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Astronomers have known for some time that nearby supernovae have had a profound effect on Earth’s evolution. For starters, Earth’s deposits of gold, platinum, and other heavy metals are believed to have been distributed to Earth by ancient supernovae. The blasts of gamma rays released in the process can also significantly affect life, depleting nitrogen and oxygen in the upper atmosphere, depleting the ozone layer, and causing harmful levels of ultraviolet radiation to reach the surface. Given the number of near-Earth supernovae that have occurred since Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, these events likely affected the evolution of life.

In a new paper by a team of astronomers from the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), a nearby supernova may have influenced the evolution of life on Earth. According to their findings, Earth was pummeled by radiation from a nearby supernova about 2.5 million years ago. This burst of radiation was powerful enough to break apart the DNA of living creatures in Lake Tanganyika, the deepest body of water in Africa. This event, they argue, could be linked to an explosion in the number of viruses that occurred in the region.

The study was led by Caitlyn Nojiri, a recent graduate of the USCS Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics. She was joined by Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, a USCS Professor of astronomy and astrophysics, and Noémie Globus, a postdoctoral fellow at USCS and a member of the Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology at Stanford University and the Astrophysical Big Bang Laboratory. The paper that describes their findings appeared on January 15th in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The image of Lake Tanganyika was acquired in June 1985. Credit: NASA

For their study, the team examined samples of iron-60 retrieved from the seafloor of Lake Tanganyika, the 645 km-long (400 mi) lake in Africa’s Great Rift Valley that borders Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. This radioactive isotope of iron is produced by supernovae and is extremely rare on Earth. They obtained age estimates based on how much the samples had already broken down into nonradioactive forms. This revealed two separate ages for the samples, some 2.5 million years old and the others 6.5 million years old.

The next step was to trace the origin of the iron isotopes, which they did by backtracking the Sun’s motions around the center of the Milky Way. Roughly 6.5 million years ago, our Solar System passed through the Local Bubble, a region of lower density in the interstellar medium (ISM) of the Orion Arm in the Milky Way. As the Solar System entered the Bubble’s stardust-rich exterior, Earth was seeded with the older traces of iron-60. Between 2 and 3 million years ago, a neighboring star went supernova, seeding Earth with the younger traces of iron-60.

To confirm this theory, Nojiri and her colleagues conducted a simulation of a near-Earth supernova, which indicated that it would have bombarded Earth with cosmic rays for 100,000 years after the blast. This model was consistent with a previously recorded spike in radiation that hit Earth around that time. Given the intensity of the radiation, this raised the possibility that it was enough to snap strands of DNA in half. In the meantime, the authors came upon a study of virus diversity in one of Africa’s Rift Valley lakes and saw a possible connection. Said Nojiri in a UCSC news release:

“It’s really cool to find ways in which these super distant things could impact our lives or the planet’s habitability. The iron-60 is a way to trace back when the supernovae were occurring. From two to three million years ago, we think that a supernova happened nearby. We saw from other papers that radiation can damage DNA. That could be an accelerant for evolutionary changes or mutations in cells. We can’t say that they are connected, but they have a similar timeframe. We thought it was interesting that there was an increased diversification in the viruses.”

Lead author Caitlyn Nojiri is now applying for graduate school and hopes to get a Ph.D. in astrophysics. Credit: UCSC

Shortly after their paper was published, Nojiri became the first UCSC undergraduate to be invited to give a seminar at the Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics (CCAPP) at Ohio State. Nojiri did not initially set out to be an astronomer but eventually arrived at UCSC, where Prof. Ramirez-Ruiz encouraged her to apply for the University of California Leadership Excellence through Advanced Degrees (UC LEADS) program. This program is designed to identify undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds who have the potential to succeed in STEM.

She also participated in the Lamat program (“star” in Mayan), which was founded by Ramirez-Ruiz to teach students with great aptitude and nontraditional backgrounds how to conduct research in astronomy. Because of her experience with these programs, Nojiri has decided to apply for graduate school and become an astrophysicist.

“People from different walks of life bring different perspectives to science and can solve problems in very different ways,” said Ramirez-Ruiz. “This is an example of the beauty of having different perspectives in physics and the importance of having those voices.”

Further Reading: UC Santa Cruz, The Astrophysical Journal

The post New Study Proposes that Cosmic Radiation Altered Virus Evolution in Africa appeared first on Universe Today.

Beyoncê (real name Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter) is wildly popular, but it’s a popularity I find baffling. I have listened to a fair amount of her music, trying to understand the key to her musical fame—perhaps the use of catchy tunes or inventive lyrics—but I have come up dry. It is, as modern rock and pop tends to be, formulaic and trite. But most such music vanishes without a trace, yet forgettable songs like hers get Grammys. 35 of them!

Take, for example, song below, “Texas Hold Em”, the flagship song of her recent Grammy-winning album, “Cowboy Carter.”  As Wikipedia notes:

Music critics praised “Texas Hold ‘Em” for its playful tone, authentic sound, Beyoncé’s vocal performance, and its celebration of the Black roots of country music. Country artists and country radio managers also praised the song for elevating the accessibility of country music for a wider audience. It ignited discussions on Black musicians’ place within country music, boosted the listenership of Black country artists and country radio in general, and increased the popularity of Western wear and culture. It was nominated for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Country Song at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards.

I am stymied. The “playful tone” involves rhyming words like “Texas” and “Lexus”, and it is not in any sense authentic country music: it just uses country tropes and a country rhythm to convey essentially meaningless sentiments. I suspect the vocal performance is autotuned. The only part I like is the banjo introduction.

The song is a failed attempt to meld two genres, but the critics love. love, love it.  As for igniting interest in black country music, well, this is not black country music (see Charlie Pride for that); it is standard pop music striving to be countrified. It’s like putting a drop of Cointreau in a cocktail and calling it French.

But listen for yourself. Is this a song for the ages? I don’t think so.

