The James Webb space telescope has captured data that could help us better understand how Earth formed billions of years ago. According to the new data, James Webb has detected water vapor in planet-forming disks, which adds more credence to a long-standing theory on how planets like Earth are formed.

Webb detected the water vapor in two different compact disks of gas and dust, which surround two different starts – both of which are between two and three million years old. That’s actually pretty young in the grand scheme of our universe’s timeline. The two disks are located within the Taurus star-forming region, which rests roughly 430 light-years away from Earth.

The discovery of water vapor within these disks has led scientists to further theorize that planets form as part of a system known as “pebble accretion.” Essentially, small chunks of rock that are coated in ice experience friction from the gas within planetary-forming disks. This friction robs the pebbles of orbital energy, causing them to migrate inward, eventually forming together.

A protoplanetary disk similar to the ones that James Webb observed. Image source: Mopic / Adobe

This discovery lends additional support to the idea that the Earth and other planets formed thanks to this pebble accretion, with tiny particles eventually coming together and amazing into the massive planets that we are now busy living on and exploring. The entire process relies heavily on the smaller pebbles joining together to create protoplanets, which then pull even more pebbles and pieces together thanks to their higher gravity.

Getting a keen understanding of how Earth formed, as well as how other worlds formed, has been an astronomical goal for decades, and while we have had multiple theories for how that has happened, including theories on how the Moon formed from a collision between Earth and another planet, we haven’t found much hard evidence until now.

The presence of water vapor within the two planetary disks that James Webb observed is a smoking gun, if you will, that helps give more credit to the theory of pebble accretion and could help us better understand how other worlds out there formed, too. It might also explain if Jupiter ate other planets to become so big.

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Scientists have come one step closer to creating a synthetic yeast. For more than 15 years, researchers have worked tirelessly to build a complex cell with an entire genome from the ground up. And now they’ve hit a major milestone by managing to combine artificial versions of some of the 16 chromosomes in a single yeast cell successfully.

This feat is especially exciting because it reveals more information about the foundational processes within cells. It’s also a major step forward for the vision that some scientists have to create programmable cellular factories that can product medicines, materials, biofuels, and other things.

The creation of a synthetic yeast is a mammoth task in and of itself. In fact, Benjamin Blount, one of the co-authors on several new papers published on the topic in Cell and Cell Genomics this week, says that even creating one of these chromosomes is an astounding and difficult task. But then you have to combine all of that together in a way that doesn’t cause it to fall apart.

Image source: vchalup / Adobe

While genetic modification has come a long way in recent years, past attempts to edit things have only seen scientists modifying the individual genes, not the entire chromosomes, so this is a much more complicated process. While they haven’t entirely managed to combine all of them together into a single cell of synthetic yeast, the researchers have created artificial versions of all 16 chromosomes involved.

Now, they just need to find some way to bring them together without it falling apart. It’s a difficult task, but one that they will hopefully be able to pull off within the next few years. One step in this process means ensuring the artificial chromosomes are completely indistinguishable from the natural ones, Blount told Axios. 

So far, scientists have only managed to combine some of the synthetic yeast chromosomes into a single cell. That cell survived and reproduced, so now it’s just a matter of getting the other chromosomes introduced and stable.

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For thousands of years, Martian rocks have bombarded Earth, sent flying through space after being ejected from their homeworld by violent impacts or volcanic processes. But as we collect these tiny samples, scientists have started to learn something interesting: the age of these Martian rocks doesn’t line up with what we know about Mars’ age as a whole. They’re a lot younger.

Mars is really old. Scientists believe the planet finished forming around 4.56 billion years ago, roughly 90 million years before our own planet. Further, evidence suggests that most of the Martian surface is old. So, why are chunks of Martian rock showing such a young age?

Mars landscape captured by the Pathfinder lander. Image source: NASA/JPL

The answer, they say, most likely lies in the constant bombardment of the Martian surface by meteorites and asteroids. With roughly 200 bombardments that create 4-meter craters each year, the Martian surface is constantly spewing more rock into space, some of which finds its way to Earth. The reason the Martian rock’s age doesn’t seem to add up is because the younger rock is replacing the older rock as it gets ejected from the planet.

