Lagrange Point

What happens when two massive planets collide? How can you end up with a gas giant that's super dense and heavy? how can a planet the size of Neptune be as dense as steel? What happens when two giant planets collide at high speed? Watching a black hole devour a star, one bite at a time. 

1. Luca Naponiello, Luigi Mancini, Alessandro Sozzetti, Aldo S. Bonomo, Alessandro Morbidelli, Jingyao Dou, Li Zeng, Zoe M. Leinhardt, Katia Biazzo, Patricio E. Cubillos, Matteo Pinamonti, Daniele Locci, Antonio Maggio, Mario Damasso, Antonino F. Lanza, Jack J. Lissauer, Karen A. Collins, Philip J. Carter, Eric L. N. Jensen, Andrea Bignamini, Walter Boschin, Luke G. Bouma, David R. Ciardi, Rosario Cosentino, Silvano Desidera, Xavier Dumusque, Aldo F. M. Fiorenzano, Akihiko Fukui, Paolo Giacobbe, Crystal L. Gnilka, Adriano Ghedina, Gloria Guilluy, Avet Harutyunyan, Steve B. Howell, Jon M. Jenkins, Michael B. Lund, John F. Kielkopf, Katie V. Lester, Luca Malavolta, Andrew W. Mann, Rachel A. Matson, Elisabeth C. Matthews, Domenico Nardiello, Norio Narita, Emanuele Pace, Isabella Pagano, Enric Palle, Marco Pedani, Sara Seager, Joshua E. Schlieder, Richard P. Schwarz, Avi Shporer, Joseph D. Twicken, Joshua N. Winn, Carl Ziegler, Tiziano Zingales. A super-massive Neptune-sized planet. Nature, 2023; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06499-2
2. P. A. Evans, C. J. Nixon, S. Campana, P. Charalampopoulos, D. A. Perley, A. A. Breeveld, K. L. Page, S. R. Oates, R. A. J. Eyles-Ferris, D. B. Malesani, L. Izzo, M. R. Goad, P. T. O’Brien, J. P. Osborne, B. Sbarufatti. Monthly quasi-periodic eruptions from repeated stellar disruption by a massive black hole. Nature Astronomy, 2023; DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-02073-y
3.  

The universe scaling work of the NANOGrav team stands on the shoulders of giants to understand giants lurking in our universe. Huge decade spanning scientific projects like NANOGrav are built of ideas and concepts which we can trace back to earlier pioneers. NANOGrav relies on Pulsars to map the universe but the discovery of them can be traced back to one key woman, Jocelyn Bell Burnell. This week we dive into the discovery of Pulsars and how they have been used to make a new way of looking at the universe. Finding a periodic signal in the noise can be helpful but a whole universe them of them can widen our understanding. 

Weather in space, can seem far away but it's dazzling effects come with some danger. Aurora localised entirely around a satellite can cause a steamy situation for communications. Analysing space weather can lead to better designed satellites capable of withstanding 1-100 year solar storms. It's a balancing act when protecting satellites from solar weather, too much and too little protection can lead to disaster. Meteor showers are beautiful but how do you get one without an icey comet? The only way to get an asteroid to make a lovely meteor shower unfortunately involves a violent collision or big explosion. 

1. Nigel P. Meredith, Thomas E. Cayton, Michael D. Cayton, Richard B. Horne. Extreme Relativistic Electron Fluxes in GPS Orbit: Analysis of NS41 BDD‐IIR Data. Space Weather, 2023; 21 (6) DOI: 10.1029/2023SW003436
2. W. Z. Cukier, J. R. Szalay. Formation, Structure, and Detectability of the Geminids Meteoroid Stream. The Planetary Science Journal, 2023; 4 (6): 109 DOI: 10.3847/PSJ/acd538
3.  

Asteroid belts are harder to find than Sci-fi would have you believe. Spotting an asteroid belt is easier in the outer solar system, but closer in it gets a bit more blurry. Using the JWT we can use more than just visible light to find tricky interstellar objects. Asteroid belts are messy but they can tell us a lot about a solar system by what they leave in their wake. 