Here are the lyrics, and—please forgive me—they seem so incompetent and ham-handed that I laughed when I read them. The first verse, with its risible rhyming of “Texas” and “Lexus”, is especially rich. Likewise rhyming “panic” and “dramatic.” I’ve put the dumbest lines in bold: Lyrics This ain’t Texas (woo), ain’t no hold ’em (hey)
So lay your cards down, down, down, down
So park your Lexus (woo) and throw your keys up (hey)
Stick around, ’round, ’round, ’round, ’round (stick around)
And I’ll be damned if I can’t slow dance with you
Come pour some sugar on me, honey too
It’s a real life boogie and a real life hoedown
Don’t be a bitch, come take it to the floor now, woo, huh (woo) There’s a tornado (there’s a tornado) in my city (in my city)
Hit the basement (hit the basement), that shit ain’t pretty (shit ain’t pretty)
Rugged whiskey (rugged whiskey) ’cause we survivin’ (’cause we survivin’)
Off red cup kisses, sweet redemption, passin’ time, yeah Ooh, one step to the right
We headin’ to the dive bar we always thought was nice
Ooh, run me to the left
Then spin me in the middle, boy, I can’t read your mind This ain’t Texas (woo), ain’t no hold ’em (hey)
So lay your cards down, down, down, down
So park your Lexus (woo) and throw your keys up (hey)
Stick around, ’round, ’round, ’round, ’round (stick around)
And I’ll be damned if I can’t slow dance with you
Come pour some sugar on me, honey too
It’s a real life boogie and a real life hoedown
Don’t be a bitch, come take it to the floor now (woo) And I’ll be damned if I cannot dance with you
Come pour some liquor on me, honey too
It’s a real life boogie and a real life hoedown
Don’t be a bitch, come take it to the floor now (woo) Woo-hoo
Woo-hoo
Woo-hoo There’s a heatwave (there’s a heatwave) coming at us (coming at us)
Too hot to think straight (too hot to think straight)
Too cold to panic (cold to panic)
All of the problems just feel dramatic (just feel dramatic)
And now we’re runnin’ to the first spot that we find, yeah Ooh, one step to the right
We headed to the dive bar we always thought was nice
Ooh, you run to the left
Just work me in the middle, boy, I can’t read your mind This ain’t Texas (woo), ain’t no hold ’em (hey)
So lay your cards down, down, down, down, oh
So park your Lexus (hey), throw your keys up (hey)
Stick around, ’round, ’round, ’round, ’round (stick around)
And I’ll be damned if I cannot dance with you
Come pour some sugar on me, honey, too
It’s a real life boogie and a real life hoedown
Don’t be a bitch, come take it to the floor now (woo) And I’ll be damned if I cannot dance with you
Come pour some liquor on me honey, too
It’s a real life boogie and a real life hoedown
Don’t be a-, come take it to the floor now, ooh Take it to the floor now, ooh
Hoops, spurs, boots
To the floor now, ooh
Tuck, back, oops (ooh, ooh, ooh)
Shoot
Come take it to the floor now, ooh
And I’ll be damned if I cannot dance with you
Baby, pour that sugar and liquor on me too
Furs, spurs, boots
Solargenic, photogenic, shoot Unlike some of the hard-to-understand songs of, say, Steely Dan, these are just a bunch of fragmentary thoughts strung together, and one sense there’s no message beneath them. Now some of her songs, like “Lemonade”, do tell a story (in that case, the unfaithfulness of her partner), but I find the music lame.  And while words can be lame in a song that’s nevertheless good, it is good because of the music.

But is there a greater meaning here?  A site purporting to give this “meaning” resorts almost completely to simply reiterating what Texas tropes appear in the lyrics. For example (lyrics in bold; dodo’s interpretation in plain text):

“There’s a tornado (There’s a tornado) in my city (In my city)
In the basement (In the basement), that shit ain’t pretty (Shit ain’t pretty)
Rugged whiskey (Rugged whiskey) ’cause we survivin’ (‘Cause we survivin’)
Off red cup kisses, sweet redemption, passin’ time, yeah”

Texas has more tornadoes passing through it than any other US state, and here, Beyoncé regales the listener with a tale of how a twister has forced her and her partner underground.

She subsequently paints a visceral picture of a crude, sparse setting, as they resolve to get through the violent weather with the help of country music’s No. 1 – or perhaps more accurately, No. 7 – painkiller: some good old Jack Daniels whiskey.

Beyoncé throws in another country trope by referencing the red solo cups that regularly pop up in Friday night anthems by the likes of Luke Combs, Morgan Wallen and more.

“Ooh, one step to the right
We headin’ to the dive bar we always thought was nice
Ooh, run me to the left
Then spin me in the middle, boy, I can’t read your mind”

Here, Beyoncé details some of the moves as she guides her hesitant partner through the dance in their local dive, putting him at ease. She again underlines her hopes that he’ll open up to her more, as she frustratedly highlights how she can’t read his mind.

Well, isn’t that special?  I wanted to listen to this song again, for the fourth or fifth time, before I posted this, but I find I can’t bear to hear it again. If any reader wants to tell me why this is such a great song, I’ll be glad to hear it—but I doubt I’ll agree.

I’m not alone in my criticism here; just read the Washington Post‘s article, “Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ isn’t a country album. It’s worse.”

This is an album that posits its lack of ideas as big ideas. Only in its final seconds, when Beyoncé sings about how “old ideas are buried here,” does “Cowboy Carter” start to feel less like an extravagant awards telecast, and more like a clear-eyed comment on the state of the nation — a grand, sprawling, overcrowded place with nowhere else to go.

Freddie deBoer  gives us what I think is the main reason why Beyoncé is so lauded (his piece is largely about Kendrick Lamar, but the lessons apply). The bolding is mine:

We’re left in this bizarre space where no one is willing to flourish, to succeed, without simultaneously calling themselves an underdog, their talents unrecognized and their tastes disrespected. This is planet “Nobody believed in me!,” and facts never get in the way.

Thus, to pick a paradigmatic example, we still get a thousand thinkpieces a year arguing that Beyonce is terribly mistreated and overlooked – Beyonce, a billionaire with the most Grammys in history, every other kind of award that humanity has to bestow, influence in every sphere of human achievement, multiple films and books about her genius, every material, social, artistic, and cultural laurel we as a society can give. Look how fucking long this list of awards is! The only human being on earth who enjoys a combination of celebration and wealth and access and privilege and power that equals that of Beyonce is Taylor Swift, and both are constantly referred to as disrespected and marginalized underdogs in our most prestigious publications. Beyonce has thirty-five Grammys. What would be enough? Seventy? Seven hundred? Honey, the whole point is that nothing could ever be good enough for her. Indeed, the evidence that Beyonce is an immensely lauded human being is so vast that this kind of talk inspires an admonition I get a lot in my career – you’re right, but we don’t talk about that.

. . . . The idea that your moral value is determined by what you do has given way to the assumption that your moral value is determined by what you like. If you’re an aging dad who likes Sabrina Carpenter, you must be an open-minded and discerning feminist. And if you’re a white person who likes Kendrick Lamar, well, you must have all the right attitudes about race.

And so it is with Beyoncé. Calling her mediocre, as I just did, is just asking for vilification.

