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      Mars Got Cooked During a Recent Solar Storm

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      Days after light shows filled Earth’s skies with wonder, the red planet was hit by another powerful outburst of the sun.The sun fired off a volley of radiation-riddled outbursts in May. When they slammed into Earth’s magnetic bubble, the world was treated to iridescent displays of the northern and southern lights. But our planet wasn’t the only one in the solar firing line.A few days after Earth’s light show, another series of eruptions screamed out of the sun. This time, on May 20, Mars was blitzed by a beast of a storm.Observed from Mars, “this was the strongest solar energetic particle event we’ve seen to date,” said Shannon Curry, the principal investigator of NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution orbiter, or MAVEN, at the University of California, Berkeley.When the barrage arrived, it set off an aurora that enveloped Mars from pole to pole in a shimmering glow. If they were standing on the Martian surface, “astronauts could see these auroras,” Dr. Curry said. Based on scientific knowledge of atmospheric chemistry, she and other scientists say, observers on Mars would have seen a jade-green light show, although no color cameras picked it up on the surface.The specks in the sequence of images in this video were caused by charged particles from a solar storm that hit a navigation camera of the Curiosity Mars rover on May 20.NASA/JPL-CaltechBut it’s very fortunate that no astronauts were there. Mars’s thin atmosphere and the absence of a global magnetic shield meant that its surface, as registered by NASA’s Curiosity rover, was showered by a radiation dose equivalent to 30 chest X-rays — not a lethal dose, but certainly not pleasant to the human constitution.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A New Search for Ripples in Space From the Beginning of Time

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      The universe burst into existence 13.8 billion years ago. What happened in that earliest moment is of intense interest to anyone trying to understand why everything is the way it is today.“I think this question of what happens at the beginning of the universe is a profound one,” said David Spergel, president of the Simons Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports research at the frontiers of mathematics and science. “And what is remarkably exciting to me is the fact that we can do observations that can give us insight into this.”A new $110 million observatory in the high desert of northern Chile, $90 million financed by the foundation, could uncover key clues about what happened after the Big Bang by looking at particles of light that have traveled across the universe since almost the beginning of time.The data could finally provide compelling corroboration for a fantastical idea known as cosmic inflation. It holds that in the first sliver of time after the universe’s birth, the fabric of space-time accelerated outward to speeds far faster than the speed of light.Alternatively, the observatory’s measurements could undercut this hypothesis, a pillar in the current understanding of cosmology.The observatory is named after the foundation and its founders: Jim Simons, the hedge fund billionaire and philanthropist who died on May 10, and his wife, Marilyn, a trained economist. Two of the four telescopes began taking measurements in April, in time for Dr. Simons’s 86th birthday on April 25.Traces of Ancient LightAn illustration shows how light from the early universe might have been polarized by the push and pull of gravitational waves as the universe expanded. The Simons Observatory will search for evidence of this polarization. More

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      Rivers of Lava on Venus Reveal a More Volcanically Active Planet

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      New software let scientists re-examine old radar images, providing some of the strongest evidence yet that volcanoes continue to reshape the hellish planet.The planet Venus, with its active volcanic region highlighted in red in the Sif Mons area.IRSPS/Università d’AnnunzioWitnessing the blood-red fires of a volcanic eruption on Earth is memorable. But to see molten rock bleed out of a volcano on a different planet would be extraordinary. That is close to what scientists have spotted on Venus: two vast, sinuous lava flows oozing from two different corners of Earth’s planetary neighbor.“After you see something like this, the first reaction is ‘wow,’” said Davide Sulcanese, a doctoral student at the Università d’Annunzio in Pescara, Italy, and an author of a study reporting the discovery in the journal Nature Astronomy, published on Monday.Earth and Venus were forged at the same time. Both are made of the same primeval matter, and both are the same age and size. So why is Earth a paradise overflowing with water and life, while Venus is a scorched hellscape with acidic skies?Volcanic eruptions tinker with planetary atmospheres. One theory holds that, eons ago, several apocalyptic eruptions set off a runaway greenhouse effect on Venus, turning it from a temperate, waterlogged world into an arid desert of burned glass.To better understand its volcanism, scientists hoped to catch a Venusian eruption in the act. But although the planet is known to be smothered in volcanoes, an opaque atmosphere has prevented anyone from seeing an eruption the way spacecraft have spotted them on Io, the hypervolcanic moon of Jupiter.In the 1990s, NASA’s spacecraft Magellan used cloud-penetrating radar to survey most of the planet. But back then, the relatively low-resolution images made spotting fresh molten rock a troublesome task.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Comet Fragment Explodes in Dark Skies Over Spain and Portugal

