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Spaghetti strands that are 200 times thinner than a human hair could be woven into bandages to help prevent infections

Chlorophyll (a naturally occurring pigment involved in photosynthesis)-inspired molecules hold promise for developing next-generation light-harvesting materials. However, achieving precise control over their assembly is challenging. Researchers have now revealed that attaching dendrons -- branched, tree-like structures -- can aid in self-assembly of chlorophyll's materials. They found that smaller dendrons lead to stacked, fiber-like structures, while larger dendrons create spherical chlorophyll particles, advancing the development of materials that mimic the light-harvesting efficiency of natural photosynthetic systems.

While astronomers have taken about two dozen zoomed-in images of stars in our galaxy, unveiling their properties, countless other stars dwell within other galaxies, so far away that observing even one of them in detail has been extremely challenging. Up until now.

Protein design aims to create customized antibodies for therapies, biosensors for diagnostics, or enzymes for chemical reactions. An international research team has now developed a method for designing large new proteins better than before and producing them with the desired properties in the laboratory. Their approach involves a new way of using the capabilities of the AI-based software Alphafold2, for which the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded in 2024.

Protein design aims to create customized antibodies for therapies, biosensors for diagnostics, or enzymes for chemical reactions. An international research team has now developed a method for designing large new proteins better than before and producing them with the desired properties in the laboratory. Their approach involves a new way of using the capabilities of the AI-based software Alphafold2, for which the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded in 2024.

Growing wood directly from stem cells could offer an alternative to cutting threatened hardwood trees, but it isn't clear if it has same properties as actual wood

Every now and then, astronomers will detect an odd kind of radio signal. So powerful it can outshine a galaxy, but lasting only milliseconds. They are known as fast radio bursts (FRBs). When they were first discovered a couple of decades ago, we had no idea what might cause them. We weren’t even sure if they were astronomical in origin. FRB’s were so localized and so short-lived, it was difficult to gather data on them. But with wide-field radio telescopes such as CHIME we can now observe FRBs regularly and have a pretty good idea of their source: magnetars.

Magnetars are neutron stars with immensely powerful magnetic fields. Now that we can localize FRBs, we have been able to match a few of them to the region of a neutron star. While most FRBs occur in distant galaxies, in 2020 we observed one within the Milky Way. The magnetar source also happened to be a pulsar, and astronomers were able to show that the FRB [correlated with a glitch in the pulsar’s rotation,](https://briankoberlein.com/blog/power-of-magnetism/) thus confirming the source. So we are fairly certain that FRBs are caused by neutron stars, but we are still uncertain about the exact mechanism.

One popular idea is that fast radio bursts are caused by magnetic realignments. This is what drives flares on the Sun. Over time, the Sun’s magnetic field lines can get twisted up until they snap into realignment, releasing energy. If a similar effect occurs on magnetars, the resulting snap would be much faster and more powerful. One difficulty with this idea is that FRBs are so short-lived that they are almost too fast for magnetic field lines to realign. So astronomers keep looking for new ideas, and one recently proposed argues that they are caused by impact events.

Distribution of FRB duration and ISB sizes compared. Credit: Pham, et al

Collisions have long been known as the source of high-energy events. For example, some supernovae are caused by the collisions of neutron stars. We also know that comets and asteroids occasionally impact the Sun, so we would expect similar impacts to occur on neutron stars. In this new work, the authors propose that FRBs are caused when an interstellar body collides with a neutron star. The impact would trigger a powerful electromagnetic burst. To support their argument, the authors looked at the distribution of FRBs arranged by duration. The timing of FRBs follows a distribution similar to the distribution of solar system bodies. Not only that, the duration of an FRB seems to match the hypothetical duration of an impact event based on an object’s size.

While the data does seem to support the idea of impact-based FRBs, the study doesn’t solve all the mysteries surrounding these powerful bursts. We know, for example, that some FRBs are repeaters, meaning they occur multiple times from the same source. Some studies have shown that repeating FRBs are quasi-periodic, which would be difficult to explain through random collisions. It’s possible that repeating and non-repeating FRBs are caused by different mechanisms, though the data is still inconclusive on that point.

Reference: Pham, Dang, et al. “Fast Radio Bursts and Interstellar Objects.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.09135 (2024).

The post Are Fast Radio Bursts Caused by Interstellar Objects Crashing Into Neutron Stars? appeared first on Universe Today.

