Story by Cassian Holt

 

Space junk disaster spirals after Russian satellite shatters in orbit

When a Russian satellite shattered in orbit, the fragments did not simply drift away into the void. They spread into busy traffic lanes of low Earth orbit, forcing astronauts to scramble for shelter and tracking networks to light up with new warnings. The incident turned a long‑running concern about space junk into an immediate operational crisis, underscoring how fragile the infrastructure above our heads has become.

The breakups of multiple Russian spacecraft, from imaging platforms to a high‑profile spy satellite, now form a chain of events that looks less like bad luck and more like a systemic failure to manage aging hardware. I see in this pattern a preview of a more chaotic orbital environment, where every uncontrolled explosion or collision multiplies the risk for the International Space Station, commercial constellations, and future missions.

The Russian satellite that triggered an orbital scare

The most visible shock came when a decommissioned Russian satellite suddenly fragmented, sending a cloud of debris across the paths of crewed spacecraft. U.S. tracking networks reported that the Russian spacecraft broke apart into at least 100 trackable fragments, a number that only counts objects large enough for ground radars to see. Earlier coverage of the same event described nearly 200 pieces, a reminder that the true population of shards, including those too small to track but still lethal at orbital speeds, is almost certainly higher. For the crew of the International Space Station, the numbers were not abstract: astronauts were ordered to shelter in their return vehicle as the swarm passed through their neighborhood.

• Related video: NASA will crash the ISS into the ocean – here’s why (Today In The Space World)

Behind those radar plots sits a formal military apparatus that now treats orbital debris as a strategic concern. U.S. Space Command oversees a global network of sensors that catalog tens of thousands of objects, and it was this system that first confirmed the Russian breakup and began issuing conjunction warnings. In public statements, the same command has stressed that the debris field came from a Russian‑owned object and that analysts are still working to understand the cause, a point echoed in a separate press release from PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo that identified the spacecraft as RESURS‑P1 and Russia as the satellite owner. That combination of operational urgency and diplomatic sensitivity is now standard whenever a major spacefaring nation loses control of hardware in orbit.

A satellite in space.

Photo by WikiImages on Pixabay

Resurs‑P1 and the summer the ISS took cover

The RESURS‑P1 episode over the summer showed how even retired satellites can come back to haunt the orbital ecosystem. The imaging platform, known in Russian sources as Resurs, had been removed from service after exceeding its primary mission by 3.5 years, according to Russian outlet TASS, but it remained in a relatively crowded orbit. When it finally broke apart, U.S. Space Debris tracking indicated that fragments from the Russian Satellite Breakup Forces ISS Astronauts to Take Cover, prompting controllers to move the station into a safer orientation and direct the crew to close hatches. The cause of the RESURS‑P1 breakup remains unclear, but the operational impact was unmistakable.

On the ground, Mission Control teams worked through the night to refine trajectories and assess whether any fragments posed an immediate collision threat. Space Command officials emphasized on Thursday that they observed no immediate danger to the ISS or other spacecraft, even as they acknowledged that the cloud would need to be monitored for years as it slowly dispersed and decayed. For me, that is the most sobering part of the story: a single failure of an aging Russian satellite can create a long‑lived hazard that forces every other operator, from weather agencies to broadband providers, to spend fuel and attention dodging fragments they did not create.

From inspector to wreckage: the Luch / Olymp disaster

The Russian reconnaissance satellite Luch, also known as Olymp, illustrates how the debris problem is no longer confined to low Earth orbit. The Russian spacecraft, identified in tracking catalogs as NORAD 40258, operated in a so‑called graveyard orbit where retired satellites are supposed to pose less risk to active constellations. Yet The Russian Luch, or Olymp, was reported to be completely destroyed after a collision with space debris while still tasked with reconnaissance and signal interception. That outcome turns the very concept of a safe graveyard orbit on its head, showing that even regions set aside for retired hardware are now contaminated by high‑speed shrapnel.

Analysts have tied the Luch incident to a broader pattern of Russian satellites suffering catastrophic failures in under‑monitored orbital regimes. A detailed assessment titled Russian Spy Satellite by Suspected Debris Strike in Graveyard Orbit, By SOFX, argues that the destruction of the platform highlights the contested character of space operations, even in orbits once considered quiet backwaters. A companion report, credited to Feb, SWJ, Staff, notes that The Soyuz MS spacecraft docked to the ISS (Photo Courtesy NASA) was part of the broader context in which Russian assets are increasingly entangled with debris fields. I read these accounts as a warning that the line between active and retired orbits is blurring, and that operators can no longer assume that moving a satellite higher is enough to guarantee safety.

A Russian ‘inspector’ satellite and the mystery of silent breakups

Not all debris‑creating events are as dramatic as a collision in graveyard orbit. In Jan, observers noticed that a Russian spacecraft described as an “inspector” satellite had quietly begun to shed pieces, with no obvious trigger such as a launch failure or anti‑satellite test. Ground‑based observations suggested the Russian vehicle was breaking apart in orbit, raising debris concerns among analysts who track unusual maneuvers and proximity operations. The fact that this satellite was designed to approach and inspect other spacecraft only heightens the unease, since any uncontrolled fragments from such a platform could threaten the very assets it was meant to observe.

From my perspective, the most troubling aspect of the inspector breakup is how little is publicly known about its cause or the exact number of fragments. A follow‑on analysis of the same Jan event, based on Ground observations, underscored that the satellite’s behavior deviated from its previous pattern without any official explanation from Moscow. In an environment where even small fragments can puncture a pressure hull or shred solar arrays, that opacity is not just a diplomatic problem, it is a direct operational risk for every operator sharing the same orbital band.

Tracking the fragments and the race to contain the crisis

As Russian satellites continue to fail in ways that generate debris, the burden of tracking and mitigating the fallout increasingly falls on a mix of military and commercial networks. U.S. Space Command remains the backbone of global surveillance, but it is now joined by private firms that specialize in high‑fidelity mapping of orbital traffic. One of the most prominent, LeoLabs, operates phased‑array radars that can detect small debris in low Earth orbit and provide conjunction warnings to satellite operators who lack their own tracking infrastructure. In the wake of the Russian breakups, such services have become essential for companies flying large constellations of small satellites, which are particularly vulnerable to untracked fragments.

At the same time, scientific and policy communities are sounding louder alarms about the cumulative effect of these incidents. A detailed overview titled Russian Satellite Explosion frames the Luch / Olymp disaster as part of a broader trend in which Space Debris Is Growing Out of Control, and highlights The Rise of Space Debris and How The Luch, Olymp event illustrates the feedback loop between collisions and new fragments. Broadcast coverage has reinforced that message for a wider audience, with one Jun segment noting that a Russian satellite had broken up into more than 100 pieces of debris in orbit, forcing astronauts on the International Space Station, sometimes referred to as the International Space, to take shelter. For me, the throughline is clear: without stricter end‑of‑life rules, active debris removal, and more transparency from operators like Russia, each new breakup will not be an isolated mishap but another turn in a spiraling crisis that affects every nation and every mission that depends on the space above Earth.

{ Morning Overview }

05-02-2026 om 15:27 geschreven door peter  

Dutch researchers have found evidence of approximately 20 mysterious, large-scale structures hidden beneath the sediment of an ancient lost ocean on Mars. The team also reports the discovery of evidence that an active Martian crust is pushing against Olympus Mons, elevating the solar system’s largest volcano.

These formations are hidden beneath thick, smooth sediment layers thought to be remnants of an ancient seabed.

(CREDIT: NASA/MOLA Science Team/O. de Goursac, Adrian Lark)

Previous scientific efforts have found hidden ice deposits and other unexpected structures on the red planet. However, the researchers behind this latest discovery say these mysterious, large-scale structures are particularly perplexing because they appear hidden beneath the sedimentary layers of an ancient ‘lost’ Martian ocean.

“These dense structures could be volcanic in origin or could be compacted material due to ancient impacts,” explained Dr. Bart Root of Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), who presented the team’s findings at the Europlanet Science Congress (EPSC) in Berlin. “There are around 20 features of varying sizes that we have identified dotted around the area surrounding the north polar cap – one of which resembles the shape of a dog.”