 

h/t: Greg Mayer for the deBoer reference

If you think you’re beleaguered by political correctness in America, just thank your lucky stars that you’re not living in New Zealand.  There you are increasingly surrounded by demands that you abide by the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi, but, worse, you can be demonized or fired simply because you think it’s outdated and there needs to be court-mandated interpretation of what it means, or, worse, adopt a New Zealand Constitution.

For in that country, which I love, virtually area of endeavor is subject to Equity Demands and Diktats that you respect indigenous “ways of knowing.” Today the subject of discussion is pharmacy, which is being rapidly colonized by this ideology. But note the bit about real estate at the bottom.

An anonymous New Zealander sent me this article from The Breaking News site in that lovely but increasingly benighted land.

You can verify Kennedy’s claims by going to the official pharmacy standards site (click on link to get pdf).

As you can see from the top headline, it’s a bit of a rant, but everything that Mr. Kennedy says about the pharmacy standards is true.

First, the aim of the Pharmacy Council is a general one: to help all New Zealanders. From pp. 3-4 of the second document:

Through skilled and safe practice, pharmacists contribute to better health outcomes for New Zealanders. We aspire to have pharmacists operate at the top of their scope of practice and to not only be competent and professional in their roles but to continually work towards being the best pharmacist they can be.

. . . . The purpose of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act (HPCAA) 2003 is to protect the health and safety of the public by providing mechanisms to ensure that health practitioners are competent and fit to practise their profession.

So consideration #1 should be merit: the quality of service provided by pharmacists.  However, if you look at the first three “domains” of competence (there are seven), you see this:

Yep, the very first thing in which you must be competent as a pharmacist is understanding the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi (“Te Tiriti o Waitangi”), which of course says nothing about pharmacy. The treaty simply guaranteed the indigenous Māori their lands, gives them all the rights of British citizens, and places governance of the indigenous people to England.  There are several versions of the treaty, not all Māori tribes signed onto it, and it’s used to justify all kinds of stuff which are not in any of the texts but fall under a recent interpretation “Māori are to get at least half of everything.” That includes having their ways of knowing taught in science classes.  And remember, just 17.8% of New Zealanders are Māori, while 17.3% are Asians (67.8% are of European descent.  Somehow the Asians got left out of the pharmacy standards.

So once again the most important aspect of “competence” you need as a New Zealand pharmacist is respect and understanding of the Treaty, along with deference to the indigenous people.  Extreme deference.  The first four paragraphs below are Kennedy’s take (and his bolding), while the rest are word-for-word from the second source above.

Unfortunately the Pharmacy Council NZ has gone all woke and racist and apparently now thinks that practicing safe, competent dispensing of medicine and advice depends on a deep knowledge of 27 different aspects of Maori customs, beliefs, traditions, practices, superstitions, intergenerational historical trauma, familiarity with mana whenua and kaumatua, the Treaty of Waitangi, structural racism and colonisation and many other alleged Maori-related issues – such is the depth of knowledge required by pharmacists of Maori culture, beliefs and Te Reo etc. etc., that it would seem that every pharmacist who achieves all these competencies that are totally, completely, categorically, undeniably and irrefutably unrelated to safe dispensing of medicines will have earned a Bachelor’s degree in Maori Studies!

This is racism on steroids, the woke, totally unnecessary, unwarranted imposition of irrelevant culture and beliefs on a professional group whose sole focus should be on the safe practice of pharmaceutical medicine!

The Minister of Health needs to stamp down immediately on this repugnant, racist, woke over-reach by the Pharmacy Council and weed out any of the incompetent and/or radical members of the Pharmacy Council!

Following is the list (from page 31) of the essential competency standards for all pharmacists, according to the Pharmacy Council: [JAC: as I say below, I’ve put in italics everything that seems to me completely irrelevant to competence as a pharmacist]

● being familiar with mana whenua (local hapū/iwi), mātāwaka (kinship group not mana whenua), hapū and iwi in your rohe (district) and their history,

● understanding the importance of kaumātua,

● being familiar with te Tiriti o Waitangi and He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nū Tīreni,

● advocating for giving effect to te Tiriti at all levels,

● understanding the intergenerational impact of historical trauma,

● understanding of the role of structural racism and colonisation and ongoing impacts on Māori, socioeconomic deprivation, restricted access to the determinants of health,

● being familiar with Māori health – leaders, history, and contemporary literature,

● being familiar with Māori aspirations in relation to health,

● developing authentic relationships with Māori organisations and health providers,

● having a positive collegial relationship with Māori colleagues in your profession/workplace,

● being proficient in building and maintaining mutually beneficial power-sharing relationships,

● tautoko (support) Māori leadership,

● prioritising Māori voices,

● trusting Māori intelligence,

● be clinically and culturally confident to work with Māori whānau, [JAC: family groups]

● understand one’s own whakapapa (genealogy and connections),

● have a basic/intermediate understanding of te reo Māori, [the language; and most Māori themselves don’t understand it]

● have a basic/intermediate understanding of the tikanga and the application of tapu (sacred) and noa (made ordinary),

● be familiar with Māori health models and concepts such as Te Pae Mahutonga9 and Te Ara Tika10,

● have a basic/intermediate understanding of marae (community meeting house) protocol,

● be confident to perform waiata tautoko (support song),

● be proficient in whakawhānaungatanga (active relationship building),

● integrate tika (correct), pono (truth), aroha and manaakitanga into practice,

● be open-hearted,

● be proficient in strengths-based practice,

● be proficient with equity analysis,

● practice cultural humility,

● critically monitor the effectiveness of own practice with Māori.

Only 1 out of 4 standards (7/28) seem to me at all relevant to competence in pharmacy, and I’m being generous.

Now I can understand that there should be a section in pharmacy school about “indigenous medicine” so that pharmacists can understand where a local is coming from if they want an herb rather than an antibiotic. But most of this statement It is simply irrelevant fealty to the indigenous people; a form of virtue signaling or “the sacralization of the oppressed.”

I needn’t go on, as you can see that most of the requirements for competence in this section are irrelevant to the aims of the Pharmacy Council.  Poor New Zealand!

But wait! There’s more!

Lagniappe: New Zealander loses realtor’s license for refusing to take Māori-centered DEI training. Click on the link to go to the New Zealand Herald article:

An excerpt:

Janet Dickson, the real estate agent facing a five-year ban for refusing to do a Māori tikanga course, has lost a court bid to block the threatened cancellation of her licence.

Today, the High Court turned down her request for a judicial review of decisions about agents’ professional development requirements, which required her to take a 90-minute course called Te Kākano (The Seed).

