JWST has found rogue planets that may have formed like stars. The space telescope observed the young nebula NGC1333 (pictured), a star-forming cluster about a thousand light-years away in the Perseus constellation, and spotted six likely rogue planets. These objects, only slightly larger than Jupiter and not gravitationally bound to any star, may have been born through the same processes that create stars. Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Scholz, K. Muzic, A. Langeveld, R. Jayawardhana.
China is planning an exoplanet mission to look for Earthlike worlds. The mission, named Earth 2.0 or ET, would use six wide-field optical telescopes to look for transits of Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones around Sun-like stars. The Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, which proposed the mission, is aiming for a 2028 launch.
Researchers in China have extracted water from Chang’e-5 lunar samples. By heating samples of lunar regolith brought back by the Chang’e-5 mission at very high temperatures, researchers were able to produce water through a chemical reaction involving iron oxides in the regolith and hydrogen. This process could potentially be used to produce water during long-duration crewed lunar missions.
Debris from the DART impact could create meteor showers in a few years. Using simulations based on particle trajectories, researchers have found that debris from NASA’s DART mission could potentially reach Mars and Earth within the next decade. As that debris collided with our atmosphere, it would cause meteor showers that could be predicted in advance.
Work on NEO Surveyor is underway. Engineering teams at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are installing and aligning mirrors for the asteroid-hunting space telescope and beginning work on other spacecraft components. The mission is expected to launch in late 2027.