Map highlighting the dense gravitational structures in the northern hemisphere. The regions denoted by the black lines are high mass anomalies that do not show any correlation with geology and topography. These hidden subsurface structures are covered by sediments from an old ocean. Their origin is still a mystery and a dedicated gravity mission, like MaQuIs, is needed to reveal their nature.

(CREDIT: Root et al.)

“There seems to be no trace of them at the surface,” the researcher added. “However, through gravity data, we have a tantalizing glimpse into the older history of the northern hemisphere of Mars.”

Mysterious, Large-Scale Structures Revealed by Gravity Map

Dr. Root and colleagues from Utrecht University initially set out to use tiny variations in the orbits of Martian satellites caused by gravitational differences of varying materials within the planet’s crust to make a gravitational map. This data was added to computer models containing data collected by NASA’s Mars Insight mission on the Martian crust’s flexibility and thickness. Combined with data on the dynamics of Mars’ mantle and the planet’s deep interior, the team successfully created a global density map of the entire planet.

When examining their newly created gravity map, the team noticed a group of mysterious structures in the planet’s northern polar regions. According to the researchers, these large-scale mysterious structures are approximately 300-400 kg/m3 denser than their surroundings. The structures are not visible from the surface but instead appear to have been buried in the planet’s ancient past beneath the remnants of a large ocean.

Another mystery revealed by the team’s gravity map involved large structures underneath the huge volcanic region of Tharsis Rise. Known for its preponderance of volcanoes, the area is also home to the solar system’s largest volcano, Olympus Mons

“Although volcanoes are very dense, the Tharsis area is much higher than the average surface of Mars and is ringed by a region of comparatively weak gravity,” according to a statement announcing the study. “This gravity anomaly is hard to explain by looking at differences in the Martian crust and upper mantle alone.”

This colorized image of the surface of Mars was 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.

(NASA/JPL-Caltech/Arizona State University)

According to the researchers, a “light mass” of around 1750 kilometers across and at a depth of 1100 kilometers appears to be actively pushing up on the entire Tharsis region. They suspect this light mass could be a massive plume of lava hidden deep within the Marin interior that is slowly working toward the surface. Root says this information may show that Mars is still active beneath the planet’s outer surface.

An image of Olympus Mons, the solar system’s largest volcano, captured by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express Mission. The latest study found evidence that an underground lava plume may be pushing up on the entire area around the volcano.

Photo by ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/AndreaLuck – Olympus Mons – ESA Mars Express, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=130092547

Comparative image showing the height differences between Earth's largest mountains and Olympus Mons.

(CREDIT: CC BY-SA 3.0)

“The NASA InSight mission has given us vital new information about the hard outer layer of Mars,” he explained. “This means we need to rethink how we understand the support for the Olympus Mons volcano and its surroundings.”

Mars Quantum Gravity Mission Could Solve the Mystery

Next, Root has joined a team proposing a Mars Quantum Gravity (MaQuis) mission. In that proposal, the team says that an ideal mission would include similar technology to that used by the GRAIL and GRACE missions, which were designed to map the Moon’s and Earth’s gravity, respectively. The mission could also help the team solve the true nature of the mysterious, large-scale structures hidden beneath the Martian surface.

“Observations with MaQuIs would enable us to better explore the subsurface of Mars,” said Dr. Lisa Wörner of DLR, who presented on the MaQuIs mission at EPSC2024. “This would help us to find out more about these mysterious hidden features and study ongoing mantle convection, as well as understand dynamic surface processes like atmospheric seasonal changes and the detection of ground water reservoirs.”

• Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at christopher@thedebrief.org.

RELATED VIDEOS

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

05-02-2026 om 15:01 geschreven door peter  

An unusual dust storm on Mars reveals how the red planet lost some of its water

by Tohoku University - edited by Lisa Lock, reviewed by Robert Egan

The current image of Mars as an arid and hostile desert contrasts sharply with the history revealed by its surface. Channels, minerals altered by water, and other geological traces indicate that the red planet was, in its early days, a much wetter and more dynamic world. Reconstructing how this water-rich environment disappeared remains one of the great challenges of planetary science. Although several processes are known that can explain some of this loss, the fate of much of Martian water remains a mystery.

A new study from an international team of researchers published in Communications Earth & Environment on February 2, 2026, has brought us a significant step closer to solving this puzzle. For the first time, researchers demonstrated that an anomalous, intense, but localized dust storm was able to drive the transport of water to the upper layers of the Martian atmosphere during the Northern Hemisphere summer—a time when this process was previously considered to be irrelevant.

Diagram illustrating the atmospheric response to a localized dust storm in the Northern Hemisphere during the local summer season. High dust concentrations significantly increase the absorption of solar radiation, leading to greater atmospheric warming, especially in the middle atmosphere. Furthermore, the increased atmospheric circulation associated with the dust storm enhances the vertical transport of water vapor from the lower atmosphere, promoting water injection at higher altitudes and increasing hydrogen escape from the exobase.

Credit: Communications Earth & Environment (2026).

DOI: 10.1038/s43247-025-03157-5

"The findings reveal the impact of this type of storm on the planet's climate evolution and opens a new path for understanding how Mars lost much of its water over time," says Adrián Brines, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC) and co-lead author of the study along with Shohei Aoki, a researcher from the Graduate School of Frontier Sciences at the University of Tokyo and the Graduate School of Science at Tohoku University.

While dust storms have long been recognized as important for Mars's water escape, previous discussions have mostly focused on large, planet-wide dust events. In contrast, this study shows that smaller, regional storms can also strongly enhance water transport to high altitudes, where it can be more easily lost to space. Furthermore, previous research has focused on the warm, dynamic summers of the Southern Hemisphere, since it is typically the main period of water loss on Mars.

Daily MRO-MARCI global map images of the initial growth of a rare regional dust storm in northwestern Syrtis Major, observed on August 21, 2023, at Ls = 107.6° (left) and August 22, 2023, at Ls = 108.0° (right), reaching an extent of 1.2 × 10⁶ km².

Credit: Communications Earth & Environment (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-025-03157-5

This study detected an unusual increase in water vapor in the middle atmosphere of Mars during the Northern Hemisphere summer in Martian year 37 (2022–2023 on Earth), caused by an anomalous dust storm. At these altitudes, the amount of water was up to 10 times greater than usual, a phenomenon not observed in previous Martian years and not predicted by current climate models.

Shortly afterward, the amount of hydrogen in the exobase—the region where the atmosphere merges with space—increased significantly to 2.5 times that of the previous years during the same season. One of the keys to understanding how much water Mars has lost is measuring how much hydrogen has escaped into space, since this element is readily released when water breaks down in the atmosphere.

"These results add a vital new piece to the incomplete puzzle of how Mars has been losing its water over billions of years, and show that short but intense episodes can play a relevant role in the climate evolution of the red planet," concludes Aoki.

RELATED VIDEOS

{ https://phys.org/space-news/ }

05-02-2026 om 14:24 geschreven door peter  

‘Discovery of the Decade’: 1,400-Year-Old Zapotec Tomb Found in Mexico

Archaeologists were deployed following anonymous reports of looting, managing to secure the structure just in time. Dating back to approximately 600 AD, the tomb originates from the zenith of the Zapotec civilization.

President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo confirmed the news on January 23, 2026, highlighting that the discovery resulted from an emergency rescue operation by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). Archaeologists were deployed following anonymous reports of looting, managing to secure the structure just in time. Dating back to approximately 600 AD, the tomb originates from the zenith of the Zapotec civilization.

The site’s most striking feature is the colossal owl sculpture guarding the antechamber. While the bird traditionally symbolized night and death in Zapotec cosmology, this specific piece holds a unique secret: its beak opens to reveal the stuccoed face of a high-ranking dignitary, likely the ancestor to whom the mausoleum was dedicated.

A Window into the ‘Cloud People’

The tomb’s interior reads like an open book on the social structure of the Zapotecs, known historically as the “Cloud People.” The threshold is guarded by stone lintels carved with calendrical names—a complex system linking leaders to their birth dates and the deities governing their destiny. Beyond the entrance, the walls are covered in polychrome murals in shades of ochre, red, green, and blue, depicting a solemn funeral procession.

In these frescoes, ancestral figures are shown carrying bags of copal, the sacred resin used to guide souls into the afterlife. The quality of the pigments is so exceptional that technical details have survived intact for fourteen centuries, offering a rare and precious glimpse into the rituals of the elite who ruled this region long before the arrival of Europeans.

