Category: 7. Science

NASA AsteroidWarning 2025

Thank you. Listen to this article using the player above. ✖

Pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia and preterm birth often arise during the late stage of pregnancy. However, researchers have primarily relied on placental cells from early pregnancy to study these conditions, which may not fully reflect the biology of late-stage complications. Now, a research team in Japan has successfully developed human placental stem cells from the smooth chorion (a part of the placenta) taken from full-term pregnancies. These new stem cells, called Ch-TS cells, share the same characteristics as placental stem cells from early pregnancy and can develop into the key cell types essential for proper placental function. This advancement allows scientists to study placental complications using cells from the actual time period when these complications occur, potentially leading to better understanding, earlier detection, and improved treatments for pregnancy-related conditions.

The research was led by Professor Masatsugu Ema and Assistant Professor Masanaga Muto from the Department of Stem Cells and Human Disease Models at the Research Center for Animal Life Science, Shiga University of Medical Science (Professor Masatsugu Ema is also a Principal Investigator at WPI-ASHBi). The findings were published in the journal Placenta on July 31, 2025.

Background

The placenta serves as a lifeline between mother and baby. Through the umbilical cord, it delivers oxygen and nutrients to the developing baby while removing waste from the baby’s blood. Specialized placental cells called trophoblasts transport nutrients from the mother and remodel maternal blood vessels to support the growing baby. When these cells malfunction, serious pregnancy complications can develop, including preeclampsia (dangerously high blood pressure during pregnancy), fetal growth restriction, and placental abruption (early separation of the placenta from the uterus). These placenta-mediated pregnancy complications are often detected during the late stage of pregnancy, affecting thousands of families worldwide every year.

Scientists have been working to understand how pregnancy complications develop, but studying the human placenta during pregnancy presents significant technical challenges and ethical concerns. To address this obstacle, researchers have developed laboratory models using stem cells derived from placental tissue that can grow and develop under controlled conditions outside the body. Until now, these valuable research tools, called trophoblast stem cells, have primarily been created from placentas obtained during early pregnancy. Since most complications occur during the late stage of pregnancy, scientists need a more relevant model to study these conditions and improve treatment and prevention strategies.

Key Findings

Researchers have long believed that the source of trophoblast stem cells in the placenta might have disappeared during late pregnancy, since deriving these cells from full-term placentas has proven difficult. This study overturns this assumption: scientists successfully isolated trophoblast cells from the smooth chorion, the outermost fetal membrane of full-term placentas, and established stable trophoblast stem cell lines called Ch-TS cells. These laboratory-cultured cells displayed all the key characteristics of human trophoblast cells and could differentiate into the two main cell types essential for healthy placental function: extravillous trophoblasts, which invade and remodel the mother’s uterine tissue, and syncytiotrophoblasts, which facilitate nutrient and oxygen exchange between mother and baby. These findings demonstrate that term smooth chorion trophoblast cells still retain stem cell potential, indicating a striking difference between trophoblasts in the term placenta and those in the term smooth chorion.

Gene expression analysis confirmed that the characteristics of Ch-TS cells are similar to those of the originally reported trophoblast stem cells, validating their potential as a research tool. At the same time, Ch-TS cells exhibited distinct gene expression patterns compared to other stem cells derived from term placentas using alternative culture methods. Importantly, Ch-TS cells more resemble the originally reported trophoblast stem cells than other term-derived stem cells, highlighting their potential to model human placental development.

Future Perspectives

Studying trophoblast stem cells from term placentas offers a powerful platform for investigating the underlying mechanisms behind pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia and preterm birth. Because the smooth chorion helps maintain the integrity of fetal membranes, Ch-TS cells could also be used to study complications like premature rupture of membranes.

Using cells from full-term placentas avoids the ethical concerns associated with early pregnancy tissue, making research more accessible and easier to conduct. The ability to grow trophoblast stem cells from the smooth chorion also enables scientists to create laboratory models of the placenta and fetal membranes, helping researchers better understand pregnancy complications and develop strategies to prevent or treat them. Overall, this advancement opens new doors for pregnancy research and may ultimately lead to improved outcomes for mothers and babies affected by late-pregnancy complications.