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      A brilliant flash of blue, green and white on Saturday night came from a shard of an as yet unidentified comet that was moving around 100,000 miles per hour, experts said.A bright object broke up in Earth’s atmosphere on Saturday night, illuminating night skies over parts of Spain and Portugal. Experts say it was a fragment of a comet, perhaps only a few feet in size.ESA/PDO/AMS82 – AllSky7 via ReutersOn Saturday, revelers across Spain and Portugal ventured into the temperate springtime evening, hoping for a memorable night. None were expecting a visitor from outer space exploding above their heads.At 11:46 p.m. in Portugal, a fireball streaked across the sky, leaving a smoldering trail of incandescent graffiti in its wake. Footage shared on social media shows jaws dropping as the dark night briefly turns into day, blazing in shades of snowy white, otherworldly green and arctic blue.Rocky asteroids cause sky-high streaks as they self-destruct in Earth’s atmosphere with some frequency. But over the weekend, the projectile was plunging toward Earth at a remarkable speed — around 100,000 miles per hour, more than twice that expected by a typical asteroid. Experts say it had a strange trajectory, not matching the sort normally taken by nearby space rocks.That’s because the interloper wasn’t an asteroid. It was a fragment of a comet — an icy object that may have formed at the dawn of the solar system — that lost its battle with our planet’s atmosphere 37 miles above the Atlantic Ocean. None of the object is likely to have made it to the ground, the European Space Agency said.“It’s an unexpected interplanetary fireworks show,” said Meg Schwamb, a planetary astronomer at Queen’s University Belfast.It is not rare for comets to create shooting stars. “We have notable meteor showers throughout the year, which are the result of the Earth crossing debris clouds of specific comets,” Dr. Schwamb said. For example, the Perseids, which occur every August, are the result of our world’s sweeping through litter left behind by Comet Swift-Tuttle.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Northern Lights Set to Return Tonight as Extreme Solar Storm Continues

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      Electrical utilities said they weathered earlier conditions as persistent geomagnetic storms were expected to cause another light show in evening skies.Night skies in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere are expected to bloom again on Saturday night with the vivid colors of the northern lights, or aurora borealis, as a powerful geomagnetic storm caused by a hyperactive sun persists through the weekend.The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which monitors space weather, said in an update on Saturday that it continued to observe solar activity that could lead to periods of “severe-extreme” geomagnetic storms. The federal agency first issued a warning on Friday as bursts of material from the sun’s surface traveled into Earth’s atmosphere, causing irregularities in power, navigation and communication systems.Major power utilities had largely prepared their electrical grids for the solar storm, and their customers were unaffected.For most people, the solar storm was a gift: It caused ribbons of pink, purple and green light across night skies of much of the United States, Canada and Europe. Where evening skies are clear on Saturday, the lights can be expected again.Known as aurora, the light is caused by particles from the sun interacting with gases in Earth’s atmosphere, and is usually only observed at latitudes closer to the North or South Pole. But on Friday night, residents of lower latitudes, including those in North Carolina and Arizona, saw the dancing lights.Jane Wong, 30, of San Francisco, drove to the Presidio overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge where conditions started out foggy. But at midnight, her wait paid off as the sky started to clear.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Can’t Find Eclipse Glasses? Here’s What to Do.