The module focused on Māori culture, language and the Treaty of Waitangi and was made compulsory for all real estate agents, branch managers and salespeople in 2023.

Agents who do not complete professional development requirements risk having their licences cancelled. People whose licences are cancelled cannot reapply for one for five years.

. . .She has called real estate work a vocation and a calling, citing her Presbyterian values. In her court case, she said the course’s references to Māori gods sat uncomfortably with her own monotheistic Christian belief.

She labelled the course “woke madness” in a Facebook post and vowed to fight “to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else”.

She told the court she considered the course would not add any value to the performance of her real estate agency work.

Poor New Zealand!

While thinking about about objections to the sex binary—usually discussed in humans but sometimes in other species—they all seem to come down to a single assertion:

“Sex is complicated in both development and expression, involving chromosomes, behavior, hormones, genitals and even psychology.  Therefore there are more than two sexes.”

One example of this is from the deeply misguided anthropologist Agustin Fuentes, who has a book coming out about why sex isn’t binary. On Twitter he says this:

It turns out that both Darwin and Bateman made assumptions that don’t always hold up across species. Plus, there is much biological research that challenges the assertion that diffs in gamete size (anisogamy) means the same thing, or has the same impact, across all animals.

So, at least some awareness of these important discussions is necessary before simply accepting that anisogamy, and gametes, tell you everything you need to know about sex for a species, and the individuals in it. Esp. if you are making laws based on this assumption.

But nobody has ever maintained that whether an individual falls under the definition of “male” or “female” tells you everything you need to know about sex for a species. You’d have to be a moron to accept that.  There is variation in how sex is determined, how biologists recognize sex, in secondary sexual characteristics and behavior (in seahorses, for example, the sperm-producing males actually incubate eggs from fertilized females, getting pregnant).

I keep pondering what kind of mentality would reject the male/female sex binary simply because there is variation in how sex is determined (not “defined”) and how sex is expressed in the bodies and behavior of different species.  When I sent the above to a colleague, she responded:

Is he then saying that a seahorse who produces sperm is a female?  I don’t even get the argument.

And that leads to the question posed to Fuentes on Twitter when he touted his book:

@Antrofuentes Since you are an expert, what would be the third or fourth sex, choose one of your choice that is not male or female and tell us what gametes it produces?

— Nemesi2024 (@Nemesi_Nemesi) February 19, 2025

It’s funny, but telling, that those who claim that sex is a spectrum or continuum never specify how many sexes there are, either in humans or other species.  I suspect that if they responded—based on their “multivariate, multidimensional” definition of sex—that “there are many, many sexes,” or “I can’t answer that”, they would be laughed out of the house.

But we all know that that the “spectrum” people are not dumb or willfully ignorant. They are simply imbued with a certain ideology.

For more on this, I defer to Richard Dawkins and his elegant explanation of the sex binary on one of his Substack posts.

Policy-based evidence making means working back from a predefined policy to produce underpinning evidence.

The post Dr. Vinay Prasad Embraces Policy-Based Evidence Making first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

If you’re a pop music fan, you’ve probably heard Karla Bonoff‘s songs—but may not know that she wrote them, for the most famous ones were popularized by others. Her two best, in my view, were covered by Linda Ronstadt (“Someone to Lay Down Beside Me“) and Lynn Anderson (“Isn’t it Always Love“). Yet Bonoff recorded both of these songs herself, and her versions—save for Ronstadt’s, which is a classic—are at least as good as the covers.

Bonoff does tour, but it’s hard to find good live videos of her performances.  I’ll show a couple. She’s now 73 but apparently is still drawing appreciative fans to her concert.

Here’s her best song performed live, and clearly done some time ago. The quality of the recording is poor, but gives an idea of her talent.

“Isn’t it Always Love”, played not that long ago:

“The Water is Wide” wasn’t written by Bonoff, but rather is derived from British folk songs that go back to the seventeenth century, and its beauty makes it one of my very favorite folk songs. Bonoff sings it frequently, and her versions, I think, are the best ones. Here’s a recent live performance with Nina Gerber playing accompaniment on the electric guitar (see Gerber’s great solo at 2:01, which sounds in places like a violin).

How can we explore Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, to include its surface and subsurface ocean, with the goal of potentially discovering life as we know it? This is what a recent study presented at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2024 Fall Meeting hopes to address as a team of students and researchers proposed the Thermal Investigation of Geothermal Regions of Enceladus (TIGRE) mission concept, which is designed to conduct in-depth exploration of Enceladus with an orbiter, lander, and drill, while laying the groundwork for future missions to icy moons throughout the solar system.

Here, Universe Today discusses this incredible mission concept with Prabhleen Kour, who is a senior at River Valley High School in Yuba City, CA, and lead author of the study, regarding the motivation behind TIGRE, how TIGRE can improve upon findings from NASA’s now-retired Cassini mission, potential landing sites on Enceladus, how TIGRE can improve missions to other icy moons, the next steps in making TIGRE a reality, and whether she thinks Enceladus has life. Therefore, what was the motivation behind TIGRE?

“TIGRE mission was born during our time with the NASA STEM Enhancement in Earth Science (SEES) program in collaboration with UT Austin’s Center for Space Research,” Kour tells Universe Today. “As part of our internship, our team was tasked to design a space mission within our solar system based on a few assigned parameters. The designed mission had to be aligned to current work being performed by NASA but separate from active missions such as the Europa Clipper. Similarly, the main subject of our mission, Enceladus, and our goals with it, had to be chosen in accordance with the Decadal Survey which dictates what missions and priorities space agencies have. In our case, we were driven to explore a celestial body that might hold the signs of life.”

The TIGRE mission concept comes more than seven years after NASA’s Cassini-Huygen mission ended by performing an intentional dive into Saturn, resulting in Cassini breaking apart in Saturn’s atmosphere. During its storied mission, Cassini spent more than 13 years conducting the most in-depth exploration of Saturn and its many moons, including Titan, Mimas, Atlas, Daphnis, Pandora, Iapetus, Rhea, Dione, Pan, Hyperion, and Enceladus.

Of these moons, Titan and Enceladus are the only two that exhibit potential conditions for life, as Titan is the only moon in the solar system with a dense atmosphere and contains lakes of liquid methane and ethane, while Enceladus boasts a large subsurface ocean that discharge geysers of liquid water from its large crevices in its south pole, dubbed Tiger Stripes. It is the geysers of Enceladus that Cassini not only discovered but flew through twice during its mission, identifying water, carbon dioxide, and a myriad of hydrocarbons and organic materials, the last of which exhibited density 20 times greater than predicted. Therefore, how does TIGRE improve upon findings from the Cassini mission?