Regular contributor Mark Sturtevant has once again sent us a batch of lovely insect photos, including some arachnids and one mammal). Mark’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

The first part of this set are photographs from the gardens around my house, and then we move out to area parks. I live in eastern Michigan.

The lovely beetle shown in the first picture is a Lily Leaf Beetle (Lilioceris lilii). These become common on the lilies that the wife likes to grow, and they are a minor pest on them as they riddle the plants with holes. I had never seen the larvae, but while preparing this post I had learned that they hide under the leaves and I simply never looked there. The larvae are disgusting, as they cover themselves with their droppings as a deterrent. I should definitely photograph some next season!:

Next up is another example of Say’s Mantidfly (Dicromantispa sayi). In my last post I had shown a female, and this is a smaller male. This species of Mantidfly grows up by living and feeding inside the egg sacs of spiders, and there are always jumping spiders on our shed and that is where I find Mantidflies:

Back in the garden there is always drama of one kind or another. I was very elated one day to find a Cuckoo wasp foraging at the daisies, as shown in the next picture. I won’t be able to identify the species without careful inspection, but these beautiful wasps are usually challenging to photograph since they are normally very alert and active. I simply got lucky here. Cuckoo wasps are so-named because they are kleptoparasites in the nests of wasps or bees. Besides feeding on the provisions meant for the larvae of their hosts, they also eat the host eggs or larvae as well:

Predators commonly stay among the daisies in the garden, including the crab spiders shown in the next two pictures. I believe these are Misumenoides formosipes, based on the ridge that I could see just underneath the frontal eyes. The second picture shows one that has taken a Green Bottle Fly, Lucilia sericata:

Next are pictures taken from local parks. Here is one of our larger species of skipper butterfly, the Indigo Duskywing, Erynnis baptisiae. One can generally recognize skippers since they are usually moth-like butterflies, and they have distinctly hooked-shaped clubs on their antennae. In my younger years it was believed that skippers were a separate group from butterflies, but now they are found to be within the latter. And while we are at it, butterflies are now understood to be descended from moths, but let’s move on:

The remaining pictures were all taken on one day at a flower-filled and very productive meadow near where I work. There are more pictures from that park from this day, but those will have to wait for later.

First up is this extremely metallic Dogbane Beetle (Chrysochus auratus). These are vegetarian on a narrow range of host plants, including Dogbane, which makes the insects toxic:

The beetle shown in the next picture had me stumped for a while, but the distinctly “flabellate” antennae and an old field guide helped me to narrow it down. This is a kind of Wedge-shaped beetle, Macrosiagon limbata, and that surprised me since it does not resemble the one species that I know from this obscure family. This one is a male, identified by its antennae. Females will lay eggs on flowers, and the active larvae that hatch will clamber onto a passing bee to be taken back to the nest. There they will consume the larvae in the nest:

Many Bergamot flowers were in the field, and they were well tended by many of these clear-winged sphinx moths (Hemaris sp), and you can see tthat it is a bumble bee mimic:

The final insect-related pictures show why I spend much time carefully looking under leaves. I will likely never learn the species names of these insects, however. The white mass on the right is a bundle of cocoons from the Braconidae family of wasps, which are small wasps that are parasitoids inside the bodies of caterpillars. The term “parasitoid” is preferred here, rather than parasite, since the insects live inside the bodies of their hosts – parasite-like – but they quite deliberately and slowly kill their host, while parasites aren’t supposed to do that on purpose. The eviscerated caterpillar has fallen away, unfortunately, but while it was there it would be laying across the cocoons, still barely alive for a time, and actively “protecting” the cocoons in a strange example of how a hosts’ behavior is changed by parasitoid wasps. I have seen this many times, and you can see it as well in this very entertaining Ze Frank video that Jerry posted recently.

But that isn’t all. What are those black thingies to the left? Well, those are the pupae of a kind of hyperparasitic wasp – very small wasps that are parasitoids of the parasitoids. I had seen these mini-tombstones of pupae many times on plants, but this is the first time that I had enough context to understand the bigger picture about them. If you look carefully you will see an adult wasp among the pupae – a detail that I did not see at the time. Based on some findings in BugGuide, I suggest that this second group is from the Eulophidae family, as shown in the linked picture:

Next is a close-up of the Eulophid pupae. This required the Raynox 250 diopter lens to boost the power of the macro lens. The yellow stuff next to the pupae is called meconium, and they are the gut contents of the hyperparasitoid larvae. When a larva pupates, it will first purge its gut contents:

When I excitedly showed this amazing story to the wife, she was quite horrified.

