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After 15 Years and 1,000 Tests – Is Orion’s Heat Shield Ready To Take the Heat?

Lead Image: A sample of the Orion spacecraft’s heat shield material undergoes testing in the Laser-Enhanced Arc Jet Facility at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley on April 19, 2021. Orion’s thermal protection materials underwent more than 1,000 arc jet tests, during which extremely hot and fast-moving gases passed over the test material, approximating the heating a spacecraft experiences when entering the atmosphere. The test results helped certify the heat shield for the Artemis I mission. Credit: NASA/Ames Research Center When Artemis I launched on Wednesday, November 16, NASA’s new mega Moon rocket carried the Orion spacecraft –…

Wild Research Project Reveals How Future Cities on Asteroids Could Work

Lead Image: In what they deem a “wildly theoretical” paper, University of Rochester researchers imagine covering an asteroid in a flexible, mesh bag made of ultralight and high-strength carbon nanofibers as the key to creating human cities in space. Credit: University of Rochester illustration / Michael Osadciw University of Rochester scientists show how asteroids could be future viable space habitats using physics and engineering principles. During this past year, Jeff Bezos launched himself into space, while Elon Musk funded a space flight for a non-astronaut crew. Space collaborations between government and private entities, including Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’s Blue Origin,…

New Research Reveals That COVID Virus Alters RNA in Infected Cells

Lead Image: Structure of a coronavirus. Credit: Wikimedia A new study describes how the functioning of RNA changes in cells infected by SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 virus. The findings provide clues as to how different variants can escape the immune system, and serve as a basis for the development of novel treatments. For the first time, scientists have shown that infection by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, changes the functioning of host cell RNA. The researchers, from the Federal University of São Paulo (UNIFESP) in Brazil, arrived at this conclusion by analyzing 13 datasets obtained during four studies of viral,…

What Is Quantum Entanglement? A Physicist Explains Einstein’s “Spooky Action at a Distance”

Lead Image: When two particles are entangled, the state of one is tied to the state of the other. Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon in which the quantum states of two or more objects become correlated, meaning that the state of one object can affect the state of the other(s) even if the objects are separated by large distances. This occurs because, according to quantum theory, particles can exist in multiple states at the same time (a concept known as superposition) and can be inextricably linked, or “entangled,” even if they are physically separated. Three researchers were awarded the 2022…

Researchers Discover Water Filled Exoplanets using Hubble and Spitzer Telescopes

Lead image: Artist’s illustration of the Kepler-138 system, with Kepler-138d in the foreground, Kepler-138c to the left, and Kepler-138b transiting the red dwarf in the background. Credit: NASA/ESA/Leah Hustak (STScI) Using data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and retired Spitzer Space Telescope, a group of researchers has discovered two exoplanets that may be largely comprised of water. Located around a red dwarf star 218 light-years away, the two planets are low in density. Furthermore, the researchers, led by Caroline Piaulet of the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets at the University of Montreal, found evidence of an additional planet that…