Image of Enceladus’ south pole geysers obtained by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in June 2009. (Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

“Though Cassini’s flyby was incredible and provided us with great information, TIGRE aims to get an incredibly close look at Enceladus’ secrets,” Kour tells Universe Today. “Since TIGRE is designed to go on the surface of Enceladus, it will get more of the ‘inside scoop’ than Cassini. Cassini has already helped us by identifying the organic molecules contained within the ocean, now we want to explore other factors that might make life possible on Enceladus. We are planning to locate any potential regions of interest and stability of habitable zones, analyze samples for organic/inorganic indicators of prebiotic lifeforms, and utilize our findings for future missions. The TIGRE mission contains a drill design, which will reach the subsurface ocean and collect water samples for elements such as CHONPS.”

Enceladus’ Tiger Stripes consist of four main features officially named Damascus Sulcus, Baghdad Sulcus, Cairo Sulcus, and Alexandria Sulcus, with a smaller feature branching off Alexandria called Camphor Sulcus (sulcus being plural for sulci and is an astrogeology term meaning parallel ridges), and are responsible for the geysers that discharge Enceladus’ interior ocean into space. The thickness of the ice in this region is estimated to be approximately 5 kilometers (3.1 miles). Since one of the primary goals of the TIGRE mission is to obtain drill samples of the ocean and identify potential signs of life, the team targeted the Tiger Stripes as potential landing sites for a craft to land and obtain samples of the ocean.

To accomplish this, the team outlined specific landing site criteria to maximize mission success, including landing on relatively flat terrain near a geyser, but not directly on a geyser, to avoid being damaged by uneven terrain or disrupted during geyser activity. Additionally, they determined a low-elevation region would be substantial to minimize the amount of ice the drill would have to penetrate to obtain samples. In the end, the team chose a primary landing site located near the Baghdad stripe that met their landing criteria, located approximately 6.4 kilometers (4 miles) from a geyser and a surface elevation of approximately 450 meters (1,476 feet), along with potential backup landing sites.

Enceladus’ Tiger Stripes. (Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

“Our decision to land near the Baghdad stripe was due to the following: Flat terrain to prevent lander damage, proximity to a geyser, and low elevation to minimize drilling distance,” Kour tells Universe Today. “Any other location that met these requirements were deemed as backups. We analyzed multiple different locations throughout the four stripes, and there were a few that met the requirements on the Cairo stripe. More specifically, one location of interest was between a large geyser and a smaller geyser on the Cario stripe. However, because the location on the Baghdad stripe was close to multiple other smaller geysers, we chose the Baghdad location.”

As noted, Enceladus isn’t the only moon of Saturn that is deemed to potentially have life, as its largest moon, Titan, has a dense and hazy atmosphere caused by specific chemical reactions that scientists have hypothesized existed on early Earth. Additionally, its lakes of liquid methane and ethane have also become prime targets for astrobiologists. Outside of the Saturn system, other icy moons exist throughout the solar system that potentially once had life or could have life today, including Jupiter’s moons, Europa and Ganymede, with both presenting evidence of subsurface oceans circulating beneath their icy crusts.

Venturing closer to the Sun and inside the main asteroid belt orbits the dwarf planet Ceres, which NASA’s Dawn spacecraft identified frozen salts caused by a process known as cryovolcanism. Current models debate the interior structure of Ceres, but it is hypothesized that it once had liquid water long ago. Finally, venturing to the outer portions of the solar system orbits Neptune’s moon, Triton, which NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft identified active geysers on its surface comprised of cryolava lakes. Since one of the primary mission objectives of TIGRE is to improve future missions to icy moons, how will it accomplish this?

“The mission will help advance remote sensing, orbiting, landing, and thermal drilling technologies, setting a precedent for future exploration,” Kour tells Universe Today. “TIGRE consists of three main components: the orbiter, lander, and drill. This design is not limited to Enceladus’ surface alone. Instead, this design can be applicable to many other icy surfaces, including those on Earth like Antarctica and other icy moons. Data from the lander’s sampling devices, thermal drill, and the orbiter’s remote sensing will provide comprehensive insights into the composition and formation of Enceladus’s subsurface ocean. These findings could also inform our understanding of other icy moons, broadening our knowledge of potentially habitable environments in the outer Solar System.”

As Universe Today recently discussed with the VATMOS-SR mission concept, it can take anywhere from years to decades for a space mission to go from a concept to reality, involving a myriad of steps and phases, including design, funding rounds, testing, re-designs, re-testing, until it’s finally built and launched. This is followed by several years of traveling to the destination, arriving, and finally collecting science.

For example, the Cassini-Huygens mission was first proposed in 1982 and wasn’t launched until 1997, during which time it endured several years of studies and swapped between a solo NASA mission or a joint NASA-European Space Agency mission, the latter of which was settled upon. After launching in 1997, Cassini finally arrived at Saturn in July 2004, landing the Huygens probe on Titan in January 2005, and spent until 2017 obtaining treasure troves of images and data about Saturn and its many moons, even discovering a few moons along the way and diving through Enceladus’ plumes. Given the journey that Cassini endured, what are the next steps in making TIGRE a reality?

“One of the first steps in making TIGRE a reality is waiting for the completion of the Europa Clipper mission,” Kour tells Universe Today. “In waiting for the mission’s completion, we will be able to see what worked and failed to gather useful samples and what failed to navigate space’s harsh environment. In the meantime, we can advocate for the significance of finding life to enlarge NASA’s budget for active missions. This itself would be a step towards launching the TIGRE mission by opening the resources for improving and testing our mission’s main components (the orbiter, lander, and drill) against the extreme cold, ocean waters, and radiation.”

As noted, Enceladus is a prime target for astrobiologists in the search for life beyond Earth due to its vast subsurface ocean circulating beneath its icy shell. As demonstrated here on Earth, liquid water leads to life as we know it, so Enceladus having a liquid water ocean, even a subsurface ocean, is a strong indicator that it could potentially also have life as we know it, too.

The hydrocarbons discovered by Cassini when the spacecraft flew through Enceladus’ plumes included carbon-bearing molecules like formaldehyde, acetylene, propane, and methane, which is evidence for hydrothermal activity occurring on the ocean floor of Enceladus, much like hydrothermal activity exists on the ocean floors of Earth, specifically regarding the water-rock interactions that occur here, as well. Therefore, in Kour’s opinion, does Enceladus have life and what kinds of life does she foresee finding within their potential TIGRE samples?