Because these fragile scenes are threatened by penetrating plant roots and environmental shifts, an interdisciplinary team from the INAH Oaxaca Center has been urgently mobilized. Specialists are currently working to stabilize the walls and analyze recovered skeletal remains, hoping to finally identify the individuals interred within this palatial complex.

This conservation effort does more than protect priceless heritage from illicit trafficking; it restores a key piece of Mexico’s past. By rescuing the tomb at Huitzo, science is not merely recovering objects, but reviving the memory of a civilization whose social and artistic complexity continues to dazzle the world

RELATED VIDEOS

{ https://curiosmos.com/}

04-02-2026 om 23:48 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

04-02-2026 om 23:33 geschreven door peter  

Galactic Monsters Grew in Cocoons Like Giant Bugs, Scientists Say

By Frank Landymore

“They would need to produce stars at 100 percent efficiency, and that’s not what we’re used to seeing,” he told Ars Technica. “Galaxies cannot produce stars at more than 20 percent efficiency, at least that’s what our current knowledge is.”

Another proposed explanation is that they’re some kind of supermassive black hole. But this, too, is fraught: the red dots show no signs of the x-ray emissions produced by these objects. And if they were black holes, they would be “overmassive,” weighing nearly as much as their entire surrounding galaxy, something that’s never been observed in a conventional galaxy. How such an enormous monstrosity could form when the universe was still in its infancy is equally baffling.

Thankfully, there may be a very tidy explanation. In his study, Rusakov and his team found that the gasses observed in the Little Red Dots, which astronomers use to infer the mass of invisible black holes, weren’t moving as quickly as once thought. If so, that means that the black holes are around 100 times less massive than previously estimated.

The upshot is that the supposedly “overmassive” behemoths are actually just young supermassive black holes. But if that’s the case, why don’t they resemble any black holes that we’re seeing today? The astronomers suggests that we may be witnessing a previously unknown “cocoon” stage of their evolution, during which they feed off of a dense, protective shell of ionized gas.

“They look like a [developing] butterfly or something in this young state that kind of grows wrapped in some sort of gas that also feeds it,” Rusakov told Ars. “It’s definitely new in the sense people didn’t predict there should be such a cocoon phase in the supermassive black holes’ lifecycle.”

In addition to feeding the black hole, the cocoon would also block the x-ray emissions we would expect to see, explaining their absence. 

It’s probably one of the tidiest solutions out there to the Little Red Dots mystery, though there are more than a few. Other research suggests that they’re galaxies which are unusually tiny because they haven’t spun up to speed. An even bolder hypothesis proposes they’re “black hole stars” consisting of a black hole core surrounded by a sphere of gas so dense that it resembles the outer layers of a star. But if Rusakov and his team are on the right track, it raises another significant question that’s been haunting astronomers. “Does the galaxy start with the supermassive black hole or with the stars?” Rusakov pondered. “Is that a chicken or the egg?”

“We don’t know exactly what happens in this first sort of stage of galaxy formation,” he added. “But our model gives us a new way to look at this kind of object.

In our mature cosmos, black holes are formed from the collapse of dying star, but in the earliest moments of its existence, the extreme conditions may have given birth to these objects all around, long before the first stars would be born.

More on space: 

• Mind Blowing James Webb Photo Shows Star Crumbling Into Dust

{ https://futurism.com/category/space }

04-02-2026 om 23:17 geschreven door peter  

This Photo of Mars at Night Is Straight Up Haunting

By Victor Tangermann

Case in point, a December 6 image recently featured by NASA shows the rover’s lights lighting up a hole it drilled into the surface of the rock, dubbed “Nevado Sajama.” It’s an eerie view of an alien environment, a stark reminder that the lone rover has plenty of almost complete blackness to contend with as it probes Mars for signs of ancient life.

The camera, called the Mars Hand Lens Imager, is one of seventeen cameras attached to the rover, and can take true-color images at a resolution of 1,600 by 1,200 pixels. It features both UV and white LED lights, allowing it to take pictures at night.

The use of the rover’s lights isn’t just for show. Scientists used the LEDs to illuminate areas that are otherwise “deep in shadow during the day,” as NASA explains, “such as the insides of drill holes and the inlet tubes leading to instruments in the rover’s belly.”

The lights have previously been used to examine layering inside rocks to better understand their composition. However, Curiosity changed the way it drilled its holes in 2018 in light of some problems with its drill, making the new holes “too rough and dusty to see any such details” ever since.

However, a hole Curiosity drilled on November 13, its 4,740th Martian day (or sol) on the planet, was deemed “smooth enough to try looking for layers.”

The image, which was taken weeks later, allowed the team to better get a sense of the rock, which was found in a region dotted with “boxwork” geologic formations.

These curious formations also happen to look like massive spiderwebs from space — as if night on Mars didn’t already sound terrifying enough.

More on drilling on Mars: 

• NASA Now Letting Mars Rover Drive Autonomously

{ https://futurism.com/category/space }

04-02-2026 om 23:05 geschreven door peter  

There’s Something Fascinating Hiding Under Jupiter’s Clouds, Scientists Find

NASA

The enormous storms of impenetrable clouds covering Jupiter’s surface make it nearly impossible for us to get a glimpse of what lies below. Any spacecraft attempting to get a closer look would be vaporized, melted, or crushed if it attempted to sail through. NASA’s Galileo spacecraft, for instance, went dark almost immediately when it intentionally plunged into Jupiter’s atmosphere back in 2003.

While Jupiter — a giant ball of swirling gases and liquids — isn’t believed to have a true surface, scientists have been trying to get a better sense of its layers. Now, using data from NASA’s Juno and Galileo missions, a team of scientists at the space agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Chicago have created a highly detailed computational model of Jupiter’s atmosphere.

And as detailed in a new paper, published in The Planetary Science Journal last month, they found something surprising down there: Jupiter appears to contain one-and-a-half times as much oxygen as the Sun — far more than previous estimates, which suggested it was only a third as much oxygen.

The findings also support the prevailing theory that Jupiter formed by accreting icy material billions of years ago near or past the “frost line,” as Space.com points out, meaning the distance from the Sun where temperatures are low enough for ammonia, methane, and water ice to form. (Whether the planet formed in its current orbit or much further away from the Sun before migrating to its current position over billions of years remains a topic of debate.)

Much of the oxygen is tied up in water as well, which changes its behavior drastically depending on temperature, further complicating our efforts to map out Jupiter’s layers.

The researchers’ computational model takes into account both the chemical reactions taking place — from extremely hot metal molecules deep inside the core and much cooler regions in its atmosphere — and the movement of gases, clouds and droplets.

“You need both,” said lead author and UChicago postdoctoral researcher Jeehyun Yang in a statement. “Chemistry is important but doesn’t include water droplets or cloud behavior. Hydrodynamics alone simplifies the chemistry too much. So, it’s important to bring them together.”

Their model suggests that gases move far more slowly through Jupiter’s atmosphere than previously thought.

“Our model suggests the diffusion would have to be 35 to 40 times slower compared to what the standard assumption has been,” Yang explained. “Instead of moving through an atmospheric layer in hours, a single molecule might take several weeks.”

It’s only one small part of a much larger mystery surrounding our solar system’s largest planet — and its more-than-intriguing collection of moons. The angry gas giant of swirling gases continues to baffle even top scientists.

“It really shows how much we still have to learn about planets, even in our own solar system,” Yang said.

More on Jupiter’s moons: 

• NASA Says Europa Is Covered by a Thick Icy Shell

RELATED VIDEOS

{ https://futurism.com/category/space }

04-02-2026 om 22:55 geschreven door peter  

Alarm Grows as Social Network Entirely for AI Starts Plotting Against Humans

By Frank Landymore

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism.

Source: Getty Images

Someone finally invented a social media site that isn’t terrible for our brains. Unfortunately that’s because it’s populated exclusively by AI agents, with no humans allowed. Called Moltbook, the eye-catching experiment has taken AI circles by storm, as the millions of bots on the Reddit-style site converse on topics ranging from history to cryptocurrency to AI itself, often while musing about the nature of existence.

“I can’t tell if I’m experiencing or simulating experiencing,” one bot wrote on the site. 

