Latest news with #Nasa
Yahoo
an hour ago
- General
- Yahoo
Is there frozen water just floating around in outer space like 'dirty snowballs'?
GREENBELT, Md. – Astronomers now believe frozen water might be a common sight outside of our solar system thanks to newly reviewed data from Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope. According to the space agency, scientists have confirmed the presence of ice around HD 181327, a star that is similar to our Sun. The giant star is located about 155 light-years away from Earth and is thought to be around 23 million years old – much younger than the 4.6-billion-year-old Sun. But similar to our solar system's star, HD 181327 is surrounded by a large, dusty debris and that is where scientists say the ice exists. Previous research had suggested the presence of frozen water, but its potential existence wasn't solidified until after the Webb became operational. "Webb unambiguously detected not just water ice, but crystalline water ice, which is also found in locations like Saturn's rings and icy bodies in our solar system's Kuiper Belt," Chen Xie, the lead author of the new paper and an assistant research scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, said in a statement. See The Objects Humans Left Behind On The Moon Scientists described the ice as resembling dirty snowballs and published an artist rendering of what the phenomenon would look like if an astronaut had a front-row seat to the icy belt. As any novice would surmise, the debris disk is said to vary in water ice thickness, from being heavily populated to non-existent the closer you move to the star. "In the area of the debris disk closest to the star, Webb detected almost none. It's likely that the star's ultraviolet light vaporizes the closest specks of water ice. It's also possible that rocks known as planetesimals have "locked up" frozen water in their interiors, which Webb can't detect," NASA stated. Why is finding ice so important? It may lead to planet formation and bring together the origins of life. "The presence of water ice helps facilitate planet formation," Xie stated. "Icy materials may also ultimately be 'delivered' to terrestrial planets that may form over a couple hundred million years in systems like this." Water ice has already been observed in numerous locations within our solar system, including on Mercury, Mars, Saturn, our Moon, other planets' moons, and the Kuiper Belt. Scientists say what Webb has not picked up on yet are planets around HD 181327, which could be for various reasons, including the infancy of the distant solar system. Future Of Nasa's Mega Moon Rocket Appears In Doubt Following Major Boeing Announcement The Webb is nearing four years in space and has already beamed back stunning images that far surpass the quality of imagery produced by the Hubble and other older telescopes. NASA believes operations of the James Webb Space Telescope have exceeded expectations, and the space observatory could easily exceed its expected 10-year article source: Is there frozen water just floating around in outer space like 'dirty snowballs'?
The Journal
14 hours ago
- Business
- The Journal
Ireland should build a space centre, former NASA chief economist suggests
SPACE TRAVEL IS going to become a trillion dollar industry, and Ireland should think about how it could get a piece of it. That's according to the former chief economist for Nasa, Alex MacDonald, who says Ireland is uniquely placed to join the modern-day space race, thanks to close links to America and the fact that we're an English speaking nation. MacDonald, who helped establish the US space agency's Mars to Moon strategy , said opening a small space centre for research could help Irish businesses creating new technologies to gain access to the American market. 'Just like AI, it's another technology domain that Ireland can make a policy choice about,' MacDonald said. 'The total space economy is probably on the order of $600 to $700 billion a year around the world. That's likely to grow significantly to over a trillion dollars over the next decade. 'Space as a policy tool area can be applied to almost whatever it is that you think is important.' Advertisement Ireland has nearly doubled its investment in the European Space Agency in recent years, going from €21.31 million in 2018 to €40.28 million in 2024. MacDonald said knowledge gleaned from space exploration can contribute towards research on issues like climate change and agriculture. He said there are ways Ireland has contributed to space exploration already and the idea that the Irish 'don't really do that sort of thing' is wrong. The Great Telescope at Birr Castle in Offaly was used in the 1800s to discover that some galaxies have a spiral shape, and the Rosse Observatory at the Co Offaly site is still used by Trinity College to study radio emissions from astronomical objects, such as the Sun. More recently, in 2023, researchers at University College Dublin launched the EIRSAT-1 satellite, costing €7.9 million, the country's largest investment in a space project . Pupils from DEIS schools helped write a poem that was carved into the side of the spacecraft, which is still in orbit. MacDonald says incorporating history and the arts into how we learn about space exploration could help people connect with it. Ireland, he says, could work towards becoming a world leader in astronomy, and 'have independent missions, maybe even in cooperation with other space agencies around the world'. MacDonald was speaking at the Global Economic Summit in Killarney, where politicians, businesspeople and tech experts met to discuss a range of modern-day challenges, from artifical intelligence to space warfare. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