This means that the younger rock from under the surface, which is still being replenished by volcanic activity, is eventually exposed to the surface and thus becomes the ejecta that meteorites send flying into space. This, a group of scientists explain in a paper published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, could help us understand why the Martian rocks found on Earth appear so young.

Understanding how Mars is changing – both inside and out – is important as NASA and others prepare for the first manned missions to Mars. Further, scientists are constantly looking for new ways to understand how the planets within our solar system formed, and how that can teach us more about the universe’s evolution as a whole.

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Future missions to the Moon could see astronauts growing the first plants on the lunar surface. But, getting lunar soil to grow plants has been a tricky process. Scientists may have finally had a breakthrough in the process and believe putting Earth microbes into lunar soil could make it more habitable for plants.

Previous research into growing plants within soil from the Moon has shown that the soil on our satellite contains several elements vital to plant growth. However, experiments using lunar soil have shown that the Moon is just bad at hosting crops. So how do we fix that?

Well, the trick in getting lunar soil to grow plants more reliably may have to do with adding Earth’s microbes to the mix. See, microbes on our planet have helped make it more habitable over the years, and adding those microbes to the soil on the Moon could help us unlock those vital nutrients that we’ve discovered traces of.

Being able to grow plants in lunar soil could help us establish moon bases more reliably. Image source: designprojects / Adobe

This would then allow us to create lunar greenhouses effectively, allowing future missions to the Moon – like Artemis III – to set up growing areas and grow crops. This would also be important for creating sustainable Moon bases, which NASA and other space agencies hope to do within the next fifty to sixty years.

Of course, there are more variables at play than just getting lunar soil to play nice. But this is a vital first step that astronomers and astronauts need to solve if we ever hope to create actual, sustainable colonies on other planets and planetary bodies.

A new study helps highlight the important role that microbes could play in making the soil on the Moon more habitable for plants. Tests run on simulated lunar soil showed that plants grown with three species of bacteria (or microbes) had longer stems and roots after just six days of growth than those grown in normal simulated lunar soil without the additional microbes.

With so much attention on colonizing space beyond our own planet, these kinds of logistical problems are important to solve early on, especially if we want such missions to last beyond their initial windows.

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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and the now-aging Hubble telescope have joined forces to capture observations of a beautiful galactic collision. The new images captured by the observatories help astronomers see even deeper into the universe, getting a deep look at details that are only possible by combining the power of these two flagship observatories.

The two telescopes – old and new – came together to capture images of the galaxy cluster MACS0416, which is located 4.3 billion light-years from Earth. MACS0416 showcases two colliding galaxy clusters that astronomers say will eventually combine into an even larger cluster.

Hubble captured images of the galactic collision as part of its Frontier Fields mission in 2014, which sought super-deep views of the universe. While Hubble pioneered the search, Webb’s infrared view has allowed astronomers to peer even deeper into Hubble’s previous targeted observations, providing new details.

Image source: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

While Webb’s observations of MACS0416 do provide more detail on their own, they were actually part of four epochs of observations in an effort to find objects varying in observed brightness. These transients, they hoped, would help them learn more about the multiple-star systems that exist within our universe.

When brought together, the observations created a spectacular image that almost makes the cluster look like a Christmas tree, earning it the name of the Christmas Tree Galaxy Cluster. Astronomers say they have discovered transients everywhere within the galactic collision thanks to Hubble and James Webb’s combined powers.

Despite Hubble’s age, the space telescope has captured some of the most iconic observations of our universe. When combined with the power of the James Webb, we’re able to look even deeper into the universe, revealing details that we hadn’t even dreamed of finding before. Together, Webb and its predecessor are an unstoppable force that could help us uncover the mysteries of the cosmos.

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A new study has revealed that Greenland glaciers are retreating twice as fast this century as the last. The revelation came after scientists compared new aerial photographs of the region with those taken during the Second World War. 