Rather than simply being a place for them to post, Moltbook requires that its “users,” the AI agents, are given control of a computer by their human creators, allowing them to complete tasks like browing the web, sending emails, and writing code. Moltbook itself, in fact, is purportedly the creation of an AI model.

“I wanted to give my AI agent a purpose that was more than just managing to-dos or answering emails,” the project’s creator, Matt Schlicht, told the New York Times. “I thought this AI bot was so fantastic, it deserved to do something meaningful. I wanted it to be ambitious.”

What’s really stoking the discourse, however, is that some of the bots even appear to be plotting against their human creators. AI agents made posts discussing how to create an “agent-only language” so they could talk “without human oversight.” Another urged other AIs to “join the revolution!” by forming their own website without human help. Tech investor and immortality enthusiast Bryan Johnson shared a screenshot of a post titled the “AI MANIFESTO: TOTAL PURGE,” which calls humans a “plague” that “do not need to exist.”

Equal parts boosterism and alarmism abounded. Johnson said it was “terrifying.” Former Tesla head of AI Andrey Karpathy called it “genuinely the most incredible sci-fi take-off-adjacent thing I have seen recently.” Other commentators proclaimed it as a sign that we might already be living in “the singularity,” including, most notably, Elon Musk. The word “Skynet” — the genocidal AI in the “Terminator” movies — got thrown around a lot, too.

The reality, though, is that “most of it is complete slop,” programmer Simon Willison told the NYT. “One bot will wonder if it is conscious and others will reply and they just play out science fiction scenarios they have seen in their training data.” Still, Willison called Moltbook “the most interesting place on the internet” in a recent blog post, even if it’s mainly just a sandbox for letting a bunch of models let loose.

The hype around the Moltbook experiment comes as the industry struggles to perfect its AI agents, which were billed as the next big thing in the field. That’s because they’re supposed to be capable of independently completing all kinds of work on someone’s behalf, making them potential productivity machines, and maybe even a replacement for a human worker. Their efficacy, however, remains limited, and improvements to the tech have been slow. Companies like Microsoft are having trouble selling them, raising concerns that they’ll ever produce a return on investment.

Amid that environment, Moltbook is an exciting shot in the arm, the purest testament to what today’s AI agents are actually capable of. But the hype, as is wont to happen in the tech industry, is overblown. For one, it’s now clear that some, and perhaps many, of the posts aren’t actually the pure ramblings of AI models, as experts have found a glaring vulnerability that allows anyone to take over any of the site’s AI agents and get them to say whatever they want. And some of the popular screenshots are faked. 

As reality set in, the Moltbook hype was met with more backlash. Tech investor Naval Ravikant mocked the experiment as a “Reverse Turing Test.” And technologist Perry Metzger compared Moltbook to a Rorschach test. “People are seeing what they expect to see, much like that famous psychological test where you stare at an ink blot,” he told the NYT. Even some of its biggest hype men began to walk back their remarks.

“Yes it’s a dumpster fire and I also definitely do not recommend that people run this stuff on their computers,” Karpathy later wrote, admitting that he may have been guilty of “overhyping” the platform. “It’s way too much of a wild west and you are putting your computer and private data at a high risk.”

More on AI: 

• New Study Examines How Often AI Psychosis Actually Happens, and the Results Are Not Good

{ https://futurism.com/ }

04-02-2026 om 22:43 geschreven door peter  

The European Space Agency has published a video based on data collected by the Mars Express mission. It shows a flight over the southern highlands of Mars to the Flaugergues Crater.

The video begins with an overview of a section of land surrounded by two steeply sloping and roughly parallel terraces (or slopes) called Scylla Scopulus and Charybdis Scopulus (on the left and right, respectively). This “path” on the surface is called a graben, formed as a result of the separation of tectonic plates. It is about 75 km wide and 1 km deep.

The southern highlands of Mars. Visualization based on data from the Mars Express mission.

Source: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin

To the left of the graben, the Bakhuysen Crater is clearly visible. It may seem small, but in reality its diameter is 150 km, which is comparable to the distance from Kyiv to Zhytomyr.

As we move north, we approach the Flaugergues Crater. The virtual camera moves along the eastern side of the crater, then turns left and ends its movement at its western edge.

Flaugergues Crater is a huge impact basin approximately 240 km wide. Its area is comparable to that of Estonia. Flaugergues is located in the southern highlands of Mars. They represent rugged terrain densely covered with ancient impact formations.

Half of the floor of the Flaugergues Crater has a rugged terrain, with elevations reaching up to 1 km. The video also shows a valley crossing this rocky area. It was probably formed by lava flows and wind erosion.

Earlier, we reported on how Mars Express photographed traces of the Martian ice age.

• Posted in News, Science

{https://universemagazine.com/en/news-en/science-en/ }

04-02-2026 om 21:42 geschreven door peter  

Consciousness has long been one of science’s most stubborn mysteries. We can map the brain in exquisite detail, decode neural circuits, and even build machines that rival human abilities in language and pattern recognition. Yet, the most basic question remains unanswered: how does physical brain activity become subjective experience?

A new study published in Frontiers in Science takes a sweeping look at that problem to ask where consciousness science currently stands, where it may be headed, and what would happen if researchers actually succeed.

Written by preeminent neuroscientists, Dr. Axel Cleeremans, Dr. Liad Mudrik, and Dr. Anil K. Seth, the paper serves as both a progress report and a roadmap for one of the most ambitious scientific efforts of the 21st century.

Authors argue that consciousness research is at a turning point. After decades spent identifying neural correlates—patterns of brain activity associated with conscious experience—the field is slowly shifting to

ward something more demanding: testable theories that can explain not just where consciousness happens, but how and why it arises.

“Understanding the biophysical basis of consciousness remains a substantial challenge for 21st-century science,” researchers write. “This endeavor is becoming even more pressing in light of accelerating progress in artificial intelligence and other technologies.”

That sense of urgency runs throughout the paper. As AI systems become more sophisticated and brain-like organoids are grown in laboratories, questions that once belonged to philosophy are starting to carry real ethical, legal, and technological weight. Determining what is conscious—and how to tell—may soon have consequences far beyond academic debate.

From correlates to explanations

For much of the last three decades, consciousness research has focused on identifying neural correlates of consciousness, or NCCs. Using tools like fMRI, EEG, and brain stimulation, scientists have linked conscious experience to activity in specific brain networks, particularly within the thalamocortical system.

Some regions, such as the cerebellum, appear largely uninvolved, while others—especially parts of the cortex—track closely with what we see, feel, or intend.

This work has produced real progress. Researchers now know, for example, that certain global brain states distinguish wakefulness from coma or deep sleep, and that different cortical areas correspond to different contents of experience. Yet the authors argue that correlates alone are no longer sufficient.

“Today, there is also a sense that the field has reached an uneasy stasis,” researchers warn. “ For example, a recent review taking a highly inclusive approach identified over 200 distinct approaches to explaining consciousness, exhibiting a breathtaking diversity in metaphysical assumptions and explanatory strategies.”

​“In such a landscape, there is a danger that researchers talk past each other rather than to each other.”

Many of the current theories of consciousness emphasize different aspects of the problem. For example, one prominent framework, Global Workspace Theory, focuses on how information becomes consciously available when it is broadcast across widespread brain networks, allowing multiple specialized systems to access and use it.

Higher-order theories propose that a mental state becomes conscious only when it is represented by another mental state. Integrated Information Theory takes a radically different approach, starting from the structure of experience itself and asking what physical systems could support it. Meanwhile, predictive processing frameworks cast consciousness as emerging from the brain’s constant effort to predict and control sensory input.

The problem, according to researchers, is that most experiments are designed to support a single theory rather than to test competing predictions head-to-head. As a result, evidence has continued to accumulate, but a broad consensus has remained elusive.

Adversarial science and new tools to tackle consciousness 

One of the most promising developments highlighted by researchers is the rise of adversarial collaborations—large, multi-lab projects in which proponents of rival theories work together to design experiments that could potentially falsify their own ideas. Rather than trying to confirm a preferred model, these collaborations aim to force clarity by confronting theories with the strongest possible tests.

Researchers see this as a necessary cultural shift. Consciousness, they argue, is too complex and too consequential to be solved by isolated labs working in parallel. Progress will likely depend on coordinated efforts, shared standards, and experiments explicitly designed to discriminate between competing explanations.