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      You can watch a projection of the eclipse using some common household items.Reliable paper-framed glasses are by far the most popular option for safely watching the total solar eclipse on Monday. But they’ve gotten more difficult to find in some places ahead of the event.If you’ve checked everywhere — your local planetarium, public library and even online — fear not: There is still a way to watch the eclipse safely, using items around the house. Here are a few options.Use your handsPalms up, position one hand over the other at a 90-degree angle. Open your fingers slightly in a waffle pattern, and allow sunlight to stream through the spaces onto the ground, or another surface. During the eclipse, you will see a projection of the moon obscuring the surface of the sun.This method works with anything with holes, such as a straw hat, a strainer, a cheese grater or even a perforated spoon. You will also notice this effect when light from the partially eclipsed sun streams through leaves on a tree.Set up a cardstock screenFor this option, you need a couple of white index cards or two sheets of cardstock paper. First, punch a small hole in the middle of one of the cards using a thumbtack or a pin.Then, facing away from the sun, allow light to stream through this pinhole. Position the second card underneath to function as a screen. Adjust the spacing between the two cards to make the projection of the sun larger or smaller.A pinhole box for an annular solar eclipse in Gandhinagar, India, in 2020. The larger the box, the larger the image that will be projected.Sam Panthaky/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMake a box projectorIf you’re up for a bit of crafting, you can make a more sophisticated pinhole projector. Start with a cardboard box — empty cereal boxes are often used, but you can use a larger box, too. You’ll also need scissors, white paper, tape, aluminum foil and a pin or thumbtack.Cut the piece of paper to fit the inside bottom of the cardboard box to act as a screen. Use tape to hold it in place.On the top of the box, cut two rectangular holes on either side. (The middle should be left intact — you can use tape to secure this if needed.)Tape a piece of aluminum foil over one of the rectangular cutouts. Punch a tiny hole in the middle of the foil with the tack or pin. The other cutout will serve as a view hole.With your back to the sun, position the foil side of the box over your shoulder, letting light stream through the pinhole. An image of the sun will project onto the screen at the bottom of the box, which you can see through the view hole. A bigger box will create a bigger image.Enjoy the show through any of these makeshift pinholes. And remember, during totality, you can view the sun directly with your naked eye. But you should stop looking at the sun as soon as it reappears. More

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      NASA Picks 3 Companies to Help Astronauts Drive Around the Moon

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      The agency’s future moon buggies will reach speeds of 9.3 miles per hour and will be capable of self-driving.NASA will be renting some cool wheels to drive around the moon.Space agency officials announced on Wednesday that they have hired three companies to come up with preliminary designs for vehicles to take NASA astronauts around the lunar south polar region in the coming years. After the astronauts return to Earth, these vehicles would be able to self-drive around as robotic explorers, similar to NASA’s rovers on Mars.The self-driving capability would also allow the vehicle to meet the next astronaut mission at a different location.“Where it will go, there are no roads,” Jacob Bleacher, the chief exploration scientist at NASA, said at a news conference on Wednesday. “Its mobility will fundamentally change our view of the moon.”The companies are Intuitive Machines of Houston, which in February successfully landed a robotic spacecraft on the moon; Lunar Outpost of Golden, Colo.; and Venturi Astrolab of Hawthorne, Calif. Only one of the three will actually build a vehicle for NASA and send it to the moon.NASA had asked for proposals of what it called the lunar terrain vehicle, or L.T.V., that could drive at speeds up to 9.3 miles per hour, travel a dozen miles on a single charge and allow astronauts to drive around for eight hours.The agency will work with the three companies for a year to further develop their designs. Then NASA will choose one of them for the demonstration phase.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      They Can’t See the Total Solar Eclipse, but LightSound Will Help Them Hear It

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      A device called LightSound is being distributed to help the blind and visually impaired experience this year’s event.On Aug. 21, 2017, Kiki Smith’s teenage sons giddily prepared to watch the partial solar eclipse in Rochester, N.Y. As Ms. Smith listened to their chatter, she felt excluded.“I felt very alone,” she said. Ms. Smith was diagnosed with a degenerative condition as a child and lost the last of her vision in 2011. The local buzz around the eclipse, and the national media attention, unexpectedly touched a nerve.The eclipse “was about experiencing a historic moment in community, and I wasn’t part of that,” she said.Ms. Smith, 52, who works for a community development organization in Rochester, determined to do things differently for the April 8 total eclipse that is passing through her city. She is helping to organize a public gathering that prioritizes accessibility for people with vision loss. Her event will include specially designed devices named LightSound that translate changing light intensity into musical tones, allowing blind and visually impaired people to listen as the sky grows dark and then brightens again.During this eclipse, Ms. Smith said, “I will be with community. And I will have at my fingertips all of these fabulous resources to experience what I felt I missed last time.”People across the United States with limited vision or blindness will experience the eclipse with the aid of about 900 LightSound devices distributed by a team led by Allyson Bieryla, a Harvard University astronomer.The Path of the EclipseOn April 8, a total solar eclipse will cross North America from Mazatlán, Mexico, to the Newfoundland coast near Gander, Canada. Viewers outside the path of the total eclipse will see a partial eclipse, if the sky is clear. More