“It is not a stretch of reason to state Enceladus could harbor life,” Kour tells Universe Today. “As previously mentioned, Enceladus has the components for life through key elements and has the energy activity to make the possibility of life more plausible. Within the depths of its oceans, Enceladus may very well have life. However, we do not want to explicitly state that there is something there, as there are so many factors at play – thin atmosphere, other chemicals that were potentially not detected by Cassini, and environmental conditions. If there is life and it is similar to the one on Earth, we could expect it to be one of close relations to Archaea. The representatives of this domain are quite primitive and unicellular, which aligns with our hypothesis of Enceladus being able to harbor a simple life form. However, it can also survive harsh conditions – such as extreme cold temperatures on the moon and radiation.”

How will TIGRE help scientists better understand Enceladus and potentially other icy moons throughout the solar system in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post Sampling Enceladus’ Subsurface Ocean with TIGRE Mission Concept appeared first on Universe Today.

Did you find the squirrel in Berlin? Yes, it was a hard one, and I couldn’t find it until it was pointed out to me.  First, the original:

And then the reveal; I’ve circled the elusive rodent:

News Items: Bird Brains, Indoor Air Quality, Abortions and Infant Mortality, Black Holes Without Singularities, Banning Chemtrails; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: Asteroid Hitting the Moon; Swindler's List: Tax Scams; Science or Fiction

First, it’s a cat holiday in Japan!  From Facebook:

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The Kiffness is back, riffing on a cat’s meows. This time it’s “Kitty Caught a Mouse”, with tumpet and keyboard accompaniment. (Not the gratuitous appearance of a d*g.)

 

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In this short video from Instagram, a cat not only makes biscuits, but also delivers them! (Props to whoever finds the original song in Spanish that accompanies this video.)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cats Doing Things (@catsdoingthings)

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This event was covered by several British papers, including the times (click below, or find it archived here) as well as the BBC.  Yes, a cat got on a train and left home, but it all ended well.

From The Times:

Tilly had already shown her adventurous streak with solo trips to the local pub and the vet. This time, however, the two-year-old cat from Surrey decided to really go the extra mile.

Hopping aboard a train at Weybridge, Tilly proceeded to hitch an 18-mile ride into London, arriving at Waterloo station.

Michael Hardy and Emma Hill, her owners, said their affable cat had a reputation for straying, having caught buses before as well as climbing behind the bar of his local pub.

But even he admitted he was shocked when he received a call from a station officer informing him that his cat had found her way into central London.

“Luckily, I was working in London that day, but I had to drive across the city to go and collect her,” he said.

“The station staff couldn’t believe it. They said, ‘we have your cat, what the hell is she doing here?’, kind of thing. But she is always at the local station [in Weybridge]. People come from everywhere now to try to find her. The locals all know her.”

Hardy said he wouldn’t be surprised if his intrepid pet had even grander ambitions.

“Waterloo is the furthest she has ever made it. If she manages to get on the other line she could end up in Brighton,” he said.

“Summer is coming up, isn’t it? She might want to go to the beach. But she always comes back at some point.”

Hardy and Hill realised their cat was missing in November, but were in disbelief when they saw their Apple AirTag — which they bought specially to keep an eye on her — revealed that Tilly was on the train to London.

“We didn’t know where she was. We looked on the Apple tag and realised she had gone to Waterloo,” he said.

“The only way she can get there is on the train. You look at the tag and you see it going from one stop to another.”

Tilly’s journey from a Times graphic:

And her obligatory FB page:

Tilly’s reputation for adventure has won her fans from around the world. She has her own Facebook page called “Tilly the adventure cat”, which has more than 4,700 followers.

And a news video recounting Tilly’s Big Adventure:

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Lagniappe: A cat inhabiting what I think is the statue of Christ the Redeemer overlooking Rio. Click on it to see the Facebook video.

 

h/t: Amy, Divy, Mark, Chris

I think this is the hardest “spot the. . . ” picture that I’ve seen. It comes from Natalie in Berlin, who came across an Eichhörnchen (“squirrel” in German) while perambulating with her children.  You’ll have to enlarge it (click on the photo) and even then you might have trouble.

If you find it, do not give clues in the comments; let others have the fun. But you can say “I found it” or “I didn’t find it.”

The reveal will be at noon Chicago time.

Have you ever wondered how astronomers manage to map out the Milky Way when it’s so incredibly vast? One of the most powerful tools is something called 21cm radiation.

Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, plays a key role here. When the electrons in hydrogen atoms flip their spin direction, a specific type of electromagnetic radiation is emitted at a wavelength of 21 centimeters.

The Milky Way galaxy is packed with hydrogen atoms, and these atoms are constantly emitting 21cm radiation. The best part is that this radiation can travel long distances through the interstellar dust that often obscures our view of the galaxy in visible light. This makes 21cm radiation an incredibly useful tool for mapping the structure of the Milky Way.

This radiation reveals everything from star-forming gas clouds to the shapes of the galaxy’s spiral arms. Whereas visible light just gets caught up in all the interstellar dust at it tries to traverse the tens of thousands of light-years across the galaxy, 21cm radiation just sails right though.

But mapping the galaxy’s structure is just one part of the story. Astronomers can also learn about the Milky Way’s rotation by studying the redshift and blueshift of the 21cm radiation. When an object in space moves away from us, the wavelength of the light or radiation it emits gets stretched out, making it appear redder (redshift). Conversely, when an object moves toward us, the wavelength gets compressed, making it appear bluer (blueshift).

By analyzing the redshift and blueshift of the 21cm radiation from different parts of the galaxy, astronomers can determine how fast various regions of the Milky Way are rotating. This information helps them build a more comprehensive picture of our galaxy’s dynamics and motion.

The utility of 21cm radiation isn’t limited to the Milky Way alone. Astronomers can use these same techniques to study distant galaxies as well. By examining the neutral hydrogen gas clouds in far-off galaxies, they can estimate the masses of these galaxies. This is because the amount of 21cm radiation emitted is related to the number of hydrogen atoms present, which in turn gives clues about the galaxy’s overall mass.

21cm radiation is a powerful tool in the field of astronomy that allows astronomers to map the structure of our Milky Way galaxy, understand its rotation, and even estimate the masses of distant galaxies. This technique opens a window into the vast and complex universe, helping us unravel the mysteries of the cosmos with every new observation.

So next time you gaze up at the night sky, remember that there’s a whole lot more going on than meets the eye. Thanks to 21cm radiation, we’re able to peel back the layers of the Milky Way and explore the wonders of the universe in ways that were once unimaginable.

The post How Astronomers Make Deep Maps of the Milky Way appeared first on Universe Today.