Reference:

1. András Gáspár, Schuyler Grace Wolff, George H. Rieke, Jarron M. Leisenring, Jane Morrison, Kate Y. L. Su, Kimberly Ward-Duong, Jonathan Aguilar, Marie Ygouf, Charles Beichman, Jorge Llop-Sayson, Geoffrey Bryden. Spatially resolved imaging of the inner Fomalhaut disk using JWST/MIRI. Nature Astronomy, 2023; DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-01962-6

Understanding the future of the universe requires peering into the past. How quickly the universe is expanding has been an active area of science since the 1920s, with several prizes and breakthroughs. Each time we get new or more accurate measurements it forces scientists to re-evaluate the assumptions and formulas. These breakthroughs then need to be confirmed with follow up studies. The measurement of Hubble's constant using supernova won a Nobel Prize in 2011, and new gravitational lensing measurements have provided extra confirmation to those numbers. Dark matter can influence a lot in our universe, but measuring it is difficult but using lensing techniques a more accurate measurement can be derived.

1. Mauricio Cruz Reyes, Richard I. Anderson. A 0.9% calibration of the Galactic Cepheid luminosity scale based on Gaia DR3 data of open clusters and Cepheids. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2023; 672: A85 DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202244775
2. Princeton University. (2023, April 7). How to see the invisible: Using the dark matter distribution to test our cosmological model. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 14, 2023 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230407215847.htm

Building a habitat on Mars or the Moon is hard work, but it's a lot easier if you can make your own building materials. Animal blood has historically been used as a binding agent for mortar, so could human blood help on Mars? You can make your own building materials on the Moon or Mars that are far stronger than on earth especially if you add tears and blood. Maybe you don't want to use blood in when building your martian home, but would you sacrifice your potato chips? Potato chips and some extra salt will can make for super strong building materials on the Moon or Mars. Is there ways to enhance the performance of concrete by using other industries waste byproducts? All waste has to be re-used when you're in space, but here on earth using waste water and waste steel can help boost concrete.

1. Aled D. Roberts, Nigel S. Scrutton. StarCrete: A starch-based biocomposite for off-world construction. Open Engineering, 2023; 13 (1) DOI: 10.1515/eng-2022-0390
2. Aled D. Roberts, Dominic R. Whittall, Rainer Breitling, Eriko Takano, Jonny J. Blaker, Sam Hay, Nigel S. Scrutton. Blood, sweat and tears: extraterrestrial regolith biocomposites with in vivo binders. Materials Today Bio, 2021; 100136 DOI: 10.1016/j.mtbio.2021.100136
3. Rajeev Roychand, Biplob Kumar Pramanik, Guomin Zhang, Sujeeva Setunge. Recycling steel slag from municipal wastewater treatment plants into concrete applications – A step towards circular economy. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 2020; 152: 104533 DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.104533

Using the JWST to peer into the Cosmic dawn of the universe. The JWST enables researchers to peer into the earliest galaxies in our universe. 250 Million years is not a long time when it comes to a star or galaxy. With JWST researchers can see galaxies formed 250 million years after the Big Bang. To peer into the earliest universe you must use infrared to capture the faintest light. Using new instruments on the JWST researchers are able to see galaxies from 13.25 billion years ago. JWST also lets researchers investigate strange new types of spiral galaxies from the Cosmic Noon.

