“Dark matter and regular matter have always been in the same place. They grew up together.” So says Richard Massey, an astrophysicist who helped create one of the most detailed, high-resolution maps of dark matter ever produced (pictured). Massey and his co-authors used data from the James Webb Space Telescope to detect the invisible substance (shown in blue) by its gravitational influence on ordinary matter. Image credit: NASA/STScI/J. DePasquale/A. Pagan.
The Moon’s preserved surface can teach us a lot about early Earth. Without processes like plate tectonics and erosion due to liquid water, the lunar surface has remained relatively unchanged over billions of years. New research has used this “lunar archive” to analyze how much water meteorites may have brought to the early Earth-Moon system. The results suggest that meteorites may have supplied a much smaller fraction of ancient Earth’s water than previously thought.
Jupiter’s moon Io might have deep, interconnected magma reservoirs. New research using data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft suggests that a 2024 eruption on Io may have been the most powerful volcanic eruption ever seen beyond Earth. Infrared data show a vast, synchronized multi-volcano event releasing up to 260 terawatts of energy, suggesting there could be interconnected magma systems deep below the moon’s surface.