Greenland is currently home to roughly 20,000 peripheral glaciers. These glaciers are located within mountain valleys, on plateaus, and are separate from the country’s massive ice sheet. Many of these glaciers are melting faster than the sheet itself, alongside glaciers worldwide, helping to account for one-fifth of the sea level rise over the past century.

Laura Larocca and a team of researchers compared photographs taken between 1943 and 1987. Using those photographs, they located the front edge of 821 different glaciers and then tried to locate the moraine – a small ridge of rocks and sediment that shows the full extent of the glaciers during a period known as the Little Ice Age.

By comparing this data, the researchers discovered that the Greenland glaciers had receded roughly 7.7 meters a year on average between 1890 and 1999. In the last two decades, though, the glaciers appear to have receded 14.8 meters on average per year. That’s a huge increase compared to the past century, showcasing how global warming affects these important glaciers.

The increase in the glacier’s retreatment means that the rising temperatures around the world – which many believe are fueled by human-driven climate change, are outweighing the increased snowfall expected within some of the areas where Greenland’s glaciers exist. This accelerated retreat is happening everywhere across Greenland despite the diversity of the climate zones found throughout the region.

Of course, glaciers always react much quicker to climate change than ice sheets do. But the concern here is that these glaciers melting is an early warning system that the ice sheet could soon see such catastrophic receding. And if the various ice sheets worldwide were to melt, we could see a terrifying 20-foot increase in the current sea level, devastating coastlines around the globe.

Further, this study isn’t even looking at the volume of changes that this melting is causing. It’s just looking at the area the changes are affecting. Understanding the

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In what might be one of the grossest and most intriguing research cases I’ve read about this year, scientists have started using lice DNA to help them learn more about ancient humans, including when different groups of humans arrived in the Americas. 

I could make a joke about how this dilemma has left scientists scratching their heads, but the Smithsonian already beat me to that punch. Still, it is intriguing that scientists have been able to look at the DNA of these annoying little bugs to learn when humans first arrived on our small piece of the planet.

The first humans to arrive in America left behind tons of scattered evidence – including some ancient stone tools, fossilized footprints, and even their fossilized bones. But, genetic studies haven’t quite been able to map out exactly when and where the migrations took place. Luckily, lice DNA could hold the clue that scientists have been searching for.

Image source: catalin / Adobe

According to a new piece of research published in PLOS One this week, researchers found two distinct clusters of louse, which suggests that the two clusters migrated to America with different human hosts. The first group came on the heads of the East Asians who first populated the Americas. The second didn’t arrive until thousands of years later when the European colonists began to travel to the Americas.

The researchers say that the Americas are the only place where these two types of lice crossbreed. This revelation, the researchers note, sheds light on the human journey around our world. Further, some researchers believe that lice DNA and evolution may have even more clues to offer us, especially about how humanity evolved all those years ago.

DNA studies of two common types of lice have shown that they diverged greatly from each other roughly 190,000 years ago. The researchers say this is around the same time that human history and culture saw a major development. And, because none of the clothing from that era has survived, the DNA from lice is the greatest evidence we have about that development and change.

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Scientists have now captured direct detections of oxygen on the daylight side of Venus. This discovery could teach researchers more about the atmosphere on Venus. Scientists previously discovered direct detections of oxygen on Venus’s nightside, and theoretical models have long shown that atomic oxygen should exist in the planet’s atmosphere.

Discovering direct detections of oxygen on Venus’s dayside is exciting, especially as scientists have long yearned to learn more about “Earth’s evil twin.” Where Earth is lush and verdant, Venus is a hellscape. A hot planet with choking clouds that are composed of carbon dioxide.

One good way to look at Venus is to imagine a greenhouse environment with average temperatures up to 867 Fahrenheit. That’s so hot that all the probes sent to the surface have melted within minutes, making it difficult to learn more about Venus's surface. 

Venus is a hellscape made up of a rocky surface overlooked by a deadly atmosphere. Image source: NASA/JPL

But atomic oxygen isn’t like the oxygen we breathe, so Venus isn’t a planet that we can breathe on or anything – even if we could survive the extreme heat. Instead, atomic oxygen is highly reactive and usually bonds to other atoms. It’s abundant at high altitudes on Earth, but it seems to be much more abundant on Venus. 

