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Ever since the NASA InSight Mission deployed the SEIS seismometer on the surface of Mars in 2018, seismologists and geophysicists at ETH Zurich have been listening to the seismic pings of more than 1,300 marsquakes. Again and again, the researchers registered smaller and larger Mars quakes. A detailed analysis of the quakes’ location and spectral character eventually brought a surprise. With epicenters originating in the vicinity of the Cerberus Fossae — a region consisting of a series of rifts or graben — these quakes tell a new story....

Study sheds light on the future of the massive Thwaites Glacier. The world’s largest ice sheets may be in less danger of sudden collapse than previously predicted, according to new findings led by the University of Michigan. The study, published in Science, included simulating the demise of West Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier, one of the world’s largest and most unstable glaciers. Researchers modeled the collapse of various heights of ice cliffs—near-vertical formations that occur where glaciers and ice shelves meet the ocean....

The model, developed by scientists at the Universities of Cambridge and Liverpool, is published recently in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. It uses mathematical equations to provide general insights about how COVID-19 will spread under different potential control scenarios. Control measures involving facemasks, handwashing, and short-scale (1-2 meter) social distancing can all limit the number of virus particles being spread between people. These are termed ‘non spatial’ measures to distinguish them from a second category of ‘spatial’ control measures that include lockdown and travel restrictions, which reduce how far virus particles can spread....

MIT engineers are working on developing soft, flexible neural implants that can gently conform to the brain’s contours and monitor activity over longer periods, without aggravating surrounding tissue. Such flexible electronics could be softer alternatives to existing metal-based electrodes designed to monitor brain activity, and may also be useful in brain implants that stimulate neural regions to ease symptoms of epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and severe depression. Led by Xuanhe Zhao, a professor of mechanical engineering and of civil and environmental engineering, the research team has now developed a way to 3D print neural probes and other electronic devices that are as soft and flexible as rubber....

MIT researchers have developed a new method to 3D print mechanisms that detect how force is being applied to an object. The structures are made from a single piece of material, so they can be rapidly prototyped. A designer could use this method to 3D print “interactive input devices,” like a joystick, switch, or handheld controller, in one go. To accomplish this, the researchers integrated electrodes into structures made from metamaterials, which are materials divided into a grid of repeating cells....

An eruption a hundred times smaller than Mount Toba — that of Mount Tambora, also in Indonesia, in 1815 — is thought to have been responsible for a year without summer in 1816. The impact on the human population was dire — crop failures in Eurasia and North America, famine, and mass migrations. The effect of Mount Toba, a super-volcano that dwarfs even the massive Yellowstone eruptions of the deeper past, would have had a much larger, and longer-felt, impact on people around the globe....

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a fundamentally new approach to DNA data storage systems, giving users the ability to read or modify data files without destroying them and making the systems easier to scale up for practical use. “Most of the existing DNA data storage systems rely on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to access stored files, which is very efficient at copying information but presents some significant challenges,” says Albert Keung, co-corresponding author of a paper on the work....

The approach combines traditional chemotherapy drugs with a new method for irradiating the tumor. The treatment implants radioactive iodine-131 directly into the tumor inside a gel-like depot that protects healthy tissue and is absorbed by the body once the radiation fades, as opposed to administering radiation from an external beam that passes through healthy tissue. The study was recently published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering. “We did a deep dive through over 1100 treatments across preclinical models and never found results where the tumors shrank away and disappeared like ours did,” said Jeff Schaal, who conducted the research during his Ph....

A new all-optical approach for driving multiple highly dense nanolaser arrays has been developed by researchers in Korea. The method could enable chip-based optical communication links that process and move data much faster than current electronic-based devices. “The development of optical interconnects equipped with high-density nanolasers would improve information processing in the data centers that move information across the internet,” said research team leader Myung-Ki Kim from Korea University. “This could allow streaming of ultra-high-definition movies, enable larger-scale interactive online encounters and games, accelerate the expansion of the Internet of Things and provide the fast connectivity needed for big data analytics....

“Feathers are valued across the Americas and we see them in high-status burials,” said José M. Capriles, assistant professor of anthropology, Penn State. “We don’t know how the feathers got there, the routes they took or the network.” Parrots and macaws are not native to the Atacama, which is in northern Chile and is the driest desert in the world, but archaeologists have found feathers in burial context and preserved in leather boxes or other protective material, and they have also found mummified birds — parrots and macaws — at archaeological sites....