After a pleasant and very productive afternoon spent in the flower-filled meadow, I noticed that I was being watched by a curious onlooker:

Using four telescopes linked together, astronomers have captured an astonishing image of a huge star more than 160,000 light years away

The FDA is proposing to order the removal of phenylephrine from oral cough and cold remedies.

The post FDA poised to reshape the cold remedy aisle first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

How do you weigh one of the largest objects in the entire universe? Very carefully, according to new research.

The cosmic web is the largest pattern found in nature. It is made of galaxies the same way your body is made of cells…if your cells were a million times smaller than they are. It is truly gigantic, with its individual parts stretching for millions of light-years at a time.

The intricate filaments of the cosmic web are made of hundreds of thousands of galaxies stretching hundreds of thousands of light-years between the clusters. They are like super highways, connecting one cluster to another.

Cosmologists aren’t just interested in the cosmic web because it’s pretty. It also encodes vital information about the universe. It has been growing for over 13 billion years and its properties are closely tied to the nature of dark matter and dark energy. If you change how much dark matter is in the universe or vary the strength of dark energy, then you can end up with radically different cosmic web patterns.

However, most of that information about dark matter and dark energy is very difficult to extract. This is because the cosmic web itself is a very complex structure. When it comes to the filaments, their width, length, and density all respond to the nature of dark matter and dark energy. But we have a very difficult time measuring those properties because most of the filaments are made of invisible dark matter.

Using a suite of simulations that tracked the evolution of both galaxies and dark matter, a team of researchers have developed a technique for weighing these giant filaments.

The technique relies on the relationship between the amount of dark matter and the motion of galaxies within the filament. All galaxies are moving, and some of them are moving in our direction and some are moving further away. The researchers found that there was a close relationship between the spread in these velocities and the amount of dark matter within that section of the filament. In other words, the higher the average speed of the galaxies, the more mass contained in the invisible dark matter.

This means that we can potentially go out and map filaments, measuring the spread ingGalaxy velocities along the length of those filaments, and map that result onto the mass of the underlying filament.

This is just the beginning of the new approach. The next step is to connect the filament mass to the properties of dark matter and dark energy, and then see if we can go out in the universe and learn something new.

The post Here’s How to Weigh Gigantic Filaments of Dark Matter appeared first on Universe Today.

Endangered Ethiopian wolves feed on the nectar of red hot poker plants, and may transport pollen from flower to flower as they do so

Exploring the Moon poses significant risks, with its extreme environment and hazardous terrain presenting numerous challenges. In the event of a major accident, assistance might take days or even weeks to arrive. To address this, Australian researchers have created a distress alert system based upon the COSPAS-SARSAT technology used for Earth-based search and rescue operations. It relies on low-power emergency beacons that astronauts could activate with minimal setup and use a planned lunar satellite network for communication and rescue coordination.

Fortunately I have never had to raise a distress call. I can imagine it though, somewhere remote, some sort of accident perhaps and need to summon assistance. Even on Earth, most mobile phone systems will be able to use a satellite signal to get a message out even if no cell signal. It’s not so easy on the Moon.  Even communication is delayed by just over a second but if someone needs to come and help, then you are really in trouble. That’s what the team from Australia identified and have addressed in their paper published in October 2024. 

Aldrin on the Moon. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module Eagle during the Apollo 11 mission. Mission commander Neil Armstrong took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. While astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin explored the Sea of Tranquility region of the moon, astronaut Michael Collins remained with the command and service modules in lunar orbit. Image Credit: NASA

As part of NASA’s Artemis program (which aims to create a sustained human presence on the Moon) astronauts will face significant dangers in isolated regions such as the lunar south pole. To address these challenges, researchers at the University of South Australia (UniSA) have been leading a project focused on developing an emergency response system. It’s designed to deliver critical safety warnings, enable incident reporting, and track the locations of astronauts that may be in trouble. 

NASA’s Space Launch System rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft launches on the Artemis I flight test, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022, from Launch Complex 39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky.

