Astro Blog

By Robin George Andrews , The New York Times.  Excerpt: The vermilion, amethyst and jade ribbons of the northern and southern lights are some of Earth’s most distinctive features. But our planet doesn’t have a monopoly on auroras. Scientists have spied them throughout the solar system, ... Mars , Saturn,  Jupiter  ...some of Jupiter’s  fiery and icy moons ... Uranus , too. But auroras around our sun’s most distant planet, Neptune, have long eluded astronomers. That has changed with the powerful infrared instruments aboard the James Webb Space Telescope. In a study published on Wednesday in the journal  Nature Astronomy , scientists reveal unique auroras that spill over either side of Neptune’s equator, a contrast with the glowing gossamer seen arcing over other worlds’ poles..  Full article at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/science/neptune-aurora-nasa-webb-telescope.html . 

By Paul Voosen , Science.  Excerpt: NASA’s Curiosity rover has detected what could be a chemical relic of long-ago life on Mars: long-chain organic molecules. Found after painstaking reanalysis of data on a sample drilled from a lake that dried up billions of years ago, the molecules likely derived from fatty acids, a common building block of cell membranes on Earth. The finding,  published  today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is not a definite detection of past life; the fatty acids could also have formed without life. But it’s another in a series of tantalizing hints....  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/curiosity-rover-detects-long-chain-carbon-molecules-mars . 

By Paul Voosen , Science.  Excerpt: ...the Moon formed some 65 million years after the start of the Solar System—and only tens of millions of years after Earth. The findings promise to resolve decades of debate about the Moon’s age, says Thorsten Kleine, a cosmochemist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research who  presented new work  here at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC). Several strands of research are converging on a new and older age for the Moon, he says: “It’s about 4.5 billion years.”...  Full article at https://www.science.org/content/article/impact-formed-moon-struck-practically-newborn-earth .

By Hannah Devlin , The Guardian.  Excerpt: Astronomers have discovered 128 new moons orbiting  Saturn , giving it an insurmountable lead in the running tally of moons in the solar system. Until recently, the  “moon king” title was held by Jupiter , but Saturn now has a total of 274 moons, almost twice as many as all the other planets combined....  Full article at https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/mar/11/astronomers-discover-128-new-moons-orbiting-saturn . 

By MARCIA DUNN, Associated Press.  Excerpt: A  private lunar lander  carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA touched down on the moon Sunday, the latest in a  string of companies  looking to kickstart business on Earth’s celestial neighbor ahead of  astronaut missions . Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on autopilot, aiming for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin on the moon’s northeastern edge of the near side. ...An upright and stable landing makes Firefly — a startup founded a decade ago — the first private outfit to put a spacecraft on the moon  without crashing or falling over . Even  countries have faltered , with only five claiming success: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan. ...the lander carried 10 experiments to the moon for NASA. The space agency paid $101 million for the delivery, plus $44 million for the science and tech on board. It’s the third mission under N...