May 2019

There may still be tectonic activity on the Moon

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An article published in the journal “Nature Geoscience” offers clues to the fact that the Moon may still be tectonically active. A team of researchers analyzed images captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) space probe in 2010 discovering thousands of tectonic faults generated by the Moon’s progressive shrinking as it cooled down. Some researchers have been working on these geological analyzes since those photos were taken but initially they brought clues about a recent activity while the new clues indicate that an activity still exists.

The unexpected brightness of the earliest galaxies in the universe offers clues to a crucial moment in its evolution

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An article published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” shows evidence that the oldest galaxies in the universe were brighter than expected. A team of researchers combined observations made with the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes of galaxies that formed less than a billion years after the Big Bang and discovered an unexpected infrared brightness. That’s the consequence of the release of ionizing radiation and that can offer new clues to the epoch of reionization, a crucial moment in the history of the universe.

Jeff Bezos with a Blue Moon mockup (Photo courtesy Blue Origin. All rights reserved)

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Yesterday in an event presented by himself, the aerospace company Blue Origin’s owner Jeff Bezos revealed the project of a lunar lander capable of transporting up to 6,500 kg of cargo but also human beings to the Moon and to transport cargoes and astronauts from the Moon to the Earth called Blue Moon. The goal is to offer his help in the return of American astronauts to the Moon and subsequently to create there a permanent human presence.

A study of gravity waves in blue supergiant stars

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An article published in the journal “Nature Astronomy” reports the discovery that almost all blue supergiant stars show a shimmer in brightness on their surface. A team of researchers coordinated by the Katholieke Universiteit (KU) of Leuven, Belgium, used both observations made with NASA’s Kepler and TESS space telescopes and computer simulations based also on asteroseismology to study them thanks to the fact that that shimmer is caused by the presence of gravity waves on the surface of those very massive stars.