Reference: Hoshiyama T, Muto M, Matsumoto S, et al. Establishment of human trophoblast stem cells from term smooth chorion. Placenta. 2025;169:114-122. doi: 10.1016/j.placenta.2025.07.090

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source. Our press release publishing policy can be accessed here.

A new study from the University of St Andrews has shed light on one of the longest-standing mysteries in astrophysics.

The research, published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, reveals that particles within solar flares can reach temperatures over six times hotter than previously thought.

This unexpected finding could transform our understanding of how the Sun behaves and its impact on Earth.

The research, led by Dr Alexander Russell from the School of Mathematics and Statistics, demonstrates that ions – the positively charged particles that make up half of solar plasma – can heat to an astonishing 60 million degrees.

For decades, scientists assumed that ions and electrons within flares shared the same temperature, but the latest calculations challenge this long-held belief.

What are solar flares?

Solar flares are sudden, colossal bursts of energy in the Sun’s outer atmosphere. They occur when magnetic energy, stored in the solar corona, is suddenly released.

These events are not only spectacular but also significant for life on Earth. Solar flares dramatically increase the Sun’s X-ray and ultraviolet radiation output.

When this energy reaches Earth, it can disrupt communication systems, interfere with GPS signals, damage spacecraft electronics, and pose risks to astronauts.

They also cause changes in our planet’s upper atmosphere, sometimes leading to intensified auroras.

In essence, while solar flares are a natural part of the Sun’s activity cycle, they highlight the delicate connection between space weather and daily life on Earth.

Solving a 50-year-old mystery

The new research may finally resolve a puzzle that has confounded solar physicists since the 1970s.

For decades, scientists struggled to explain why solar flare spectral lines – bright signals at specific wavelengths of ultraviolet and X-ray light – appear broader than theoretical models predicted.

Previously, this discrepancy was blamed on turbulence within the solar atmosphere. However, identifying the exact nature of that turbulence proved elusive.

The St Andrews study offers a groundbreaking alternative: the excess width of the spectral lines may not be turbulence at all, but rather the extreme heat of ions within the flares.

By showing that ions can be heated 6.5 times more strongly than electrons through a process called magnetic reconnection, the team has provided a new framework for interpreting solar flare data.

This paradigm shift aligns better with observational evidence and computer simulations, suggesting scientists may need to reconsider how they model solar events altogether.

Future implications

Understanding solar flares is not just about solving academic mysteries – it has real-world consequences.

As humanity becomes more reliant on satellites and long-duration space missions, predicting and mitigating the effects of solar storms is critical.

If ions within solar flares are far hotter than expected, this could influence how we design spacecraft shielding, assess radiation hazards for astronauts, and forecast space weather more accurately.

The study underscores how interconnected the cosmos is with life on Earth. By unlocking the secrets of solar flares, scientists are not only deepening our knowledge of the Sun but also protecting the technologies and explorers that reach beyond our planet.

A new study suggests a new telescope design could help scientists find Earth-like planets orbiting sun-like stars. Unlike traditional circular telescopes, this innovative concept proposes a rectangular mirror, offering a simpler and cheaper way to search for habitable worlds.

Heidi Newberg, a professor of astrophysics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, explains the idea in a statement. “We show that it is possible to find nearby, Earth-like planets orbiting sun-like stars with a telescope that is about the same size as the James Webb Space Telescope [JWST], operating at roughly the same infrared wavelength as JWST, with a mirror that is a one by 20 meter [65.6 by 3.3 foot] rectangle instead of a circle 6.5 meters [21.3 feet] in diameter.”