1. Yoshinobu Fudamoto, Akio K. Inoue, Yuma Sugahara. Red Spiral Galaxies at Cosmic Noon Unveiled in the First JWST Image. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 2022; 938 (2): L24 DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac982b
2. University of California - Santa Cruz. (2022, December 9). Astronomers report most distant known galaxies, detected and confirmed. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 2, 2023 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/12/221209135542.htm

Hayabusa2 had an exciting voyage across our solar system, getting into dust ups and even coming back home again with data to share. We've been tracking the long journey of Hayabusa2 over the 10 years of this podcast, and we're now getting interesting data from the returned samples. The Hayabusa2 probe shot at the asteroid Ryugu and brought back proof for JAXA to study and it tells tales of a very early time in our solar system. Ryugu is much much older than we thought, born only 1.8 million years after the formation of our solar system. How does a planetary system form and why are some planets in a flat line and others really odd. Our Nepture is an anomaly not just in our solar system but also compared to others. What happened to all the other 'Hot Neptune' exoplanets? Did they get burnt off or flung away?

1. Kaitlyn A. McCain, Nozomi Matsuda, Ming-Chang Liu, Kevin D. McKeegan, Akira Yamaguchi, Makoto Kimura, Naotaka Tomioka, Motoo Ito, Naoya Imae, Masayuki Uesugi, Naoki Shirai, Takuji Ohigashi, Richard C. Greenwood, Kentaro Uesugi, Aiko Nakato, Kasumi Yogata, Hayato Yuzawa, Yu Kodama, Kaori Hirahara, Ikuya Sakurai, Ikuo Okada, Yuzuru Karouji, Satoru Nakazawa, Tatsuaki Okada, Takanao Saiki, Satoshi Tanaka, Fuyuto Terui, Makoto Yoshikawa, Akiko Miyazaki, Masahiro Nishimura, Toru Yada, Masanao Abe, Tomohiro Usui, Sei-ichiro Watanabe, Yuichi Tsuda. Early fluid activity on Ryugu inferred by isotopic analyses of carbonates and magnetite. Nature Astronomy, 2023; DOI: 10.1038/s41550-022-01863-0.
2. V. Bourrier, O. Attia, M. Mallonn, A. Marret, M. Lendl, P.-C. Konig, A. Krenn, M. Cretignier, R. Allart, G. Henry, E. Bryant, A. Leleu, L. Nielsen, G. Hebrard, N. Hara, D. Ehrenreich, J. Seidel, L. dos Santos, C. Lovis, D. Bayliss, H. M. Cegla, X. Dumusque, I. Boisse, A. Boucher, F. Bouchy, F. Pepe, B. Lavie, J. Rey Cerda, D. Ségransan, S. Udry, T. Vrignaud. DREAM. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 2023; 669: A63 DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202245004

Aurora are stellar examples of high energy physics. You need to be at the right spot to find Aurora on earth, but its not quite the same on Jupiter. What governs where and how an aurora will form? Earth and Jupiter are very different in size and speed, but why are our Auroras so different? How does Jupiter's magnetosphere bring all it's moons into line? What happens when an small independent moon brushes up against a super sized neighbour? Ganymede has it's own indepedent magnetic field. So what would happen if it got gobbled up by Jupiter?

1. Binzheng Zhang, Peter A. Delamere, Zhonghua Yao, Bertrand Bonfond, D. Lin, Kareem A. Sorathia, Oliver J. Brambles, William Lotko, Jeff S. Garretson, Viacheslav G. Merkin, Denis Grodent, William R. Dunn, John G. Lyon. How Jupiter’s unusual magnetospheric topology structures its aurora. Science Advances, 2021; 7 (15): eabd1204 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd1204
2. R. W. Ebert, S. A. Fuselier, F. Allegrini, F. Bagenal, S. J. Bolton, G. Clark, J. E. P. Connerney, G. A. DiBraccio, W. S. Kurth, S. Levin, D. J. McComas, J. Montgomery, N. Romanelli, A. H. Sulaiman, J. R. Szalay, P. Valek, R. J. Wilson. Evidence for Magnetic Reconnection at Ganymede's Upstream Magnetopause During the PJ34 Juno Flyby. Geophysical Research Letters, 2022; 49 (23) DOI: 10.1029/2022GL099775

How does chemistry change when you travel to another planet? When it comes to scientific experiments often we can be hampered by our own experience. Just because something is abundant on earth does not meant that it's a universal constant.  Out of this world chemistry is hard to get your head around and it requires thinking outside the box. Is it possible to have oxidize minerals without oxygen?