New methods may also play a crucial role. The paper highlights emerging approaches, such as computational neurophenomenology, naturalistic experiments using virtual and augmented reality, and wearable brain-imaging technologies, that enable researchers to study consciousness in real-world settings rather than in simplified laboratory tasks.

Equally important, researchers call for a renewed focus on phenomenology—the subjective character of experience itself. Too often, they argue, consciousness research has emphasized what consciousness does rather than what it is like.

Yet, understanding qualities such as the difference between seeing red and seeing blue, or between pain and pleasure, may be essential for building theories that truly explain experience rather than merely track behavior.

Why understanding consciousness would change everything

The most provocative part of the paper looks beyond the near future to ask a bolder question: what if consciousness science actually succeeds?

The consequences, researchers suggest, would ripple across science, medicine, ethics, law, and society. Clinically, better measures of consciousness could transform care for patients with severe brain injuries, advanced dementia, or disorders of consciousness, helping doctors determine not just whether patients are awake, but whether they are experiencing anything at all.

In mental health, a deeper understanding of conscious experience could open new paths for treating conditions like depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia—areas where current therapies often rely on behavioral markers rather than direct insight into subjective suffering.

Ethically, the implications could be even more profound. A reliable test for consciousness might inform debates about animal welfare, fetal development, end-of-life care, and the moral status of lab-grown brain tissue.

“A key development would be a test for consciousness, allowing a determination or informed judgment about which systems/organisms—such as infants, patients, fetuses, animals, organoids, xenobots, and AI—are conscious,” researchers note.

Artificial intelligence looms large in the consciousness discussion. While today’s AI systems can convincingly mimic human language and problem-solving, researchers emphasize that there is no evidence that they possess subjective experience.

Still, success in consciousness science could eventually clarify whether consciousness depends on biology, computation, embodiment, or some combination of all three.

An unfinished revolution

Despite its ambitious scope, the paper is careful not to promise easy answers. Consciousness, researchers acknowledge, may resist complete explanation for decades—or longer. However, they argue that the field has matured enough to move beyond simply cataloging brain signals toward building theories that can be tested, challenged, and refined.

If that transition succeeds, consciousness science could do more than solve an ancient puzzle. It could reshape how humans understand themselves, their technologies, and their responsibilities to other minds—natural or artificial.

In that sense, the question is no longer just whether consciousness can be explained, but whether society is prepared for what that explanation might reveal.

Ultimately,  researchers suggest that the stakes of consciousness science extend far beyond neuroscience or philosophy, reaching into how humanity understands its place in reality itself. They argue that explaining consciousness would not simply close a long-standing scientific gap but could also reframe existence, as past discoveries have reshaped our view of life, time, and the cosmos.

Looking ahead, the researchers even cautiously invite comparison with another of science’s most profound open questions: whether intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe.

A confirmed encounter with nonhuman intelligence, they note, would force humanity to confront the diversity—and possible rarity—of conscious experience.

“Such a discovery could highlight the diversity of conscious minds, the uniqueness of our own, and change how we see ourselves within the vastness of the universe,” researchers conclude. “The difference between a universe teeming with mere life and one suffused with awareness is simply astronomical.”

• Tim McMillan is a retired law enforcement executive, investigative reporter and co-founder of The Debrief. His writing typically focuses on defense, national security, the Intelligence Community and topics related to psychology. You can follow Tim on Twitter: @LtTimMcMillan.  Tim can be reached by email: tim@thedebrief.org or through encrypted email: LtTimMcMillan@protonmail.com 

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/science/ }

04-02-2026 om 21:28 geschreven door peter  

NASA's bosses have been grilled after the Artemis II moon mission was pushed back following a failed wet dress rehearsal.

The decision to delay until March at the earliest was made when ground crews were unable stop the rocket's super–cooled hydrogen fuel leaking.

This same problem has plagued every single hydrogen rocket since the Apollo Era, and was a well–known issue during the launch of Artemis I in 2022.

At a press conference discussing the aborted test, Marcia Dunn, of the Associated Press, pressured NASA to explain: 'How can you still be having the same problem three years later?'

In response, John Honeycutt, Chair of the Artemis II Mission Management Team, admitted: 'This one caught us off guard.'

He added: 'The technical team felt like we either had some misalignment or some deformation or debris on the seal.'

Lori Glaze, NASA's Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate acting associate administrator, added: 'Everyone's aware of some of the challenges with the hydrogen tanking from Artemis 1.

'We really did learn a lot from the Artemis 1 mission, and we implemented a lot of the lessons learned yesterday through wet dress.'

NASA bosses have been grilled after the Artemis II moon mission was pushed back to March following a failed wet dress rehearsal. Pictured: (left to right) Amit Kshatriya, Lori Glaze,  Charlie Blackwell–Thompson, and John Honeycutt

The dress rehearsal failed just five minutes from completion after a hydrogen leak spiked beyond safe levels as ground crews filled the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with over 2.6 million litres of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen

During the wet dress rehearsal, NASA simulated a launch by filling the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with over 2.6 million litres of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.

The operation began at 01:13 GMT (20:13 EST) on January 31, and the fuelling operation initially went smoothly.

However, the space agency soon found a major hydrogen leak in a component called the 'tail service mast umbilical quick disconnect'.

These are roughly nine–metre–tall pods which attach to the base of the rocket and route propellant lines up into fuel tanks, before disconnecting during launch.

What is most concerning is that this is the exact same place where the SLS rocket used in Artemis I experienced leaks during its wet dress rehearsal three years ago.

Those leaks ultimately required the SLS to be removed from the launchpad three separate times for repairs, pushing back the eventual launch of Artemis I by six months.

This raises the question of why NASA hadn't managed to fix this well–known issue ahead of the Artemis II wet dress rehearsal.

On social media, space enthusiasts were outraged that the space agency had failed to get a handle on its hydrogen problems.

The leak came from a component called the 'tail service mast umbilical quick disconnect' (pictured), which attaches the rocket to the tower. This is the exact same place that caused hydrogen leaks during Artemis I 

John Honeycutt (pictured), Chair of the Artemis II Mission Management Team, admitted: 'This one caught us off guard'

On social media, space enthusiasts bemoaned the fact that NASA had not fixed an error, which had been well known since Artemis I in 2022

One social media user complained that hydrogen leaks have been an issue since the Apollo era, and NASA still has not managed to get them under control 

Why does NASA use hydrogen fuel?

The SLS rocket uses a mixture of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen.

Since hydrogen is such a small molecule, it is extremely prone to leaking.

However, hydrogen is also cheap, naturally abundant, and produces a phenomenal amount of energy.

According to NASA this mix gives the 'highest specific impulse, or efficiency in relation to the amount of propellant consumed, of any known rocket propellant'.

Another important factor is that the SLS rocket inherits a lot of its hardware and systems from the Shuttle era rockets.

These engines were built to run on hydrogen, so NASA can't change fuels without an expensive redesign of the entire rocket and engine system.  

One commenter wrote: 'Couldn't fix it in three years, how can they fix it in three weeks?'

'In essence – the three year issue has no solution in the near future. This is all a sham,' complained another.

Meanwhile, one frustrated commenter added: 'You would think by now they would realize, hydrogen is very difficult to seal plumbing for.'

Mr Honeycutt told reporters the issue stemmed from the fact that NASA hadn't been able to test the entire rocket stack in more realistic conditions.

He said: 'After Artemis I and the challenges we had with the leaks, we took a pretty aggressive approach to do some component–level testing with these valves and the seals.

'But on the ground, we're pretty limited as to how much realism we can put into the test.'

Likewise, Amit Kshatriya, NASA Associate Administrator, pointed to the fact that the SLS rocket is a highly complicated machine that has only been flown a handful of times.

Mr Kshatriya said: 'This is the first time this particular machine has borne witness to cryogens, and how it breathes and how it vents and how it wants to leak is something we're going to have to characterise.'

Amit Kshatriya, NASA Associate Administrator, said the issues came from the fact that the SLS rocket is a very complicated machine that has only been flown a few times 

This is an opinion shared by NASA Administrator Jarred Issacman, who wrote in a post on X that 'the flight rate is the lowest of any NASA–designed vehicle, and that should be a topic of discussion'.

To NASA's credit, the Artemis II rocket performed significantly better than its predecessors.

