Infrared observations show that in cold, dense regions of space in molecular clouds, chemicals critical to life are locked into dust grains. Water is the primary one, of course, but there are other pre-biotic molecules as well: carbon dioxide (CO2), carbon monoxide (CO), methanol (CH3OH), the nitrogen-bearing molecule ammonia (NH3) plus various carbon-nitrogen stretch molecules (XCN), and the important sulphur-bearing molecule, carbonyl sulphide (COS). Carbon-nitrogen stretch molecules are everywhere in organic and biological molecules and play critical roles in biological processes. Carbonyl-sulphide plays a role in the formation of peptides, which are the building blocks of proteins.

There’s a vast amount of water frozen in dust grains in molecular clouds, and scientists think this is where the bulk of the water in the galaxy and even in the Universe resides. These grains are the source of water for Earth’s oceans and for any exoplanets or moons that might harbour oceans.

SPHEREx will examine molecular clouds and try to understand how much water they contain. It will also examine stars in those clouds and the rings of material that form around them, out of which planets form.

Put succinctly, SPHEREx is trying to answer this question: How does ice content evolve from diffuse clouds to dense clouds to planetary disks and then to planets?

This photo by renowned astrophotographer Rogelio Bernal Andreo shows the Orion constellation and the surrounding nebulas of the Orion Molecular Cloud complex. The clouds in the complex hold frozen water and other chemicals critical to life. Image Credit: By Rogelio Bernal Andreo – http://deepskycolors.com/astro/JPEG/RBA_Orion_HeadToToes.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20793252

There’s little doubt that ices play an important role in the formation of planetesimals in disks around young stars. Likewise, there’s little doubt that these ices are sources of water and organic molecules, too. But how does it all happen? Ice’s journey from translucent to dense molecular clouds and then to protoplanetary disks is not well understood. Scientists want to know if the ices in the disks are simply inherited from the interstellar medium or if they’re altered in the disks somehow.

The SPHEREx mission hopes to answer this question and others with its infrared absorption spectroscopy.

SPHEREx will generate spectra for between 8 and 9 million sources and should transform our understanding of ices in molecular clouds, young stellar objects, and protoplanetary disks.

In infrared wavelengths, ices have unique spectral signatures. Prior to the JWST, scientists had only about 200 ice absorption spectra available. The JWST is changing that, but it has lots of other important work to do.

The JWST is already advancing our understanding of these ices. Like other infrared observatories, it can see through dust, but it is far more powerful and sensitive. A key to SPHEREx’s design and performance is its ability to be as accurate as the JWST.

The black line is the JWST spectrum of a source seen through a thick molecular cloud of interstellar dust, showing the strong features of the interstellar ice species H2O, CO2, and CO at wavelengths of 3.05, 4.27, and 4.67 microns (McClure et al. 2023, Nature Astronomy, 7, 431). Overlaid in red is a simulated spectrum, taken with SPHEREx’s lower spectral resolving power, of a background source with 100x the JWST brightness in the SPHEREx range that shows the same absorption features as seen by JWST. Note that SPHERE reproduces almost all of the spectral structure apparent in the JWST spectrum. Image Credit: NASA/JPL

There is no shortage of targets for SPHEREx. Some research shows that there are over 8,000 molecular clouds in the Milky Way. Not all of them are great targets for SPHEREx, but many are.

SPHEREx has a catalogue of targets that includes molecular clouds in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds and several constellations, including Monoceros, home of the Monoceros R2 Molecular Cloud.

The Monoceros R2 Molecular Cloud is one of SPHEREx’s targets. This image shows only a portion of the cloud, which is a large cloud with lots of active star formation. Star formation is particularly active in the location of the bright red nebula just below the center of the image. This image was obtained with the wide-field view of the Mosaic II camera on the Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory on January 11th, 2012. Image Credit: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage) and N.S. van der Bliek (NOIRLab/NSF/AURA)

It’s axiomatic that stars and planets have the same compositions as the molecular clouds that fostered them. But the specifics of planet formation are mysterious and the study of the processes has produced some surprises.

In 1998, NASA launched the Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS). Similar to SPHEREx, it studied the chemical composition of interstellar clouds and surveyed the galaxy to determine how much water vapour was present in molecular clouds. Surprisingly, it found far less than expected.

“This puzzled us for a while,” said Gary Melnick, a senior astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and a member of the SPHEREx science team. “We eventually realized that SWAS had detected gaseous water in thin layers near the surface of molecular clouds, suggesting that there might be a lot more water inside the clouds, locked up as ice.”

The SWAS team figured out that hydrogen and oxygen atoms were being frozen onto the surfaces of ice grains where they formed water ice. Subsequent research confirmed their suspicions. On the unprotected surfaces of molecular clouds, cosmic radiation can break the H2O molecules apart, but protected inside molecular clouds, the molecules persisted.

The water ice and other ices create spectroscopic signatures separate from their liquid counterparts, and SPHEREx is designed to detect them.

It will do more than detect them, though. The spacecraft will also determine how deep inside the clouds the ices form, how their abundance changes with cloud density, and how the abundance changes when a star forms.

SPHEREx will also cooperate with other telescopes, including the JWST, which will perform more powerful follow-up observations when merited.

“If SPHEREx discovers a particularly intriguing location, Webb can study that target with higher spectral resolving power and in wavelengths that SPHEREx cannot detect,” said Melnick. “These two telescopes could form a highly effective partnership.”

SPHEREx will launch on February 27th in a Falcon Heavy rocket from Vandenberg Air Base. It will follow a Sun-Synchronous orbit at about 700 km altitude. In its nominal 25-month mission, SPHEREx will map the entire sky four times.

• Press Release: NASA’s SPHEREx Space Telescope Will Seek Life’s Ingredients
• CalTech SPHEREx Science
• An All-Sky Spectral Survey
• The Astrophysical Journal: The SPHEREx Target List of Ice Sources (SPLICES)
• JPL: The Origin of Water – and Other Pre-biotic Molecules – in Planetary Systems

The post NASA’s SPHEREx Launches Soon and Will Search For Water in Molecular Clouds appeared first on Universe Today.

Researchers have 3D printed bioelectronic scaffolds that have the properties cells need to form new tissue.

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