1. Kaushik Mitra, Eleanor L. Moreland, Greg J. Ledingham, Jeffrey G. Catalano. Formation of manganese oxides on early Mars due to active halogen cycling. Nature Geoscience, 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41561-022-01094-y

What happens when you push water to the limits on earth and in Space? Water has really weird properties especially when it gets really cold. How can we understand and model the behaviour when it moves to fast for us to capture? How do droplets form and why do you need the ISS to study it? What can microgravity tell us about the way droplets form?

1. Thomas E. Gartner, Pablo M. Piaggi, Roberto Car, Athanassios Z. Panagiotopoulos, Pablo G. Debenedetti. Liquid-Liquid Transition in Water from First Principles. Physical Review Letters, 2022; 129 (25) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.255702
2. J. McCraney, J. Ludwicki, J. Bostwick, S. Daniel, P. Steen. Coalescence-induced droplet spreading: Experiments aboard the International Space Station. Physics of Fluids, 2022; 34 (12): 122110 DOI: 10.1063/5.0125279

How do you measure the solar system and the universe whilst being inside of it? Too much light is a problem for astronomers and our solar system has it's own glow. If you take away all known light sources form the solar system, there is still a faint glow. We know about background radiation, but what about the solar systems background lighting? How can you test the curvature of the universe? To answer universal scale questions you need to start small. Really small. Using Bose Einstein condensates and getting really cold we can simulate curved universes in a molecule scale. 

1. Timothy Carleton, Rogier A. Windhorst, Rosalia O’Brien, Seth H. Cohen, Delondrae Carter, Rolf Jansen, Scott Tompkins, Richard G. Arendt, Sarah Caddy, Norman Grogin, Scott J. Kenyon, Anton Koekemoer, John MacKenty, Stefano Casertano, Luke J. M. Davies, Simon P. Driver, Eli Dwek, Alexander Kashlinsky, Nathan Miles, Nor Pirzkal, Aaron Robotham, Russell Ryan, Haley Abate, Hanga Andras-Letanovszky, Jessica Berkheimer, Zak Goisman, Daniel Henningsen, Darby Kramer, Ci’mone Rogers, Andi Swirbul. SKYSURF: Constraints on Zodiacal Light and Extragalactic Background Light through Panchromatic HST All-sky Surface-brightness Measurements: II. First Limits on Diffuse Light at 1.25, 1.4, and 1.6 μm. The Astronomical Journal, 2022; 164 (5): 170 DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/ac8d02
2. Celia Viermann, Marius Sparn, Nikolas Liebster, Maurus Hans, Elinor Kath, Álvaro Parra-López, Mireia Tolosa-Simeón, Natalia Sánchez-Kuntz, Tobias Haas, Helmut Strobel, Stefan Floerchinger, Markus K. Oberthaler. Quantum field simulator for dynamics in curved spacetime. Nature, 2022; 611 (7935): 260 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05313-9

How does a single sensor help change your outlook on a planet? A single small seismometer on Mars can help understand Mars' past, present and future. What do an ultrasound and Mars have in common? Both can use a single sensor to peer deep inside. Listening to the echoes of marsquakes helps researchers understand what's in Mars' core. Modelling the inside of Mars' core helps researchers understand its past and future. Mars is often thought to be volcanically dead, but there are signs of some activity. A cluster of marsquakes can help researchers find evidence of vulcanism on Mars.