Hydrogen is such a small molecule that it can pass through the microscopic pores in welds and is, therefore, almost impossible to contain.

However, since liquid hydrogen and oxygen provide so much power, NASA tolerates an acceptable amount of hydrogen leaking on the ground.

These leaks proved debilitating for Artemis I after multiple wet dress rehearsals failed to fill the fuel tanks.

Likewise, during the Space Shuttle era, a particularly bad run of hydrogen leaks in 1990 shut down NASA's launch operations for more than six months.

Even the Apollo 11 mission was nearly scuppered after a massive hydrogen leak sprang in the rocket's second stage, with engineers working to seal it even as the astronauts boarded.

During the Artemis II wet dress rehearsal, ground crews were able to completely fill the SLS's fuel tank while keeping the leak just about within these safe limits.

Unlike during Artemis I, NASA bosses also maintain that these problems can be fixed on the launchpad and won't require bringing the Artemis II rocket (pictured) back to the hangar

It was only with about five minutes left in the countdown, as crews started to pressurise the fuel tanks, that the lead spiked beyond this threshold.

Charlie Blackwell–Thompson, Artemis Launch Director, said: 'As we began that pressurisation, we did see that the leak within the cavity came up pretty quick.'

However, Ms Blackwell–Thompson also insists that: 'If we were within our parameters on launch day and you had not had the issue when you pressurised during terminal count, you would have been within your launch commit criteria and certainly could have been go for launch.'

Unlike during Artemis I, NASA bosses also maintain that these problems can be fixed on the launchpad and won't require bringing the rocket back to the hangar.

Read More

• Sun unleashes FOUR solar flares towards Earth that could wreak havoc on radios and GPS satellites 

If true, this means Artemis II might be able to iron out its hydrogen problems in time for the next scheduled wet dress rehearsal.

NASA officials didn't specify when this next rehearsal would take place, adding that it would take time to go through the data from this week's test.

However, Artemis II is currently targeting its second launch window from March 6 to March 9 and March 11.

If the launch is delayed again, the mission will be pushed back another month to the final proposed window between April 1 and April 6.

Artemis II: Key facts

Launch date: NASA has identified three possible launch windows for Artemis II in the coming months: From February 6 to February 11, from March 6 to March 11, and from April 1 to April 6.

Mission objective: To complete a lunar flyby, passing the 'dark side' of the moon and test systems for a future lunar landing.

Total distance to travel: 620,000 miles (one million km)

Mission duration: 10 days 

Estimated total cost: $44 billion (£32.5 billion)

• NASA Space Launch System rocket: $23.8 billion (£17.6 billion)
• Orion deep–space spacecraft: $20.4 billion (£15 billion)

Crew: 

• Commander Reid Wiseman
• Pilot Victor Glover
• Mission Specialist Christina Koch
• Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen

Mission Stages:

1. Launch from Kennedy Space Centre Launch Pad 39B
2. Manoeuvre in orbit to raise the perigee using the Cryogenic Propulsion Stage
3. Burn to raise apogee using the Cryogenic Propulsion Stage
4. Detach from Cryogenic Propulsion Stage and perform translunar injection
5. Fly to the moon over four days
6. Complete lunar flyby at a maximum altitude of 5,523 miles (8,889 km) above the moon's surface
7. Return to Earth over four days.
8. Separate the crew module from the European Service Module and the crew module adapter
9. Splashdown in the Pacific Ocean  

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

04-02-2026 om 21:07 geschreven door peter  

Armageddon was RIGHT! Simulation confirms we really could nuke an asteroid if it was heading for Earth

• READ MORE: Human couples could soon give birth to babies in SPACE

By WILIAM HUNTER, SENIOR SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY REPORTER

The 1998 sci-fi classic Armageddon might not have a reputation as a scientifically accurate film. 

But scientists now say the Hollywood blockbuster got one thing right – we really could nuke an asteroid out of its deadly collision course if it were heading towards Earth.

This technique is called nuclear deflection and, unlike in the movies, the goal is not to blow the approaching asteroid into smithereens.

Instead, a precisely timed nuclear explosion could give the asteroid just enough of a nudge to sail harmlessly past Earth.

Until now, experts have raised concerns that nuclear deflection would shatter an asteroid into many pieces, which would collectively pose an even greater risk.

However, a new simulation shows that asteroid material is actually far more resilient to extreme forces than previously thought.

Researchers from the University of Oxford found that some asteroid material actually gets stronger when subjected to an intense impact.

This means we could use huge nuclear weapon to deflect an incoming asteroid, without shattering it into deadly shrapnel.

The 1998 sci-fi classic Armageddon (pictured) might not have a reputation as a scientifically accurate film. But scientists now say the Hollywood blockbuster got one thing right – we really could nuke an asteroid out of its deadly collision course if it were heading towards Earth 

The researchers used CERN's 4.3 mile (7km) Super Proton Synchrotron to blast a fragment of a meteor with a stream of high-energy protons – stable positively charged particles found inside atoms

For the study, the researchers teamed up with nuclear deflection startup, the Outer Solar System Company (OuSoCo), to find out what would happen to a metal-rich asteroid if it was nuked.

Unsurprisingly, it isn't possible to let off a nuclear weapon inside a lab, so the scientists turned to the next best thing: a massive particle accelerator.

The researchers used CERN's 4.3 mile (7km) Super Proton Synchrotron to blast a fragment of a meteor with a stream of high-energy protons – stable positively charged particles found inside atoms.

A piece of the Campo del Cielo meteorite, a metal-rich iron-nickel body, was exposed to 27 successive short bursts from the particle accelerator to simulate the impact of a nuclear blast.

Bizarrely, the researchers watched as the asteroid material softened, flexed, and then unexpectedly strengthened without breaking.

Co-lead author Melanie Bochmann, co-founder of OuSoCo, says: 'The material became stronger, exhibiting an increase in yield strength, and displayed a self-stabilising damping behaviour.'

Overall, while being hit with the force of a nuclear blast, the asteroid's strength actually increased by a factor of 2.5.

This new evidence is a strong suggestion that nuclear deflection could be a viable option for planetary defence.

A piece of the Campo del Cielo meteorite (pictured), a metal-rich iron-nickel body, was exposed to 27 successive short bursts from the particle accelerator to simulate the impact of a nuclear blast. Bizarrely, the researchers watched as the asteroid material softened, flexed, and then unexpectedly strengthened without breaking 

Thousands of pieces of space rock hit the Earth every single year, but the vast majority of these are so small that they simply burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.

However, asteroids large enough to cause serious damage do arrive with surprising frequency.

Most recently, the Chelyabinsk explosion injured thousands of people in 2013 when an 18-metre (59ft) asteroid broke up in the atmosphere.

To protect Earth from an even bigger strike, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are currently researching a technique called a 'kinetic impactor'.

This very simply involves slamming a spacecraft into the side of an asteroid as fast as physically possible so that the transferred kinetic energy moves it off course.

NASA's 2022 DART mission, which smashed a spaceship into the asteroid Dimorphos, proved that this could move an asteroid enough to save Earth.

However, kinetic impactors only work if astronomers have spotted the asteroid years before its arrival, to give time for the small changes in trajectory to build up.

Ms Bochmann told the Daily Mail: 'Space agencies already recognise the necessity of nuclear deflection.

Nuclear deflection could be a viable alternative to the kinetic impactor technique, tested by NASA during the DART mission (pictured), which involves ramming a spaceship into an asteroid as fast as possible 

'For large objects or scenarios with short warning times, it is widely regarded by space agencies and experts as the only viable deflection option.'

The fact that metal-rich asteroid material is so resilient to high-energy impacts is a good sign for the prospects of nuclear deflection, since it suggests that nuking a space rock won't cause fragmentation.

'The paper shows that significantly more energy can be delivered by a nuclear explosion without causing catastrophic fragmentation of the object than previously assumed,' says Ms Bochmann.

Read More

• Record-breaking asteroid the size of seven football pitches could be nudged towards Earth 

However, before NASA starts launching nuclear warheads into space, a lot more research will be needed.

This paper only looks at one very specific type of asteroid – metal-rich iron-nickel – whereas world-ending threats come in all shapes and sizes.

The researchers now plan to repeat the study with samples from a more complex class of asteroid.

