ventures-blog

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Innsbruck, Austria (by Grigorii)

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A quantum state of light has been successfully teleported through more than 30 kilometers (around 18 miles) of fiber optic cable amid a torrent of internet traffic – a feat of engineering once considered impossible. The impressive demonstration by researchers in the US may not help you beam to work to beat the morning traffic, or download your favourite cat videos faster. However, the ability to teleport quantum states through existing infrastructure represents a monumental step towards achieving a quantum-connected computing network, enhanced encryption, or powerful new methods of sensing.

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Applications are open for the Space Astronomy Summer Program (SASP) at STScI.

Every year, a dozen highly motivated college students work individually with STScI researchers and staff on science projects. Learn more and apply: https://www.stsci.edu/opportunities/space-astronomy-summer-program

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Micro/nanoplastics (MNPs), plastic particles and fibers with sizes ranging from nanometers (≥ 1 nm) to micrometers (≤ 5 mm) have become emerging environmental pollutants and are widely distributed across various ecosystems worldwide. These tiny plastic particles not only pose a threat to marine ecosystems, but also present new challenges to terrestrial ecosystems. However, research on terrestrial MNPs lagged behind marine studies. In a study published in Trends in Plant Science, researchers from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and collaborators tried to fill in the knowledge gap of the uncertainty about the effects of MNPs on multi-trophic biological interactions and ecosystem functions, especially on plants and aboveground-underground (AG-BG) food webs.

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January

fresh clear

New Year

let us

begin again

jk

artist -Eugène Grasset

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“The Secret of Meditation is radiating blessings from your heart outward to all the world.” — Swami Kriyananda Cosmic Sun Talon Abraxas

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US regulators on Friday approved the first drug treatment for sleep apnea, permitting the use of a weight-loss medication for the condition that affects millions of Americans. "This is a major step forward for patients with obstructive sleep apnea," US Food and Drugs Administration official Sally Seymour said in a statement announcing approval of Zepbound to treat moderate to severe sleep apnea in obese patients. Zepbound, from drugmaker Eli Lilly, is already approved for people who are obese or overweight and have a related health condition, such as type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol or high blood pressure. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a dangerous condition in which breathing stops intermittently while a person sleeps.

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Scientists have long known that light can sometimes appear to exit a material before entering it – an effect dismissed as an illusion caused by how waves are distorted by matter. Now, researchers at the University of Toronto, through innovative quantum experiments, say they have demonstrated that "negative time" isn't just a theoretical idea – it exists in a tangible, physical sense, deserving closer scrutiny. The findings, yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, have attracted both global attention and skepticism.

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Siusi, Italy (by Stefan Klauke)

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NASA payload aims to probe moon's depths to study heat flow

Earth's nearest neighboring body in the solar system is its moon, yet to date, humans have physically explored just 5% of its surface. It wasn't until 2023—building on Apollo-era data and more detailed studies made in 2011–2012 by NASA's automated GRAIL (Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory) mission—that researchers conclusively determined that the moon has a liquid outer core surrounding a solid inner core.

As NASA and its industry partners plan for continued exploration of the moon under Artemis in preparation for future long-duration missions to Mars, improving our understanding of Earth's 4.5-billion-year-old moon will help teams of researchers and astronauts find the safest ways to study and live and work on the lunar surface.

That improved understanding is the primary goal of a state-of-the-art science instrument called LISTER (Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity), 1 of 10 NASA payloads flying aboard the next delivery for the agency's CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and set to be carried to the surface by Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost 1 lunar lander.

Developed jointly by Texas Tech University in Lubbock and Honeybee Robotics of Altadena, California, LISTER will measure the flow of heat from the moon's interior. Its sophisticated pneumatic drill will penetrate to a depth of 3 meters into the dusty lunar regolith.

Every half-meter it descends, the drilling system will pause and extend a custom-built thermal probe into the lunar regolith. LISTER will measure two different aspects of heat flow: thermal gradient, or the changes in temperature at various depths, and thermal conductivity, or the subsurface material's ability to let heat pass through it.

"By making similar measurements at multiple locations on the lunar surface, we can reconstruct the thermal evolution of the moon," said Dr. Seiichi Nagihara, principal investigator for the mission and a geophysics professor at Texas Tech. "That will permit scientists to retrace the geological processes that shaped the moon from its start as a ball of molten rock, which gradually cooled off by releasing its internal heat into space."

Demonstrating the drill's effectiveness could lead to more innovative drilling capabilities, enabling future exploration of the moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies. The science collected by LISTER aims to contribute to our knowledge of lunar geology, improving our ability to establish a long-term presence on the moon under the Artemis campaign.