The Artemis program is the focus of returning humans to the Moon. If successful it will mark the first crewed lunar missions since the days of the Apollo missions. With a focus on exploration and scientific discovery, Artemis aims to land astronauts, including the first woman and the first person of colour, on the Moon’s surface in 2025.

Scientists from Adelaide and the United States are collaborating to develop a satellite constellation – like those launched by SpaceX but on a smaller scale – dedicated to improving communication and navigation on the Moon. The system will allow astronauts to transmit emergency alerts to a network of satellites which will then forward the data to Earth or nearby lunar stations.

Founder of Safety from Space and adjunct researcher Dr Mark Rice explains that the system can provide continuous communication with astronauts for up to 10 hours! Even if they are in mountainous or heavily cratered terrain, the system will perform well. The group Safety from Space was formed in 2018 and has been awarded $100,000 from the Government to help with lunar search and rescue (LSAR) initiatives. The trial aims to provide astronauts with a lighter, more reliable radio beacon with a much longer battery life.

If successful, the solution could enable significant Australian contributions to the Artemis program. It could even help to improve emergency communications here on Earth, especially in areas where mobile phone signals are not reliable. 

Source : New lunar distress system could safeguard future astronauts

The post How Could Astronauts Call for Help from the Moon? appeared first on Universe Today.

Chemists have developed a novel way to capture and convert carbon dioxide into methane, suggesting that future gas emissions could be converted into an alternative fuel using electricity from renewable sources.

Volcanoes are not restricted to the land, there are many undersea versions. One such undersea volcano known as Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai off the coast of Tonga. On 15th January 2022, it underwent an eruption which was one of the most powerful in recent memory. A recent paper shows that seismic waves were released 15 minutes before the eruption and before any visible disruption at the surface. The waves had been detected by a seismic station 750km away. This is the first time a precursor signal has been detected. 

Undersea volcanoes are openings in the Earth’s crust beneath the ocean, where magma from the mantle escapes, triggering eruptions. They are surprisingly common, with most of Earth’s volcanic activity occurring underwater, particularly along mid-ocean ridges and subduction zones. They play a vital role in creating new seafloor through seafloor spreading, as magma cools and solidifies into basaltic crust. Some grow so tall that they rise above the ocean’s surface, forming volcanic islands such as Iceland and Hawaii. Their eruptions release significant amounts of gas, heat, and minerals into the surrounding water, shaping marine ecosystems.

An erupting undersea volcano forms a new island off the coast of Nishinoshima, a small unihabited island in the southern Ogasawara chain of islands. The image was taken on November 21, 2013 by the Japanese Coast Guard.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano is an undersea volcano located in the South Pacific. It became well known after its massive eruption in January 2022. The eruption was one of the most powerful volcanic events of the 21st century, triggering tsunamis that affected coastlines as far away as Japan and the Americas. The explosion released a plume of ash, gas, and water vapour, reaching over 50 kilometres into the atmosphere, making it the highest plume ever recorded. It impacted global weather patterns and temporarily increased water vapour in the stratosphere.

The eruption of January 2022 formed a caldera on Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai. There were disturbances that were recorded by many surface stations and satellites in orbit. The data which had been captured revealed that the eruptions began just after 04:00 UTC on 15 January. There were a number of reports of seismic waves from around 15 minutes before the onset of eruption. In a paper published recently by lead author Takuro Horiuchi and a team from the University of Tokyo, they explore the wave detection and mechanics of the eruption. 

Volcanic eruptions at Mt. Etna from orbiting NASA Terra Satellite. Acquired on January 11, 2011. NASA Earth Observatory Image of the Day on January 15, 2011. Credit: NASA Terra Satellite

The team aim to confirm that the event actually occurred just before the 04:00 published timestamp. If they can confirm this, it will help understand the processes that led to the violent eruption. At the time of the eruption, no seismic stations had been working on Tonga but data had been recorded as far away as Fiji and Futuna, both of which around 750km away from the volcano. 

The study concluded that the waves which had been detected were Rayleigh waves – a type of seismic waves which are a combination of compression (longitudinal) and shearing (vertical) movements. The waves started around 03:45 on the 15th January 15 minutes before the onset of the eruption. This is the first time significant seismic activity has been seen before the eruption event. It demonstrates that seismic stations hundreds of kilometres away can be positively used to detect signals as precursors to eruptions.