The goal is to detect planets with water vapor in their atmospheres, a key sign of potential habitability. To do this, the telescope would focus on light with a wavelength of 10 microns, where water vapor emits strongly. At this infrared wavelength, planets are less faint compared to their stars making them easier to detect. The JWST, with its 21.3-foot (6.5-meter) circular mirror, is too small to resolve Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones of sun-like stars. A circular telescope would need a massive 65.6-foot (20-meter) mirror to achieve the necessary resolution, but building and launching such a giant would be costly and complex.

ALSO SEE: Scientists Discover First Exoplanet In Multi-Ringed Protoplanetary Disk Around Distant Star

Another option, using many small telescopes as an interferometer, is also challenging due to the need for precise alignment. Newberg’s team proposes a rectangular mirror, 65.6 feet by 3.3 feet (20 meters by 1 meter), as a solution. This design has a smaller surface area than the JWST’s mirror but focuses all its light-collecting power in the direction needed to spot a planet. By aligning the telescope’s long side with the planet’s position relative to its star, and rotating it if needed, the design maximizes efficiency. The study, published on September 1, 2025, in Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, highlights the telescope’s potential.

Newberg writes, “We show that this design can, in principle, find half of all existing Earth-like planets orbiting sun-like stars within 30 light years in less than three years.” With about 69 sun-like stars and nearly 300 smaller M dwarf stars within 32.6 light-years, the telescope could discover around 30 promising planets if each sun-like star hosts one Earth-like world.

ALSO SEE: NASA Telescope Discovers Distant But ‘Cool’ Exoplanet Bigger Than Jupiter

If you were an alien looking at the Solar System, the first planet you’d notice, most likely, wouldn’t be Earth. It’s much easier to spot Jupiter for a variety of reasons, including:

• the fact that it emits its own infrared radiation, making it the only planet to emit more light on its own than it reflects from the Sun,
• the fact that it has the largest effect, of any planet, on the wobbling orbit of our parent star,
• the fact that it’s well-separated from our parent star, making it an easier target for direct imaging than any of the rocky planets,
• and the fact that, if viewed from afar at the right perspective, it would block more of the Sun’s light than any other planet during a transit event.

Earth may be of interest to us, since we live on it, but to an external observer, our Solar System, outside of the Sun, is dominated by Jupiter. In fact, outside of the Sun, Jupiter accounts for 250% as much mass as all other bodies in the Solar System combined. Moreover, Jupiter’s major moons contain enormous quantities of water — with three of them having more water than even Earth does — and pose fascinating possibilities in the quest for life beyond our own planet.

And yet, we’ve only just barely begun to study Jupiter. Sure, there are two fascinating missions on their way there right now, both scheduled to arrive in the early 2030s: the Europa Clipper mission and the JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission. But for right now, the mission that paved their way, NASA’s Juno mission, is still operating, taking images to scout out the territory, and to teach scientists irreplaceable lessons about spacecraft survival in Jupiter’s harsh environment. The spacecraft is alive and well, capable of continuing its mission for years to come, while still teaching us valuable information about the Jovian system.

But instead of extending the mission, NASA is poised to force its termination later this month, leaving Jupiter alone and spacecraft-free for the rest of the decade. Here’s what we stand to lose.

One of the biggest challenges in Solar System exploration is for your spacecraft — and everything on board it, including instruments and potentially (someday) living beings — to survive the harsh environment of space. Here on Earth, we have some protective effects against the greater Universe, including the magnetic field surrounding out planet and the atmosphere that acts as a filter for solar and cosmic particles. Once we depart too far from the surface of our planet, however, those effects evaporate, and we’re subject to whatever bombardment the Sun, the galaxy, and the greater Universe inflicts upon us.

But the environment around Jupiter is even harsher than deep interplanetary space in many ways. In fact, of all the planets, moons, and massive objects in our Solar System, only the Sun itself is a more copious source of radiation. Jupiter’s planetary magnetic field creates an enormous hole in the solar wind, generated by electrical currents in the planet’s core. Ejecta from its innermost large, volcano-rich moon, Io, populates this inner magnetosphere with sulfur dioxide gas, where the magnetic field forces this material to co-rotate with Jupiter itself in a torus-like shape. This combination of a gas made of heavy elements with Jupiter’s magnetic field and radiation-rich environment creates a plasma, permitting strong currents and creating permanent aurorae around Jupiter’s poles.