Under the CLPS model, NASA is investing in commercial delivery services to the moon to enable industry growth and support long-term lunar exploration. As a primary customer for CLPS deliveries, NASA aims to be one of many customers on future flights. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the development of 7 of the 10 CLPS payloads carried on Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander.

IMAGE: LISTER (Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity) is 1 of 10 payloads flying aboard the next delivery for NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. The instrument is equipped with a drilling system and thermal probe designed to dig into the lunar surface. Credit: Firefly Aerospace

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Lab work digs into gullies seen on giant asteroid Vesta by NASA's Dawn

Pocked with craters, the surfaces of many celestial bodies in our solar system provide clear evidence of a 4.6-billion-year battering by meteoroids and other space debris. But on some worlds, including the giant asteroid Vesta that NASA's Dawn mission explored, the surfaces also contain deep channels, or gullies, whose origins are not fully understood.

A prime hypothesis holds that they formed from dry debris flows driven by geophysical processes, such as meteoroid impacts, and changes in temperature due to sun exposure. A recent NASA study, however, provides some evidence that impacts on Vesta may have triggered a less-obvious geologic process: sudden and brief flows of water that carved gullies and deposited fans of sediment.

By using lab equipment to mimic conditions on Vesta, the study, which appeared in The Planetary Science Journal, detailed for the first time what the liquid could be made of and how long it would flow before freezing.

Although the existence of frozen brine deposits on Vesta is unconfirmed, scientists have previously hypothesized that meteoroid impacts could have exposed and melted ice that lay under the surface of worlds like Vesta. In that scenario, flows resulting from this process could have etched gullies and other surface features that resemble those on Earth.

But how could airless worlds—celestial bodies without atmospheres and exposed to the intense vacuum of space—host liquids on the surface long enough for them to flow? Such a process would run contrary to the understanding that liquids quickly destabilize in a vacuum, changing to a gas when the pressure drops.

"Not only do impacts trigger a flow of liquid on the surface, the liquids are active long enough to create specific surface features," said project leader and planetary scientist Jennifer Scully of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the experiments were conducted. "But for how long? Most liquids become unstable quickly on these airless bodies, where the vacuum of space is unyielding."

The critical component turns out to be sodium chloride—table salt. The experiments found that in conditions like those on Vesta, pure water froze almost instantly, while briny liquids stayed fluid for at least an hour. "That's long enough to form the flow-associated features identified on Vesta, which were estimated to require up to a half-hour," said lead author Michael J. Poston of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

Launched in 2007, the Dawn spacecraft traveled to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter to orbit Vesta for 14 months and Ceres for almost four years. Before ending in 2018, the mission uncovered evidence that Ceres had been home to a subsurface reservoir of brine and may still be transferring brines from its interior to the surface. The recent research offers insights into processes on Ceres but focuses on Vesta, where ice and salts may produce briny liquid when heated by an impact, scientists said.

Re-creating Vesta

To re-create Vesta-like conditions that would occur after a meteoroid impact, the scientists relied on a test chamber at JPL called the Dirty Under-vacuum Simulation Testbed for Icy Environments, or DUSTIE. By rapidly reducing the air pressure surrounding samples of liquid, they mimicked the environment around fluid that comes to the surface. Exposed to vacuum conditions, pure water froze instantly. But salty fluids hung around longer, continuing to flow before freezing.

The brines they experimented with were a little over an inch (a few centimeters) deep; scientists concluded the flows on Vesta that are yards to tens of yards deep would take even longer to refreeze.

The researchers were also able to re-create the "lids" of frozen material thought to form on brines. Essentially a frozen top layer, the lids stabilize the liquid beneath them, protecting it from being exposed to the vacuum of space—or, in this case, the vacuum of the DUSTIE chamber—and helping the liquid flow longer before freezing again.

This phenomenon is similar to how on Earth lava flows farther in lava tubes than when exposed to cool surface temperatures. It also matches up with modeling research conducted around potential mud volcanoes on Mars and volcanoes that may have spewed icy material from volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Europa.

"Our results contribute to a growing body of work that uses lab experiments to understand how long liquids last on a variety of worlds," Scully said.

TOP IMAGE: To explore potential explanations for deep channels, or gullies, seen on Vesta, scientists used JPL’s Dirty Under-vacuum Simulation Testbed for Icy Environments, or DUSTIE, to simulate conditions on the giant asteroid that would occur after meteoroids strike the surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

LOWER IMAGE: NASA’s Dawn spacecraft captured this image of Vesta as it left the giant asteroid’s orbit in 2012. The framing camera was looking down at the north pole, which is in the middle of the image. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

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Madrid, Spain (by Andi)

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M2, Great Star Cluster