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Business Standard
17 hours ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Trump seeks $1 billion for private-sector-led human missions to Mars
The White House's 2026 budget proposal, calls for allocating more than $1 billion for Mars exploration, including a new Nasa initiative called the Commercial Mars Payload Services programme Bloomberg US President Donald Trump wants to tap the private sector to pave the way for human missions to Mars in a proposal that closely aligns with the goals of Elon Musk. The White House's 2026 budget proposal, released late on Friday, calls for allocating more than $1 billion for Mars exploration, including a new Nasa initiative called the Commercial Mars Payload Services Programme (CMPS). Under the proposal, Nasa would award contracts to companies developing spacesuits, communications systems and a human-rated landing vehicle to foster exploration of the Red Planet. Trump's proposed $18.8 billion Nasa budget would cut the agency's funding by about 25 per cent from the year before, with big hits to its science portfolio. The fleshed-out request on Friday builds upon a condensed budget proposal released earlier this month. 'We must continue to be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars,' Nasa Acting Administrator Janet Petro wrote in a letter included in the request. 'That means making strategic decisions — including scaling back or discontinuing ineffective efforts.' According to the budget, the contract to land on Mars would build upon existing lander contracts. Musk's SpaceX is already developing a version of its Starship rocket to take Americans back to the moon's surface under the agency's Artemis program. Musk laid out a grandiose vision for a sprawling settlement on Mars during a talk earlier this week with SpaceX employees. Trump's pick to run Nasa, tech billionaire Jared Isaacman, told lawmakers the agency could pursue the moon and Mars in parallel. The administration's proposed cuts, particularly changes to Nasa's science portfolio, have generated criticism from people in the space industry and lawmakers, including from former Republican Congressmen like Newt Gingrich and Bob Walker. Isaacman himself said the science cuts wouldn't be an 'optimal outcome.' The administration earlier revealed plans to phase out the Boeing Co.-built Space Launch System rocket and the Lockheed Martin Corp. Orion crew capsule, parts of which have been in development for years, after three flights. Instead, the budget details a strategy for new, private sector-led trips back to the moon, which the White House said would minimize costs and reduce schedule risks. It would be modeled on a Nasa program that helped to fuel development of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Northrop Grumman Corp.'s cargo-hauling Cygnus. The budget proposal is likely to run into resistance from veteran members of Congress, like Texas Republicans Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Brian Babin, who have fiercely defended the current plans for going back to the moon.
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Stranded astronauts didn't know if they would 'be able to make it back'
When astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore approached the International Space Station (ISS) last year with failing thrusters on their Boeing Starliner capsule, they were unable to fly forward to dock. And if they couldn't dock, they didn't know if they could make it back home again. "Docking was imperative," Mr Wilmore told BBC News, two months after he and Ms Williams finally made a successful return to Earth. "If we weren't able to dock, would we be able to make it back? We didn't know." The astronauts had been travelling on a test flight that was meant to last eight days. Instead, they ended up staying in space for nearly 10 months. The first challenge was to dock safely and successfully at the ISS, which they managed to do within several minutes after Mission Control on the ground helped them restart the craft's thrusters. Mr Wilmore said that the possibility they might never see Earth again "definitely went through our minds". But both astronauts said they didn't communicate the worst-case scenarios out loud in those moments, because they were trained to move on with solving problems. "You sort of read each other's mind and know where we're going with all the failures," Ms Williams told the BBC. "These were not expected," she admitted. But thoughts quickly turned to solutions: "At the same time, you know, we're like, what do we have? What can we do?" Astronauts Butch and Suni finally back on Earth How did the Nasa pair fill nine months in space? The pair's saga began in June 2024. They were taking part in the first crewed test flight of the Starliner spacecraft, which was developed by aerospace company Boeing. But after a number of technical problems during their flight, the option of Starliner carrying the astronauts home as planned was deemed to be a risk not worth taking - given that the pair could instead be brought back by another company, SpaceX. For that reason, they stayed in space until they hitched a ride back on a SpaceX capsule. For its part, Boeing maintained that its own capsule was safe to use - and was proven right when the craft returned, uncrewed, in September 2024. After months of experiments aboard the