1. Sheng Wang, Hrvoje Tkalčić. Scanning for planetary cores with single-receiver intersource correlations. Nature Astronomy, 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41550-022-01796-8
2. Simon C. Stähler, Anna Mittelholz, Cleément Perrin, Taichi Kawamura, Doyeon Kim, Martin Knapmeyer, Géraldine Zenhäusern, John Clinton, Domenico Giardini, Philippe Lognonné, W. Bruce Banerdt. Tectonics of Cerberus Fossae unveiled by marsquakes. Nature Astronomy, 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41550-022-01803-y

CO2 gets a lot of bad press on earth, but in space, it could actually be incredibly helpful. On Mars, the Perseverance mission turned CO2 into Oxygen just like a tree. Making air on Mars requires a bit of Moxie and Perseverance. Mar's atmosphere may be thin, highly variable and full of CO2 but it can be harnessed to produce Oxygen. Could future mission to Mars make their own oxygen on the surface of Mars? Finding CO2 on exoplanets has been incredibly hard but the JWST helps shed light on this universal gas. Incredible hot, massive but not super dense, the Hot Jupiter WASP-39b becomes the latest target of the JWST. What can a hot Jupiter like WASP-39b teach us about exoplanet formation?

1. The JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Team et al. Identification of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere. Nature (in press), 2022 [abstract]
2. Jeffrey A. Hoffman, Michael H. Hecht, Donald Rapp, Joseph J. Hartvigsen, Jason G. Soohoo, Asad M. Aboobaker, John B. Mcclean, Andrew M. Liu, Eric D. Hinterman, Nasr, Shravan Hariharan, Kyle J. Horn, Forrest E. Meyen, Harald Okkels, Parker Steen, Singaravelu Elangovan, Christopher R. Graves, Piyush Khopkar, Morten B. Madsen, Gerald E. Voecks, Peter, H. Smith, Theis, L. Skafte, Koorosh R. Araghiand, David J. Eisenman. Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE)—Preparing for human Mars exploration. Science Advances, 2022 DOI: DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abp8636

Dwarf planets are strange objects in our solar systems, but Ceres is unusual amongst that group. Why is Ceres' surface so strange and how could it have formed without a hot core? Ceres is too small to really have a molten core or large molten surfaces. How did Ceres end up with odd plateaus and continent like features without an active core? How could radiation cause Ceres to form in such an odd way? The Moon's relative size is puzzling but how can we prove that it was caused by a colossal collision?

1. Scott D. King, Michael T. Bland, Simone Marchi, Carol A. Raymond, Christopher T. Russell, Jennifer E. C. Scully, Hanna G. Sizemore. Ceres’ Broad‐Scale Surface Geomorphology Largely Due To Asymmetric Internal Convection. AGU Advances, 2022; 3 (3) DOI: 10.1029/2021AV000571
2. Patrizia Will, Henner Busemann, My E. I. Riebe, Colin Maden. Indigenous noble gases in the Moon’s interior. Science Advances, 2022; 8 (32) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abl4920

How can you find objects that are hard to see in the depths of space? There is plenty of gas in a galaxy, but trying to see a cloud amongst all those starts is not easy. The further back in time you look in the history of the universe, the colder and darker it gets. How do you figure out the structure of the earliest galaxies and their cold gas? A black hole roaming across a galaxy sounds like bad sci fi horror, but may have been found. How can you spot a black hole without any frame of reference? Detecting a roaming black hole is tricky but not impossible.