Source : A Seismic Precursor 15 min Before the Giant Eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai Volcano on 15 January 2022

The post There Was a 15 Minute Warning Before Tonga Volcano Exploded appeared first on Universe Today.

Some binary stars are unusual. They contain a main sequence star like our Sun, while the other is a “dead” white dwarf star that left fusion behind and emanates only residual heat. When the main sequence star ages into a red giant, the two stars share a common envelope.

This common envelope phase is a big mystery in astrophysics, and to understand what’s happening, astronomers are building a catalogue of main sequence-white dwarf binaries.

Common envelope (CE) binaries are important because they’re the progenitors for Type 1a supernovae. When the main sequence star swells into a red giant, the compact and gravitationally powerful white dwarf draws matter away from it. This matter gathers on the surface of the white dwarf until it reaches a critical point and then detonates as a supernova.

CE binaries are also important because they can merge and emit gravitational waves, another astrophysical phenomenon that needs better understanding.

In new research, astronomers from the University of Toronto identified 52 candidates with high probabilities of being CE binaries. The research is “The First Catalog of Candidate White Dwarf–Main-sequence Binaries in Open Star Clusters: A New Window into Common Envelope Evolution.” It’s published in the Astrophysical Journal and the lead author is Steffani Grondin, a graduate student in the David A. Dunlap Department for Astronomy & Astrophysics at U of T.

“Despite its importance, CE evolution may be one of the largest uncertainties in binary evolution,” the authors write in their research.

“Binary stars play a huge role in our universe,” said lead author Grondin. “This observational sample marks a key first step in allowing us to trace the full life cycles of binaries and will hopefully allow us to constrain the most mysterious phase of stellar evolution.”

In a Type Ia supernova, a white dwarf (left) draws matter from a companion star until its mass hits a limit, which leads to a supernova explosion. Image Credit: NASA

The research used massive data sets from three sources: the ESA’s Gaia spacecraft, The Pan-STARRS1 survey, and the 2MASS survey. The team used machine learning techniques to comb the dataset for candidate main sequence-white dwarf (MSWD) binaries in 299 open star clusters in the Milky Way. Open clusters were chosen because they can provide an independent age constraint for the system, allowing the researchers to trace the evolution of the binaries from before the CE phase to after the CE phase. The researchers found 52 high-probability candidates in 38 open clusters.

This number is a huge increase in the number of known MSWD binaries. Only two were known previously. Machine learning is a powerful tool that allows astronomers to work with huge data sets to uncover difficult-to-distinguish results, and this study is no exception.

“The use of machine learning helped us to identify clear signatures for these unique systems that we weren’t able to easily identify with just a few datapoints alone,” says co-author Joshua Speagle, a professor in the David A. Dunlap Department for Astronomy & Astrophysics and Department of Statistical Sciences at U of T. “It also allowed us to automate our search across hundreds of clusters, a task that would have been impossible if we were trying to identify these systems manually.”

Study co-author Maria Drout is also a professor in the David A. Dunlap Department for Astronomy & Astrophysics at U of T. Drout says that the team’s results illustrate how many things in our Universe are “hiding in plain sight” if we only had the tools to see them. As our telescope and survey tools become more discerning and gather larger data sets, our machine-learning tools are making these data sets less opaque.

Drout points out that finding the MSWD binaries in open clusters is the key.

Close-up of the Messier 35 open star cluster. Finding MSWD candidates in open clusters allows astrophysicists to constrain the ages of the binaries. Credit: Wikisky

“While there are many examples of this type of binary system, very few have the age constraints necessary to fully map their evolutionary history. While there is plenty of work left to confirm and fully characterize these systems, these results will have implications across multiple areas of astrophysics,” Drout explains.

The evolution of CE systems is poorly understood. Astrophysicists don’t know how energy is dissipated during the CE phase, how stellar metallicity affects the development of the CE, or how initial binary parameters predict post-CE orbital configurations. Those are just a few of their unanswered questions.

This study can’t answer all of those questions, but by producing the largest catalogue of MSWD binaries, the team is setting the stage for researchers to make progress.

Grondin and her co-researchers did follow-up spectroscopy on a subset of three systems with the Gemini and Lick observatories. They confirmed two of them to be MSWD binaries.

This figure from the research shows spectra for three high-probability MSWD candidates. The coloured lines are the spectra, and the black lines are representative models of M-type main sequence stars. The authors chose these three as representative samples from their catalogue. They also say that the top panel, from Alessi12-c1, is a clear MSWD binary, while the bottom two are likely red dwarf white dwarf pairs. Image Credit: Grondin et al. 2024.