NASA astronomers have been continuing to monitor the trajectory of asteroid 2024 YR4. The initial calculations suggested a 1.3% probability of an Earth impact event, which temporarily increased to 3.1% as more data came in. However, and with a sigh of relief, recent analysis brings encouraging news: the Earth impact probability has decreased significantly to 0.28%, though calculations now show a 1% chance of lunar impact. Observations will continue with the James Webb Space Telescope so stay tuned. 

Asteroids are rocky, airless worlds that are remnants left over from the formation of our Solar System about 4.6 billion years ago. They range in size from tiny pebbles to massive bodies hundreds of kilometres across. Most asteroids are found in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter although some follow paths that bring them closer to Earth.  Occasionally, they can pose a threat to Earth, which is why astronomers and space agencies closely monitor their orbits and develop potential deflection techniques.

Asteroid Ryugu as seen by Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft, which returned a sample of the ancient asteroid to Earth in 2020. Image Courtesy ISAS/JAXA

Asteroid 2024 YR4 is one such asteroid that has had gripped the nations media over recent weeks. It’s a near-Earth object that was discovered on 27 December 2024, by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) in Chile. Initially, it had an estimated 1.3% chance of impact with Earth in 2032, making it one of the highest-risk asteroids ever recorded. However, further observations raised that risk!

Atlas 2 on Mauna Loa

Astronomers use systems like ATLAS to identify near-Earth objects (NEOs) that could pose a potential threat to our planet. It was developed by the University of Hawaii and funded by NASA and consists of a network of telescopes positioned around the world to provide continuous sky surveys. Its primary goal is to detect asteroids before a potential impact, allowing for timely warnings and mitigation efforts. Since its installation, ATLAS has successfully discovered thousands of asteroids, including hazardous ones just like 2024 YR4. 

Understanding the level of threat from asteroids like 2024 YR4 requires time, time and observations. Imagine a game of tennis and the ball is hit, sending it flying over the net. A photographer sat in the crowd grabs a snapshot of the ball as it flies over the net. The picture is a clear, sharp capture of a point in time however analysis of the image can only reveal the exact location of the ball and not its trajectory. It’s the same with asteroids, once they are discovered, a single observation will reveal where it is but a series of observations are required to understand where it’s going. Ok so this is a simplistic view but it shows how important continued observations are to asteroids like 2024 YR4.

Further observations of asteroid 2024 YR4, conducted during the night of 19-20 February have revealed encouraging results. NASA’s planetary defence team have reported that the probability of an Earth impact has decreased to 0.28%. Monitoring will of course continue to refine trajectory predictions, but current calculations indicate a slight increase in the possibility of lunar impact, now estimated at 1%. These percentages are of course tiny and pose no cause for alarm but 2024 YR4 will continue to be observed over the coming months, just to be sure.

Source : Additional Observations Continue to Reduce Chance of Asteroid Impact in 2032

The post NASA Downgrades the Risk of 2024 YR4 to Below 1% appeared first on Universe Today.

A hybrid microscope allows scientists to simultaneously image the full 3D orientation and position of an ensemble of molecules, such as labeled proteins inside cells. The microscope combines polarized fluorescence technology, a valuable tool for measuring the orientation of molecules, with a dual-view light sheet microscope (diSPIM), which excels at imaging along the depth (axial) axis of a sample.

Agricultural fertilizers are critical for feeding the world's population, restoring soil fertility and sustaining crops. Excessive and inefficient use of those resources can present an environmental threat, contaminating waterways and generating greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide. Now, researchers have addressed those challenges with glass fertilizer beads. The beads control nutrient release, and the researchers say they're environmentally compatible.

Researchers are blurring the lines between robotics and materials, with a proof-of-concept material-like collective of robots with behaviors inspired by biology.

Researchers are blurring the lines between robotics and materials, with a proof-of-concept material-like collective of robots with behaviors inspired by biology.

Some exoplanets have characteristics totally alien to our Solar System. Hot Jupiters are one such type. They can have orbital periods of less than 10 days and surface temperatures that can climb to well over 4,000 K (3,730 °C or 6,740 °F). Unlike any planets in our system, they’re usually tidally locked.

Astronomers probed the atmosphere of one hot Jupiter and found some strange winds blowing.

The planet is WASP-121 b, also known as Tylos. It is about 860 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Puppis. It has about 1.16 Jupiter masses and a radius about 1.75 times that of Jupiter. It’s extremely close to its main sequence star and completes an orbit every 1.27 days. Tylos is tidally locked to its star, and its dayside temperature is 3,000 Kelvin (2,730 °C or 4,940 °F), qualifying it as an ultra-hot Jupiter.

“It feels like something out of science fiction.”

Julia Seidel, European Southern Observatory

Since its discovery in 2015, Tylos’ atmosphere has been studied many times. Researchers found water in its stratosphere and hints of titanium oxide and vanadium oxide. They’ve also detected iron and chromium, though some subsequent studies failed to replicate some of these findings.

In new research, scientists examined Tylos’ atmosphere in greater detail with the four telescopes that make up the VLT. With help from the VLT’s ESPRESSO instrument, the researchers found powerful winds blowing through the exoplanet’s atmosphere and confirmed the presence of iron and titanium. The results are in two new papers.

“Even the strongest hurricanes in the Solar System seem calm in comparison.”

Julia Seidel, European Southern Observatory

The first paper, “Vertical structure of an exoplanet’s atmospheric jet stream,” was published in Nature. The lead author is Julia Seidel, a researcher at the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

The second is “Titanium chemistry of WASP-121 b with ESPRESSO in 4-UT mode,” which was published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. The lead author is Bibiana Prinoth, a PhD student at Lund University, Sweden, who is also with the European Southern Observatory.

Some of the researchers involved are co-authors of both papers.

“Ultra-hot Jupiters, an extreme class of planets not found in our solar system, provide a unique window into atmospheric processes,” the authors of the Nature paper write. “The extreme temperature contrasts between their day- and night-sides pose a fundamental climate puzzle: how is energy distributed?”

An artist’s impression of Tylos, also known as WASP-121 b. Image Courtesy: NASA, ESA, Q. Changeat et al., M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble)

“This planet’s atmosphere behaves in ways that challenge our understanding of how weather works — not just on Earth, but on all planets. It feels like something out of science fiction,” said Julia Seidel, the lead author of the study published in Nature.

With the power of the VLT and ESPRESSO, the researchers were able to study Tylos’ atmosphere in detail. No other exoplanet atmosphere has ever been studied in such detail and to such depth. The researchers created a 3D map of the atmosphere, revealing distinct layers and winds.