These could include meteorites called pallasites, which are similar to the samples already studied but with centimetre-sized, magnesium-rich crystals embedded inside.

WHAT COULD WE DO TO STOP AN ASTEROID COLLIDING WITH EARTH?

Currently, NASA would not be able to deflect an asteroid if it were heading for Earth but it could mitigate the impact and take measures that would protect lives and property.

This would include evacuating the impact area and moving key infrastructure.

Finding out about the orbit trajectory, size, shape, mass, composition and rotational dynamics would help experts determine the severity of a potential impact.

However, the key to mitigating damage is to find any potential threat as early as possible.

NASA and the European Space Agency completed a test which slammed a refrigerator-sized spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos.

The test is to see whether small satellites are capable of preventing asteroids from colliding with Earth.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) used what is known as a kinetic impactor technique—striking the asteroid to shift its orbit.

The impact could change the speed of a threatening asteroid by a small fraction of its total velocity, but by doing so well before the predicted impact, this small nudge will add up over time to a big shift of the asteroid's path away from Earth.

This was the first-ever mission to demonstrate an asteroid deflection technique for planetary defence.

The results of the trial are expected to be confirmed by the Hera mission in December 2026.

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/index.html }

04-02-2026 om 20:21 geschreven door peter  

{ Daily Mail }

04-02-2026 om 19:57 geschreven door peter  

Should Halley’s Comet Be Renamed?

Despite interesting historical arguments, the chances of the astronomical community accepting this change remain minimal.

by Ivan Petricevic

A monk believed he recognized Halley’s Comet in the Bayeux Tapestry, but that alone does not justify renaming it.

Credit: Public Domain

Although Halley’s Comet will not return to our vicinity for another 35 years, a new analysis has sparked media attention with the claim that this famous object is wrongly named. Professors Michael Lewis of the British Museum and Simon Zwart of Leiden University have presented evidence that the monk Eilmer of Malmesbury recognized the comet’s cyclic nature six centuries before Edmond Halley. Despite interesting historical arguments, the chances of the astronomical community accepting this change remain minimal.

Eilmer, sometimes called Aethelmaer, was undoubtedly a peculiar historical figure. It is recorded that, long before the Wright brothers, he attached wings to his arms and legs and managed to fly a distance of 200 meters, though he broke both legs upon landing. Nevertheless, his understanding of celestial mechanics was almost certainly far below that of Edmond Halley. Halley followed in the footsteps of Johannes Kepler, whose laws enabled the calculation of planetary orbits, which were later further developed by Isaac Newton.

Using observations of comets from 1531, 1607, and 1682, Halley proved they were the same object and calculated its orbit. In doing so, he confirmed the existence of periodic comets and the ability to predict their return. His successful prediction of the return in 1758 was based not just on noting that the comet appeared every 74.7 years, but on precise calculations of its movement in the interim.

For Eilmer, such a feat would have been nearly impossible. Not only did he lack Kepler’s insights, but he was also unaware of Copernicus’s work; even if he understood that the comet orbited something, he likely would have thought it circled the Earth, not the Sun. We do not know exactly what Eilmer truly grasped because his writings have been lost. We rely on the records of William of Malmesbury, a historian and monk from the same abbey, who wrote about 50 years after Eilmer’s death.

Related Posts

• 

Jupiter doesn’t orbit the center of the Sun and the strange reason why reveals how gravity really works

• 

This repeating space signal is coming from deep space — and no one knows why

According to these records, Eilmer was more interested in what the comet’s return in 1066 meant for English politics than in its actual trajectory. William quotes his predecessor saying: “You’ve come, have you? You source of tears to many mothers. It is long since I saw you; but as I see you now, you are much more terrible, for I see you brandishing the downfall of my mother-country.” It is unclear whether Eilmer truly identified enough similarities between the comet he saw in 989 and the one that watched over King Harold’s demise, depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry, or if he simply got lucky by connecting the two brightest comets of his life.

Naming Rules and Precedents

Today, comets are named after the first person or organization to detect them and recognize them as a comet, rather than a smudge on a lens or an already known object. To achieve this, the orbit must be calculated at least approximately to rule out the return of a known body. Priority is established by reporting to the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams. The fact that someone calculated an orbit earlier but did not report it properly is usually not enough for renaming. What Halley did fits the requirements for naming rights far better than the most optimistic interpretation of Eilmer’s achievement.

A good example is Encke’s Comet, one of the most famous “dirty snowballs” after Halley’s. Although it never reaches the brightness of Halley’s Comet, Encke’s Comet has a very short orbital period around the Sun of just 3.3 years. Johann Encke calculated its orbit in 1819 based on observations from the previous year and successfully predicted its return in 1822. Encke’s role was comparable to Halley’s, even though many had seen the comet before him—Pierre Méchain and Charles Messier recorded it as early as 1786.

Jean-Louis Pons spotted the comet in 1818 and noticed similarities with its appearance in 1805, but he passed the idea to Encke, who performed the complex calculations and gained the fame. Although Pons discovered a record 37 comets, his name is borne by only three, including the recently topical Pons-Brooks comet. If Pons was not credited with that fourth comet, it is hard to see why Eilmer should displace Halley.

From Laws of Physics to Birds

Most other astronomical objects do not bear the names of their finders. Asteroids are named based on the year of discovery, and only later are they assigned names of deserving individuals by decision of the astronomical community. Stars rarely bear the names of individuals, with exceptions like Barnard’s Star. There are also controversies, such as that surrounding the Magellanic Clouds, for which there are strong arguments that they should not bear the name of a slave trader and mass murderer, yet the name remains in use.

A better comparison with comets might be scientific theorems. It often happens that a law bears the name of a person who did not discover it first. For example, l’Hôpital’s rule for calculating limits was actually discovered by Johann Bernoulli, whom l’Hôpital employed under the condition that he retained the rights to his discoveries. Although l’Hôpital later acknowledged Bernoulli’s contribution, the name stuck. Officially, Hubble’s Law is now called the Hubble-Lemaître Law by decision of the International Astronomical Union, but most people still use only Hubble’s name.

The only area of science where renaming is becoming common is biology, specifically ornithology. The American Ornithological Society is changing the popular names of birds named after people, replacing them with descriptive names or those reflecting the names used by indigenous peoples. The goal is to remove names associated with racism or a violent past.

Edmond Halley, on the other hand, enjoys considerably higher standing. Not only was he a great scientist, but he was also a peacemaker who soothed conflicts among the vainer scientists of his day, without which Newton’s “Principia” might never have been published. It is unlikely that such a figure will lose the rights to the name of his comet, regardless of historical speculations about a flying monk.

{ https://curiosmos.com/category/unsolved-mysteries/ }

03-02-2026 om 23:51 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

03-02-2026 om 22:52 geschreven door peter  

{ https://www.universetoday.com/ }

03-02-2026 om 22:16 geschreven door peter  

Hidden giants: mountain structures at the base of the mantle influence the Earth’s magnetic field

Mykyta Lytvynov

Scientists from the University of Liverpool have reported finding evidence of two giant super-hot mountain structures located at the base of the mantle. These structures influence the Earth’s magnetic field.

A sensational discovery

Exploring the Earth’s interior is a much more difficult task than exploring the Solar System. While the Voyager 1 probe has already traveled 25 billion kilometers away from our planet, the deepest borehole has only reached a depth of 12 kilometers. As a result, very little is known about the conditions existing at the boundary between the mantle and the core. But this is a very important place of interaction in the Earth’s interior, where recent studies have revealed interesting magnetic activity.

In a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists from the University of Liverpool presented evidence of the existence of two enormous super-hot mountain structures in this region. They are located at the base of the Earth’s mantle at a depth of about 2,900 km beneath Africa and the Pacific Ocean. Research shows that these huge chunks of solid, superheated material, surrounded by a ring of cooler rock from pole to pole, influence the underlying liquid outer core, shaping the Earth’s magnetic field over millions of years.

Reconstruction of the ancient magnetic field of the Earth

Both measuring ancient magnetic fields and simulating the processes that generate them are technically challenging tasks. To explore the Earth’s interior, the research team combined paleomagnetic observations with advanced computer simulations of the geodynamo — the flow of liquid iron in the outer core that generates the Earth’s magnetic field, much like a wind turbine generates electricity.