They also retrieved archival light curves from TESS, Kepler, and the Zwicky Transient Facility. All three candidates showed clear variability in their light curves. That could indicate rapid M-dwarf rotation or ellipsoidal modulations in a short-period binary. The researchers explain that the catalogue could be contaminated, though not very significantly, by single WDs or MS+MS binaries.

Natal kicks likely influence the results. Many of the MSWD candidates show offsets from their host clusters, suggesting that natal kicks were imparted when the WD formed or during common envelope ejection. Since 78% of the open clusters they observed lacked candidates, the authors think that some MSWD binaries were ejected from their clusters by natal kicks.

“Ultimately, this catalog is a first step to obtaining a set of observational benchmarks to better link post-CE systems to their pre-CE progenitors,” the authors write in their research.

More spectroscopic observations of the candidates will help confirm more of them as MSWD binaries. An expanded search could also help identify MSWD candidates that have been ejected from their clusters by natal kicks.

As is often the case in astronomy and astrophysics, a larger dataset is needed before researchers can reach any conclusions.

“Ultimately, this catalogue is a necessary first step in a larger effort to provide observational constraints on the CE phase,” the authors write, noting that a detailed characterization of some of the candidates in this sample is already underway. The larger sample will allow researchers to link the masses of post-CE binaries with pre-CE progenitors.

“With these observational benchmarks, this sample will aid in efforts to unlock important new insights into one of the most uncertain phases of binary evolution,” the authors conclude.

The post Main Sequence and White Dwarf Binaries are Hiding in Plain Sight appeared first on Universe Today.

11 million years ago, Mars was a frigid, dry, dead world, just like it is now. Something slammed into the unfortunate planet, sending debris into space. A piece of that debris made it to Earth, found its way into a drawer at Purdue University, and then was subsequently forgotten about.

Until 1931, when scientists studied and realized it came directly from Mars. What has it told them about the red planet?

11 million years ago, the Himalayas were rising on a warmer, more humid Earth. Early ape species made their home in an Africa covered by tropical forests. Diverse mammal species roamed the continents.

At the same time, on Mars, the frigid wind blew across a desiccated, forlorn world. The planet’s thin atmosphere is a weak barrier to meteorites, and the planet’s cratered surface bears witness to its nakedness. Some impacts were powerful enough to launch debris into space beyond the planet’s gravitational pull. The meteorite in the drawer is one such piece of debris.

“Many meteoroids are produced by impacts on Mars and other planetary bodies, but only a handful will eventually fall to Earth.”

Marissa Tremblay, Purdue University

The meteorite was long forgotten in its storage place until 1931. Scientists identified it as a piece of Mars, and now new research is uncovering clues about Mars’ past hidden in the 800-gram piece of rock.

This image shows a page from an article published in Popular Astronomy in 1935. Image Credit: Popular Astronomy.

11 million years ago is not a long time in geological and planetary terms, and the number fits neatly into most people’s imaginations. But rock has deep temporal roots, and the meteorite that reached Earth is an igneous rock that dates back 1.4 billion years. That much time is more difficult to understand, but science is at its best when it opens human minds to a more fulsome understanding of nature.

The meteorite, named “Lafayette” after the city in Indiana that’s home to Purdue University, is the subject of new research published in Geochemical Perspectives Letters. It’s titled “Dating recent aqueous activity on Mars,” and the lead author is Marissa Tremblay. Tremblay is an assistant professor with the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) at Purdue University.

There’s ample evidence that some minerals on Mars formed in the presence of water. Though Lafayette itself is an igneous rock 1.4 billion years old, some of the minerals it contains are younger.

“Dating these minerals can therefore tell us when there was liquid water at or near the surface of Mars in the planet’s geologic past,” Tremblay said. “We dated these minerals in the Martian meteorite Lafayette and found that they formed 742 million years ago. We do not think there was abundant liquid water on the surface of Mars at this time. Instead, we think the water came from the melting of nearby subsurface ice called permafrost, and that the permafrost melting was caused by magmatic activity that still occurs periodically on Mars to the present day.”