1. 1. Kieran A. Cleary, Jowita Borowska, Patrick C. Breysse, Morgan Catha, Dongwoo T. Chung, Sarah E. Church, Clive Dickinson, Hans Kristian Eriksen, Marie Kristine Foss, Joshua Ott Gundersen, Stuart E. Harper, Andrew I. Harris, Richard Hobbs, Håvard T. Ihle, Junhan Kim, Jonathon Kocz, James W. Lamb, Jonas G. S. Lunde, Hamsa Padmanabhan, Timothy J. Pearson, Liju Philip, Travis W. Powell, Maren Rasmussen, Anthony C. S. Readhead, Thomas J. Rennie, Marta B. Silva, Nils-Ole Stutzer, Bade D. Uzgil, Duncan J. Watts, Ingunn Kathrine Wehus, David P. Woody, Lilian Basoalto, J. Richard Bond, Delaney A. Dunne, Todd Gaier, Brandon Hensley, Laura C. Keating, Charles R. Lawrence, Norman Murray, Roberta Paladini, Rodrigo Reeves, Marco P. Viero, Risa H. Wechsler. COMAP Early Science. I. Overview. The Astrophysical Journal, 2022; 933 (2): 182 DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac63cc
   2. Casey Y. Lam, Jessica R. Lu, Andrzej Udalski, Ian Bond, David P. Bennett, Jan Skowron, Przemek Mroz, Radek Poleski, Takahiro Sumi, Michal K. Szymanski, Szymon Kozlowski, Pawel Pietrukowicz, Igor Soszynski, Krzysztof Ulaczyk, Lukasz Wyrzykowski, Shota Miyazaki, Daisuke Suzuki, Naoki Koshimoto, Nicholas J. Rattenbury, Matthew W. Hosek Jr., Fumio Abe, Richard Barry, Aparna Bhattacharya, Akihiko Fukui, Hirosane Fujii, Yuki Hirao, Yoshitaka Itow, Rintaro Kirikawa, Iona Kondo, Yutaka Matsubara, Sho Matsumoto, Yasushi Muraki, Greg Olmschenk, Clement Ranc, Arisa Okamura, Yuki Satoh, Stela Ishitani Silva, Taiga Toda, Paul J. Tristram, Aikaterini Vandorou, Hibiki Yama, Natasha S. Abrams, Shrihan Agarwal, Sam Rose, Sean K. Terry. An isolated mass gap black hole or neutron star detected with astrometric microlensing. Accepted to APJ Letters, 2022 [abstract]
   3. Kailash C. Sahu, Jay Anderson, Stefano Casertano, Howard E. Bond, Andrzej Udalski, Martin Dominik, Annalisa Calamida, Andrea Bellini, Thomas M. Brown, Marina Rejkuba, Varun Bajaj, Noe Kains, Henry C. Ferguson, Chris L. Fryer, Philip Yock, Przemek Mroz, Szymon Kozlowski, Pawel Pietrukowicz, Radek Poleski, Jan Skowron, Igor Soszynski, Michael K. Szymanski, Krzysztof Ulaczyk, Lukasz Wyrzykowski, Richard Barry, David P. Bennett, Ian A. Bond, Yuki Hirao, Stela Ishitani Silva, Iona Kondo, Naoki Koshimoto, Clement Ranc, Nicholas J. Rattenbury, Takahiro Sumi, Daisuke Suzuki, Paul J. Tristram, Aikaterini Vandorou, Jean-Philippe Beaulieu, Jean-Baptiste Marquette, Andrew Cole, Pascal Fouque, Kym Hill, Stefan Dieters, Christian Coutures, Dijana Dominis-Prester, Clara Bennett, Etienne Bachelet, John Menzies, Michael Alb-row, Karen Pollard, Andrew Gould, Jennifer Yee, William Allen, Leonardo Andrade de Almeida, Grant Christie, John Drummond, Avishay Gal-Yam, Evgeny Gorbikov, Francisco Jablonski, Chung-Uk Lee, Dan Maoz, Ilan Manulis, Jennie McCormick, Tim Natusch, Richard W. Pogge, Yossi Shvartzvald, Uffe G. Jorgensen, Khalid A. Alsubai, Michael I. Andersen, Valerio Bozza, Sebastiano Calchi Novati, Martin Burgdorf, Tobias C. Hinse, Markus Hundertmark, Tim-Oliver Husser, Eamonn Kerins, Penelope Longa-Pena, Luigi Mancini, Matthew Penny, Sohrab Rahvar, Davide Ricci, Sedighe Sajadian, Jesper Skottfelt, Colin Snodgrass, John Southworth, Jeremy Tregloan-Reed, Joachim Wambsganss, Olivier Wertz, Yiannis Tsapras, Rachel A. Street, Daniel M. Bramich, Keith Horne, Iain A. Steele. An Isolated Stellar-Mass Black Hole Detected Through Astrometric Microlensing. Accepted to APJ, 2022 [abstract]