Tylos’ atmosphere is divided into three layers, with iron winds at the bottom, followed by a very fast jet stream of sodium, and finally, an upper layer of hydrogen winds. This kind of climate has never been seen before on any planet. Image Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

“What we found was surprising: a jet stream rotates material around the planet’s equator, while a separate flow at lower levels of the atmosphere moves gas from the hot side to the cooler side. This kind of climate has never been seen before on any planet,” said Seidel. The observed jet stream spans half of the planet, gaining speed and violently churning the atmosphere high up in the sky as it crosses the hot side of Tylos. “Even the strongest hurricanes in the Solar System seem calm in comparison,” she adds.

“It’s truly mind-blowing that we’re able to study details like the chemical makeup and weather patterns of a planet at such a vast distance.”

Bibiana Prinoth, Lund University and the European Southern Observatory

The VLT has an interesting design and is billed by the European Southern Observatory as “the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory.” It has four main units with 8.2-meter primary mirrors and four smaller, movable auxiliary ‘scopes with 1.8-meter primary mirrors. When working together with the ESPRESSO instrument, the VLT operates as a single, powerful telescope. This combined power meant that the VLT gathered ample data during a single transit of Tylos in front of its star.

“The VLT enabled us to probe three different layers of the exoplanet’s atmosphere in one fell swoop,” said study co-author Leonardo A. dos Santos, an assistant astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute. The researchers traced the movement of the winds by tracking the movements of different elements: iron, sodium, and hydrogen correspond to the deep, mid, and shallow layers of the atmosphere. “It’s the kind of observation that is very challenging to do with space telescopes, highlighting the importance of ground-based observations of exoplanets,” he adds.

This diagram shows the structure and motion of the atmosphere of the exoplanet Tylos (WASP-121b). The exoplanet is shown from above in this figure, looking at one of its poles. The planet rotates counter-clockwise in such a way that it always shows the same side to its parent star. One side is perpetual day, and the other is perpetual night. The transition between night and day is the “morning side,” while the “evening side” represents the transition between day and night; its morning side is to the right, and its evening side is to the left. Image Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

The observations revealed an exoplanet atmosphere with unusual complexity.

When Tylos crosses in front of its host star, known as a transit, atoms in the planet’s atmosphere absorb specific wavelengths of starlight, which was measured with the VLT’s ESPRESSO instrument. With that data, astronomers reconstructed the composition and velocity of different layers in the atmosphere. An iron wind blows in the deepest layer, away from the point of the planet where the star is directly overhead. Above the iron layer is a very fast jet of sodium that moves faster than the planet rotates. The sodium jet accelerates as it moves from the planet’s morning side to its evening side. The upper layer is made of hydrogen, where the wind blows outwards. The hydrogen layer overlaps with the sodium jet below it.

The authors explain that this unusual planet is more than just an oddity. Its unusual characteristics make it a great testbed for Global Circulation Models. “By resolving the vertical structure of atmospheric dynamics, we move beyond integrated global snapshots of the atmosphere, enabling more accurate identification of flow patterns and allowing for a more nuanced comparison to models,” the authors explain.

The study published in Astronomy and Astrophysics is also based on data from the VLT and ESPRESSO. It uncovered more details of Tylos’ atmosphere, including its chemistry. “The transmission spectrum of WASP-121 b has been extensively studied using the cross-correlation technique, resulting in detections and confirmations for various atoms and ions, including H I, Mg I, Ca I, V I, Cr I, Fe I, Ni I, Fe II, Ca II, and K I, Ba II,” the authors write. “We confirm all these detections and additionally report detections for Ti I, Mn I, Co I Sr I, and Sr II.”

“This experience makes me feel like we’re on the verge of uncovering incredible things we can only dream about now.”

Bibiana Prinoth, Lund University and the European Southern Observatory

The researchers found titanium just below the jet stream. This finding is interesting because previous research detected titanium and subsequent research refuted that. “We attribute the capability of detecting Ti I to the superior photon-collecting power enabled by using ESPRESSO in 4-UT mode compared to a single 1-UT transit and to improvements in the application of the cross-correlation technique,” the authors explain.

The cross-correlation technique is a powerful method for studying exoplanet atmospheres. Light from the atmosphere is much fainter than light from the star and can be obscured by the much stronger starlight. The cross-correlation technique helps overcome this by comparing the observed spectrum with the known “template” spectrum of specific molecules and atoms expected to be present in the atmosphere.

This figure shows the two-dimensional cross-correlation function of H I, Li I, Na I, Mg I, K I, Ca I, Ti I, V I, Cr I, Mn I, Fe I, Fe II, Co I, Ni I, Ba II, Sr I and Sr II. The last panel shows the cross-correlation function for the entire atmospheric model. Image Credit: Prinoth et al. 2025.

“It’s truly mind-blowing that we’re able to study details like the chemical makeup and weather patterns of a planet at such a vast distance,” said Bibiana Prinoth, lead author of the Astronomy and Astrophysics paper.

“The 4-UT mode of ESPRESSO, with its effective photon collecting area equivalent to that of a 16-meter class telescope, serves as a valuable test-bed for pushing the limits of S/N on relatively faint targets,” the authors write in their conclusion.

The study of exoplanet atmosphere with ground-based telescopes will soon get a big boost. In 2028, the long-awaited Extremely Large Telescope should begin operations. It will have a 39.3-metre-diameter primary mirror, giving it 250 times more light-gathering area than the Hubble. It will also feature powerful instruments to probe exoplanet atmospheres.

“The present analysis also allows us to anticipate the observational capabilities of the soon-to-be-commissioned ELT, particularly with regard to time-resolved studies of exoplanet atmospheres,” the authors write.

Who knows what further strangeness is waiting to be discovered in exoplanet atmospheres?

“The ELT will be a game-changer for studying exoplanet atmospheres,” said Prinoth. “This experience makes me feel like we’re on the verge of uncovering incredible things we can only dream about now.”

• Press Release: First 3D observations of an exoplanet’s atmosphere
• Research: Vertical structure of an exoplanet’s atmospheric jet stream
• Research: Titanium chemistry of WASP-121 b with ESPRESSO in 4-UT mode

The post Strange Winds Blow Through this Exoplanet’s Atmosphere appeared first on Universe Today.

Hair conditioner made using lignin, a polymer found in wood and bark, works just as well as a commercial product - as long as you don't mind the smell

Rock dust, compost and biochar can all help capture carbon dioxide and boost crop yields when spread on soil – but researchers are discovering they may be even more effective when used in combination