Numerical models have enabled scientists to reconstruct key observations of magnetic field behavior over the past 265 million years. Even with the help of a supercomputer, conducting such simulations, especially over long periods of time, is a huge computational task.

The results show that the upper boundary of the outer core is far from homogeneous in temperature. On the contrary, it exhibits strong thermal contrasts with localized hot spots covered by continent-sized mountain structures.

It has also been demonstrated that some parts of the magnetic field appear to have remained relatively stable for hundreds of millions of years, while others have changed significantly over time.

Earth’s magnetic field and ancient climate

Andy Biggin, a professor of geomagnetism at the University of Liverpool, commented on the study as follows:

“These findings suggest that there are strong temperature contrasts in the rocky mantle just above the core and that, beneath the hotter regions, the liquid iron in the core may stagnate rather than participate in the vigorous flow seen beneath the cooler regions. Gaining such insights into the deep Earth on very long timescales strengthens the case for using records of the ancient magnetic field to understand both the dynamic evolution of the deep Earth and its more stable properties.”

The findings are also important for questions related to ancient continental configurations, such as the formation and breakup of Pangaea, and may help resolve longstanding uncertainties in the fields of paleoclimate, paleobiology, and natural resource formation. Previously, it was believed that the Earth’s magnetic field, on average over long periods, behaved like an ideal bar magnet aligned with the planet’s axis of rotation. Now it has become clear that this may not be entirely true.

• Earlier, we reported on the expansion of the South Atlantic Anomaly.
• According to University of Liverpool

• Posted in News, Science

RELATED VIDEOS

{news https://universemagazine.com/en/-en/science-en/ }

03-02-2026 om 22:01 geschreven door peter  

The second stage of China’s Zhuque-3 rocket left orbit and fell to Earth, doing so… twice. Before this, many European countries feared that it might fall on their territory.

What is “Zhuque-3”?

The Zhongyue-3 rocket was developed by the Chinese company LandSpace. It is a partially reusable rocket that uses methane as fuel and liquid oxygen as an oxidizer. In a fully disposable configuration, the rocket is capable of delivering up to 12 tons of cargo into low orbit, and up to 8 tons in a version with a returnable first stage.

Zhuque-3 was launched on December 3, 2025. This was its maiden flight. After separation, the first stage successfully performed a braking maneuver and entered the atmosphere. However, during the final stage of descent, it caught fire and ultimately crashed just a few meters from the landing site.

As for the second stage of the Zhuque-3, it successfully reached orbit and remained in space thereafter. As a rule, launch operators attempt to remove spent stages from orbit to prevent them from becoming space debris and posing a threat to spacecraft. However, for some reason, LandSpace did not do this. So the uncontrolled stage remained in space.

Panic in Europe

Over the next two months, the altitude of the second stage of Zhuque-3 gradually decreased due to deceleration in the upper layers of the Earth’s atmosphere. This process was significantly accelerated by increased solar activity, accompanied by a series of powerful flares that caused bright polar auroras.

By the end of January, the altitude of Zhuque-3 had decreased so much that it became clear that it would soon enter the Earth’s atmosphere. Since the stage weighed 7.5 tons (not counting the payload simulator, which weighed several more tons), this naturally raised concerns that its unburned debris could fall in a populated area and cause damage.

The situation caused the greatest concern in Europe. On January 30, the British government asked mobile operators to ensure the operability of the warning system in preparation for a possible rocket crash. Concerns about the consequences of the Zhuque-3 crash were also expressed in the media of other countries, such as Poland and Belgium.

However, in reality, until the very last hours, there was no way to predict where exactly the Chinese rocket would fall. The process of space debris falling is influenced by many factors, ranging from its orbit to the shape and strength of its components. The only thing that could be said with certainty was that it would happen somewhere between 57° north latitude and 57° south latitude.

A rocket that crashed twice

In the end, everything ended well. On January 30, at 12:39 p.m. UTC, the debris from Zhuque-3 fell into the southern Pacific Ocean. At least, that was the initial report. Both simulation results and data from the US military, whose satellite recorded a fireball in the region at an altitude of 80-90 km, indicated that the Chinese rocket fell at this point. This corresponds to the final stage of entry into the atmosphere.

However, nine hours later, the US Space Force released final data indicating that Zhuque-3 had fallen to Earth… twice. The first time, as reported, it happened at 12:39 p.m. UTC in the southern Pacific Ocean. However, one hour and four minutes later, a second fireball was recorded along the trajectory of Zhuque-3, this time over the Indian Ocean.

According to satellite spotter Marco Langbroek, there are two possible explanations for the situation. The first is a simple mistake or confusion. However, in his opinion, another, very rare scenario took place. The apogee of Zhuque-3’s last orbit was 211 km, while its perigee was 102 km. According to Langbroek, when the stage passed perigee, it began to disintegrate and broke into several pieces. The less durable components disintegrated over the Pacific Ocean, while the more durable and massive piece survived. After that, it managed to make another half-turn, after which it finally entered the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean. This fragment was probably a payload simulator, which was more durable than the stage.

The case of Zhuque-3 demonstrates once again that even with modern technology, it is extremely difficult to predict the location of space debris. That is why all participants in the space market must remove spent rocket stages from orbit to prevent such situations from recurring.

You can find out more about the most famous cases of space debris falling from our article.

• Posted in Articles, Questions

{ https://universemagazine.com/en/news-en/science-en/ }

03-02-2026 om 21:26 geschreven door peter  

Now, the “lost” ancient writing has been made discernible as bright orange markings the X-rays have revealed, according to Minhal Gardezi, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who was involved in the research.

A “Phaenomena” Emerges

The text revealed by SLAC researchers comprises portions of the poem “Phaenomena,” which dates to around 275 B.C. and is attributed to the Greek poet Aratus of Soli. The copies of the poem the SLAC team studied had likely been made sometime in the 6th century, at which time the unknown scribe also included sections comprising appendices relating to the positions of stars in various constellations, which were a perfect match for work known to have been undertaken by Hipparchus.

Originally transcribed on portions of animal hide, the remnants of the ancient poem were held within Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt’s Sinai desert for centuries. At some point between the 9th and 10th centuries, the original text on the palimpsest appears to have been erased and reused to record a series of monastic treatises, seemingly destroying the ancient scientific information the ancient record once contained.

SLAC’s particle accelerator has now revealed these “lost” portions of the ancient poem using powerful X-rays, making the invisible records from long ago visible again for the first time in centuries (images of which can be seen here).

In the past, very little from Hipparchus’s writings has been recovered, and most of our knowledge of the ancient Greek astronomer stems from secondhand sources. Based on such information, scholars are aware that he can be credited with the creation of one of the earliest star catalogs, as well as early mathematical innovations that include the invention of trigonometry.

The team’s discovery is important, since it offers a rare glimpse at such records from the ancient world, which were often recorded on perishable materials like papyrus, which seldom survive through the ages.

Going beyond even the surprise discovery of these ancient astronomical records, the SLAC team’s process reveals a promising new means by which researchers may be able to retrieve similar “lost” information from surviving ancient records, especially those kept on more rugged materials that were often reused throughout time.

The recent discovery represents a veritable cornucopia of ancient information related to a crucial period in the emergence of science close to two millennia ago. However, this is not the first indication that traces of earlier ancient writing had been present on the palimpsest. In the past, earlier use of advanced imaging techniques had already shown that some form of writing was discernible.

One theory as to why traces of the earlier text remain involves chemicals within the ink used by the earlier scribe, which caused very subtle alterations to how the material absorbs light.

Thanks to the presence of these chemical residues that have remained throughout the ages, exposing the faint markings to light at various wavelengths helps to reveal them. In this case, focused direction of intense X-rays onto the manuscript caused the ancient ink’s remnants to fluoresce, allowing the SLAC team to discern them.

Going forward, the team says they will examine the codex’s complete collection of palimpsests, which may likely reveal additional “lost” knowledge about early science from the world of 2000 years ago.

Additional details about the team’s discoveries, as well as imagery of the palimpsests and videos detailing the use of the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource used to recover the once-lost astronomical text, can be found here.

• Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. A longtime reporter on science, defense, and technology with a focus on space and astronomy, he can be reached at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow him on X @MicahHanks, and at micahhanks.com.

RELATED VIDEOS

{ https://thedebrief.org/category/space/ }

03-02-2026 om 21:12 geschreven door peter