Lafayette is one of the Nakhlite meteorites, an igneous rock that formed from basaltic lava around 1.4 billion years ago. Scientists think these rocks formed in one of Mars’ large volcanic regions: Elysium, Syrtis Major Planum, or the largest one, Tharsis, which is home to the three shield volcanoes, Tharsis Montes.

A colourized image of the surface of Mars taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The line of three volcanoes is the Tharsis Montes, with Olympus Mons to the northwest. Valles Marineris is to the east. The researchers think that the Lafayette meteorite came from the Tharsis volcanic region, or one of Mars’ other, smaller volcanic regions. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Arizona State University

Ancient rocks and their embedded minerals contain information about Mars’ ancient past. The history of Mars’ hydrological cycle is a key objective in our ongoing study of Mars. This research is focused on a particular mineral in Lafayette called iddingsite. It forms when basalt is weathered in the presence of water.

The difficulty with meteorites and the clues they contain about ancient Mars is that they’ve been exposed to and potentially altered by the heat of the initial impact and the heat of entry into Earth’s atmosphere. The chemical signals inherent in rock can become muddied. But Lafayette is different. It’s clear that it was blasted off of Mars 11 million years ago.

“We know this because once it was ejected from Mars, the meteorite experienced bombardment by cosmic ray particles in outer space that caused certain isotopes to be produced in Lafayette,” Tremblay says. “Many meteoroids are produced by impacts on Mars and other planetary bodies, but only a handful will eventually fall to Earth.”

“The age could have been affected by the impact that ejected the Lafayette Meteorite from Mars, the heating Lafayette experienced during the 11 million years it was floating out in space, or the heating Lafayette experienced when it fell to Earth and burned up a little bit in Earth’s atmosphere,” Tremblay said. “But we were able to demonstrate that none of these things affected the age of aqueous alteration in Lafayette.”

Study co-author Ryan Ickert is a senior research scientist in Purdue’s EAPS. Ickert uses heavy radioactive and stable isotopes to study geological processes over time. He showed how isotope data used to date water-rock interactions on Mars were problematic and that the data had likely been polluted by other processes. According to Ickert, he and his colleagues got it right this time.

“This meteorite uniquely has evidence that it has reacted with water. The exact date of this was controversial, and our publication dates when water was present,” he says.

This figure from the research shows a cross-section of the Lafayette meteorite. Ol is an olivine grain surrounded by augite crystals (Px). Iddingsite (Id) is present in veins that travel through the rock. Though Lafayette formed over 1.3 billion years ago, the Iddingsite veins formed later, about 742 million years ago, when water seeped through the cracks. Image Credit: Tremblay et al. 2024.

The researchers used a novel technique involving the isotopes Argon 40 and Argon 39 to date Lafayette’s exposure to water and its formation of Iddingsite. That showed them that the exposure occurred 742 million years ago. Their explanation is that magmatic activity melted subsurface ice, and the water subsequently found its way into cracks in the igneous rock, altering some of the olivine into Iddingsite.

All this from a meteorite that was lost in a drawer.

The Solar System is a puzzle. It’s an artifact of Nature’s ordered complexity, but at the same time, it’s shaped by Nature’s steadfast chaos. Each molecule, each tiny piece of rock, including the Lafayette meteorite, is a part of it. Each piece holds a clue to the puzzle.

“We can identify meteorites by studying what minerals are present in them and the relationships between these minerals inside the meteorite,” said Tremblay. “Meteorites are often denser than Earth rocks, contain metal, and are magnetic. We can also look for things like a fusion crust that forms during entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Finally, we can use the chemistry of meteorites (specifically their oxygen isotope composition) to fingerprint which planetary body they came from or which type of meteorite it belongs to.”

Dating these rocks, these pieces of the puzzle, is difficult. However, this research has made progress by developing a novel way to date minerals in the Lafayette meteorite.

“We have demonstrated a robust way to date alteration minerals in meteorites that can be applied to other meteorites and planetary bodies to understand when liquid water might have been present,” Tremblay concluded.

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A flying robot uses its bird-like tail to maintain stability in flight – a technique that could enable more aerodynamic aircraft designs that use less fuel

A new study demonstrates a way to diminish the impact that tires have on the environment when they can no longer be used on vehicles. The process upgrades 6PPD -- a useful but environmentally harmful molecule that helps tires last longer -- into safe chemicals.

A research team has developed a novel biomimetic speaking valve technology that could significantly increase the safety of tracheostomized patients.