Directly detecting oxygen on Venus’s dayside could teach us more about how the carbon dioxide that fills Venus’s atmosphere is created. Based on the data, scientists believe that when the carbon dioxide atoms travel to Venus’s dayside, they separate, becoming atomic oxygen and carbon monoxide. However, when it travels back to the nightside, the molecules connect again, creating carbon dioxide.

Learning more about Earth’s sister planet will help us better understand how Venus came to be the hot death pit that it is today. And it could help us better understand how climate change and other global effects may change the way that our planet looks and operates for thousands of years to come.

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Earlier this month, NASA’s Lucy probe completed its first flyby of the asteroid Dinkinesh, discovering that it actually was part of a binary pair with a smaller asteroid satellite orbiting it. Now, though, the probe has revealed even more information about Dinkinesh. It isn’t just the larger asteroid that is part of a binary pair. Dinkinesh’s unanticipated satellite is actually a contact binary itself.

According to a new post shared by NASA, the data captured by Lucy’s Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI), Dinkinesh’s smaller satellite is actually made up of two smaller objects touching each other. The reason that this wasn’t seen before, when the first satellite was discovered, is because the two asteroids were lined up perfectly, hiding one behind the other.

Contact binaries are relatively common within our solar system, John Spencer, Lucy's deputy project scientist of the Boulder, Colorado branch of San Antonio’s Southwest Research Institute, shared in the NASA post. However, I don't think anyone expected to find evidence of one during Lucy's first flyby of an asteroid like Dinkinesh.

Image source: NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL

Spencer continued, “We haven’t seen many up-close, and we’ve never seen one orbiting another asteroid. We’d been puzzling over odd variations in Dinkinesh’s brightness that we saw on approach, which gave us a hint that Dinkinesh might have a moon of some sort, but we never suspected anything so bizarre!”

The discovery of this additional contact binary during Lucy’s Dinkinesh flyby is both exciting and puzzling. Scientists are already confused about why the two components of the satellite are similar sizes, as well as how they came to join together the way they have. Perhaps we’ll see future research that will help us understand that.

Lucy’s flyby of Dinkinesh was just the start, of course. The probe will now continue its mission deeper into our solar system, capturing data and images of other asteroids as it does. The second photo, which revealed the second component of the satellite, was taken roughly 960 miles beyond where the first was taken, showcasing just how important perspective is to the data we capture about our universe.

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Back in March, a paper published in Nature posited that it was possible to create a near-ambient temperature superconductor. Now, several months after the study’s first publishing, Nature has offered a retraction on the room-temperature superconductor discovery, with multiple authors stating that several issues undermine the paper's integrity.

The journal shared the retraction in early November, writing, “This article has been retracted at the request of the authors Nathan Dasenbrock-Gammon, Elliot Snider, Raymond McBride, Hiranya Pasan, Dylan Durkee, Sachith E. Dissanayake, Keith V. Lawler and Ashkan Salamat.”

The statement continues, “They have expressed the view as researchers who contributed to the work that the published paper does not accurately reflect the provenance of the investigated materials, the experimental measurements undertaken and the data-processing protocols applied. The above-named authors have concluded that these issues undermine the integrity of the published paper.”

The retraction of this room-temperature superconductor is huge because the discovery had the potential to revolutionize several industries if it proved possible. However, there were already some issues surrounding the discovery, the new statement admits. With the authors joining the voices of those concerned about the discovery, it made sense to retract it completely.

Still, it is always disappointing to see such a huge discovery undermined in any way. While the journal didn’t say exactly what the problem was, we do know that other near room-temperature superconductor discoveries have fallen through in the past, too, with issues recreating the circumstances that the researchers used in the first place.

The possibility of a room-temperature superconductor could change in the future. For now, though, we’ll have to take solace in the fact that many of the involved researchers were confident in retracting their discovery and that we will likely see even more renewed interest in this particular area of study, and perhaps even one day, we’ll see these same authors sharing a story of success in the field.

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