The installation is part of a series of spacewalks to augment the International Space Station’s power channels with new International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Arrays (iROSAs). Four iROSAs have been installed so far, and two more will be mounted to the platforms installed during this spacewalk in the future. Mann, designated as extravehicular crew member 2 (EV 2), is wearing an unmarked suit. Wakata, designated as extravehicular crew member 1 (EV 1), is wearing a suit with red stripes....

“I’m super excited…it makes me very proud of all the time and effort the team has invested to get this far,” said David Petri, system integration and test lead for the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER). The team recently began assembling the 1,000-pound rover at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. Engineers have affixed the rover’s lower chassis plate and the lower parts of the frame that will support all of VIPER – from the bottom of its wheels to the tip of its headlights....

As an initial step, NASA will no longer refer to planetary nebula NGC 2392, the glowing remains of a Sun-like star that is blowing off its outer layers at the end of its life, as the “Eskimo Nebula.” “Eskimo” is widely viewed as a colonial term with a racist history, imposed on the indigenous people of Arctic regions. Most official documents have moved away from its use. NASA will also no longer use the term “Siamese Twins Galaxy” to refer to NGC 4567 and NGC 4568, a pair of spiral galaxies found in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster....

Following the recent successful launch of a Mars rover and safely bringing home astronauts from low-Earth orbit aboard a new commercial spacecraft, NASA is looking forward to more exploration firsts now through 2021. The agency is sending the first woman and next man to the Moon in 2024, establishing sustainable exploration by the end of the decade as part of the Artemis program while getting ready for human exploration of Mars....

Analyzing just the first sets of data gathered during the New Horizons spacecraft’s New Year’s 2019 flyby of MU69 (nicknamed Ultima Thule) the mission team quickly discovered an object far more complex than expected. The team publishes the first peer-reviewed scientific results and interpretations – just four months after the flyby – in the May 17 issue of the journal Science. In addition to being the farthest exploration of an object in history – four billion miles from Earth – the flyby of Ultima Thule was also the first investigation by any space mission of a well-preserved planetesimal, an ancient relic from the era of planet formation....

The finding is based on data from the European Mars Express spacecraft, obtained by a radar instrument called MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding). The Italian Space Agency (ASI) led the development of the MARSIS radar. NASA provided half of the instrument, with management of the U.S. portion led by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The paper, authored by the Italian MARSIS team, outlines how a “bright spot” was detected in radar signals about 1 mile (about 1....

Curiosity is currently investigating a region on Mount Sharp that may hold evidence of a major change from wetter to drier conditions in Mars’ early history. The main panorama included here was stitched together using 113 images from Mastcam’s left lens. The image is processed to approximate the color and brightness of the scene as it would look to the human eye under normal daytime conditions on Earth. Figure B is the same scene as Figure A, the main panorama, but captured using 114 images from the right lens and showing the top of the mound more thoroughly....

GRBs are the most powerful events in the universe, detectable across billions of light-years. Astronomers classify them as long or short based on whether the event lasts for more or less than two seconds. They observe long bursts in association with the demise of massive stars, while short bursts have been linked to a different scenario. Astronomers combined data from NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, other space missions, and ground-based observatories to reveal the origin of GRB 200826A, a brief but powerful burst of radiation....

NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or NEOWISE, spacecraft completes one trip halfway around the Sun every six months, taking images in all directions. Once stitched together, those images form an “all-sky” map showing the location and brightness of hundreds of millions of objects. Using 18 all-sky maps produced by the spacecraft (with the 19th and 20th to be released in March 2023), astronomers have constructed what is essentially a time-lapse movie of the sky, revealing changes that span a decade....

As Webb approaches launch in 2021, technicians and engineers have been busy checking off a long list of last tests that the observatory will go through before being packed for transportation to French Guiana for launch. This procedure, carried out in early March, included instructing the spacecraft’s internal systems to completely extend and lock Webb’s distinctive 21 feet 4-inch (6.5-meter) main mirror, making it exactly as it would after it has been launched into orbit....