The early history of our solar system can be deciphered by studying impact craters and meteorites. Craters on the Moon tell us a lot about the violent history of our solar system. Just how many impacts have there been on the Moon? We can study the porosity of the Moon to better estimate just how many impacts have occurred on it. How did Mars get it's atmosphere and from where? A Martian meteorite from deep in the core can tell us a lot about the solar nebula that formed our solar system. Mars formed relatively quickly, before the solar nebula dissipated.

1. Ya Huei Huang, Jason M. Soderblom, David A. Minton, Masatoshi Hirabayashi, H. Jay Melosh. Bombardment history of the Moon constrained by crustal porosity. Nature Geoscience, 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41561-022-00969-4
2. Sandrine Péron, Sujoy Mukhopadhyay. Krypton in the Chassigny meteorite shows Mars accreted chondritic volatiles before nebular gases. Science, 2022; DOI: 10.1126/science.abk1175

From cosmic rays in Antarctica, to chasing Eclipses to learn about stellar weather. Neutrinos are hard to track and detect, as are cosmic rays. Neutrinos suddenly coming out of Antarctica baffled scientists hunting for cosmic rays.  Underground glacial lakes, compacted snow, cosmic can help explain mysterious neutrino emissions. Tracking eclipses and gathering data over 20 years can help us understand stellar weather. By studying the Sun's corona, scientists can better understand the magnetic field and stellar weather. The sun changes activity over 11 year cycles, and it's magnetic field also rearranges itself from highly structured to loose and messy.  

1. Ian M. Shoemaker, Alexander Kusenko, Peter Kuipers Munneke, Andrew Romero-Wolf, Dustin M. Schroeder, Martin J. Siegert. Reflections on the anomalous ANITA events: the Antarctic subsurface as a possible explanation. Annals of Glaciology, 2020; 1 DOI: 10.1017/aog.2020.19
2. Benjamin Boe, Shadia Habbal, Miloslav Druckmüller. Coronal Magnetic Field Topology from Total Solar Eclipse Observations. The Astrophysical Journal, 2020; 895 (2): 123 DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ab8ae6

Jupiter's moons may be way more dynamic than we previously thought. Europa has the most potential to harbor life outside of Earth, but it's ice sheets may be more Earth like than we imagined. Europa's spectacular double ridges are similar to those found in Greenland. The ice sheets on Europa may not be static and still, but churning. Melting and refreezing could drive exchange between the surface of Europa and it's icey depths. How do you form sand dunes without any wind? Is it possible to form a Dune on Io using just volcanic flows and sulfur snows?

1. Culberg, R., Schroeder, D.M. & Steinbrügge, G. Double ridge formation over shallow water sills on Jupiter’s moon Europa. Nat Commun, 2022 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29458-3
2. George D. McDonald, Joshua Méndez Harper, Lujendra Ojha, Paul Corlies, Josef Dufek, Ryan C. Ewing, Laura Kerber. Aeolian sediment transport on Io from lava–frost interactions. Nature Communications, 2022; 13 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29682-x

Supernova get all the press, but Nova and Micronova are still pretty powerful. White dwarf stars are normally pretty inactive, unless some hydrogen ends up kickstarting them again. Enough helium leeched from a nearby star can ignite the entire surface of a white dwarf. Nova may not destroy the star, but they can create immensely powerful explosions and particles. The right combination of White Dwarf and Red Giant can create powerful particles near the speed of light. Micronova sound small but they are still colossal and brief explosions on white dwarf stars. Not powerful enough to ignite the whole surface of a star, but definitely enough to destroy a planet, micronova are quite deadly.

1. Scaringi, S., Groot, P.J., Knigge, C. et al. Localized thermonuclear bursts from accreting magnetic white dwarfs. Nature, 2022 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04495-6
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