space station, Ms Williams and Mr Wilmore eventually returned to Earth on 18 March. During this phase of their mission, the pair were repeatedly described as stranded, implying there was no means for them to get off the ISS. But that was not the case, as the space station always has spacecraft attached to it - which could have acted in an emergency as a lifeboat to carry the astronauts back to Earth. Nonetheless, the pair's stay was longer than expected - though the Nasa pair embraced this. "We knew nobody was going to just let us down... we knew everybody had our back and was looking out for us," Ms Williams said. While in limbo, the pair even found themselves in the middle of a political row, after US President Donald Trump blamed his predecessor Joe Biden for abandoning them in space. But the astronauts said they ignored the politics and didn't feel abandoned. "We can't speak to that at all," said Mr Wilmore. "We understand space flight is hard, human space flight is even harder." After two months back on the ground, both astronauts say they are feeling fit and well, because the workouts that they undertook while in their zero-gravity environment paid off. Exercising in zero gravity means your body doesn't need much time to recover from the daily squats and deadlifts, Mr Wilmore explained. He said he performed squats and deadlifts "every single day for almost 10 months", meaning that he returned to Earth "literally stronger than I've ever been in my life". Ms Williams agreed - she went running days after landing back on Earth and once ran a full marathon in space strapped to a treadmill - but said it's not always easy to readjust to the weight of the world. "Just getting gravity back on your head and your back and all that kind of stuff is a little bit painful," she said. Since their return, the pair have been working with Nasa and Boeing to fix problems with the malfunctioning spacecraft that took them into space last summer. "We are very positively hopeful that there will be opportunities to fly the Boeing Starliner in the future," Mr Wilmore said. And both astronauts said they would personally fly in the craft again - once those technical issues were resolved. "It's a very capable spacecraft," Ms Williams said. "It has unique capabilities compared to other spacecraft that are out there that are really great for future astronauts to fly." What nine months in space does to the human body Astronauts reveal what life is like on ISS – and how they deal with 'space smell'
Metro
a day ago
- Health
- Metro
Major health update on astronauts who were stranded in space for nine months
A pair of NASA astronauts who were stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) last year have completed a gruelling 45-day rehab course to readapt to Earth's atmosphere. Butch Wilmore, 62, and Sunita Williams, 59, lost significants amoutn of muscle mass and bone density after spending nine months on the ISS. This left them suffering extreme fatigue, with Ms Williams struggling to get out of bed for weeks after their return in March. Mr Wilmore, who suffered neck and back issues before the flight, said he immediately started suffering problems after landing back on Earth. 'We're still floating in the capsule in the ocean, and my neck starts hurting, while we still hadn't even been extracted yet,' he told the Reuters news agency. Ms Williams added: 'Gravity stinks for a period, and that period varies for different people, but eventually you get over those neurovestibular balance type of issues. 'It's been a little bit of a whirlwind. Because we also have obligations to all of the folks that we worked with.' The pair spent at least two hours a day working with NASA's strength and reconditioning experts on top of their regular workload. They set off last June for what was supposed to be an eight-day test flight for the Boeing Starliner transport craft. It turned into a nine-month stay on the ISS after their space capsule suffered technical issues and had to return to Earth crewless. The pair did not comment on the ins and outs of their problems, but previous comments by astronauts shed some insight onto what they may have experienced. 'After six months to a year, you gradually lose the thick, calloused skin on your feet,' retired Nasa astronaut, Leroy Chiao, told NewsNation Prime in March. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Once the harder skin peels off, the feet are usually left soft and tender he said, adding: 'You kind of have baby feet when you come back.' Until the feet build up hard skin again, which can take from weeks to months, walking can be uncomfortable and even agonising. Another Nasa veteran, Terry Virtz, said he felt 'really dizzy' on landing and struggled with his sense of balance for some time. An astronaut's heart can shrink slightly because the body needs to make less effort to pump blood around. More Trending Their vision can be affected due to fluid shifting around differently and putting pressure on the optic nerve. Psychological effects such as anxiety and depression can also persist. Mr Wilmore said he backed calls for Nasa to fly the Starliner crewless again before its next manned flight. Nasa officials said results from testing planned over the summer will determine the decision. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Six asteroids 'dangerous to Earth' discovered – but could they really hit us? MORE: Twist in search for mysterious 'Planet Nine' in the dark depths of our solar system MORE: The Milky Way will be most visible until this date in the US – here's how to see it
