NASA

Representation of a solar superflare (Image NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.)

1

An article published in the journal “Nature Geoscience” describes a study on the relationship between super solar flares of a few billion years ago and the emergence of life forms on Earth. According to a team of NASA scientists led by Vladimir Airapetian those gigantic storms provided the energy needed to warm up the Earth and to trigger some chemical reactions needed to form complex molecules such as RNA and DNA on which life is based.

Artistic representation of a supermassive black hole seed. The inset boxes show a candidate seen by Chandra (top) and by Hubble (bottom) (Image X-ray: NASA/CXC/Scuola Normale Superiore/F. Pacucci, et al. Optical: NASA/STScI. Illustration: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss)

1

An article that will be published in the journal “Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society” describes a research on the origin of supermassive black holes. A team of Italian scientists led by Fabio Pacucci of Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa used NASA’s space telescopes to identify two ancient objects that represent the best candidates black hole “seeds” found so far.

The ring current during quiet time (left) and during a geomagnetic storm (right) (Image Johns Hopkins APL)

0

An article published in the journal “Geophysical Research Letters” describes a research on the behavior of the ring of particles that surrounds the Earth. Using the measurements taken by the RBSPICE instrument aboard one of NASA’s Van Allen space probes it was possible to establish that high-energy protons in the ring current behave completely different from low-energy protons. It’s a step forward in the understanding of the Earth’s magnetosphere and therefore of the effects it may have on satellites and even the Earth’s surface.

Europa's surface with its icy crust full of fractures (Photo NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute)

0

An article published in the journal “Geophysical Research Letters” describes a research on chemical characteristics existing in the underground ocean of Europa, one of the planet Jupiter’s big moons. A team of scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory team (JPL) compared the potential to produce hydrogen and oxygen with that of the Earth, concluding that they’re comparable.

Artistic concept of the MMS space probes at the boundaries of the Earth's magnetic field (Image NASA/Goddard/Conceptual Image Lab)

0

An article published in the journal “Science” describes the first direct observation of the phenomenon called magnetic reconnection. NASA’s four MMS twin space probes allowed to obtain the best observations made so far of the interaction between the Earth and Sun’s magnetic fields. According to the researchers who analyzed the data collected, electrons trigger this phenomenon.