This Hubble Space Telescope image, acquired in ultraviolet wavelengths of light, showcases the aurorae of Jupiter. The bright streaks and dots are caused by magnetic flux tubes that connect Jupiter to its largest moons, and help one visualize the extent and power of Jupiter’s expansive surrounding magnetic field.

Another effect that arises from the interaction of material, heat, and magnetism is the creation of intense radiation belts around Jupiter, similar to (but far larger, more powerful, and more numerous than) Earth’s Van Allen belts, with the strongest, most dangerous belts being the ones that are the innermost: the ones closest to Jupiter itself. This forces any mission that wants to explore Jupiter, or any of the inner moons that are close to Jupiter (including the four large, major Galilean moons), to work within a series of very complex constraints.

• If you want to explore a world, whether it’s a planet (like Jupiter) or a moon (like Europa or Ganymede), you want to ideally do it in situ, or as close to the world itself as possible.
• From up close, you can take higher-resolution images, probe smaller features either in the atmosphere, clouds, or on the surface.
• But the more time you spend in a radiation-rich environment, the faster your spacecraft, your instruments, and any radiation-susceptible entities (including biological tissue) will degrade.
• And, perhaps most egregiously, damage is often cumulative: once you incur damage, continued exposure to these damaging effects will only worsen the situation, leading to your spacecraft (and its instruments) eventually becoming inoperable.

In other words, the longer you spend in the places best suited to collecting the most useful, highest-quality data, the less capable you become of taking similar data of equal usefulness and quality in the future.

This illustration shows a general planetary magnetosphere, with this particular illustration corresponding to Earth’s. For Jupiter, the magnetic field is about 20 times as great, and the size of the magnetosphere extends for millions of kilometers in the sunward direction, while extending all the way to the orbit of Saturn on the away-facing side.

A very clever technique to combat this has been devised, fortunately, and will not only be leveraged by both the upcoming Europa Clipper mission and the JUICE mission, but is already in use by Jupiter: to have your spacecraft make wide, elliptical orbits, where the best images are acquired at or near Perijove: the periods of closest approach. Because of Kepler’s second law, we know that spacecraft that are on highly eccentric orbits — where they’re far away from the parent body they’re orbiting sometimes and very close to the parent body at other times — will spend most of their time at low-radiation/large-distance conditions, but only a little bit of time under high-radiation/short-distance conditions.

By planning your mission so that your spacecraft minimizes the time it spends under the harshest radiation conditions, it enables the ability to conduct numerous close flybys of whatever your target is over relatively long periods of time, while still maximizing the overall lifetime of your mission. This same technique was leveraged with the Parker Solar Probe, which has now taken data from points closer to the Sun than any other mission in history. For Juno, it’s meant that a mission which would have lasted merely a few months if it had entered and remained in the most radiation-rich regions around Jupiter, instead has lasted for nearly a decade, and still is capable of taking data for years to come.

This illustration shows Jupiter’s magnetosphere in the vicinity of the Galilean Satellites. Jupiter and the distances to Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto are shown to scale, but the sizes of the moons themselves, as shown, are far larger than actual size. Near the orbit of Io and within, extreme radiation belts, rich in plasma, can be found.

Since it arrived at Jupiter in 2016, the Juno mission has provided an incredible amount of information about the system: information that we couldn’t have acquired from afar with remote observatories like Hubble or JWST, and has continued operating an extended mission after successfully completing its primary one. No other spacecraft has probed beneath the clouds encircling Jupiter the way that Juno has, or has imaged our Solar System’s largest planet so comprehensively and over such extended periods of time. It’s also provided a remarkable wealth of information about Jupiter’s major moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto, all of which are no more than 2 million kilometers distant from Jupiter itself at all times.

Some recent highlights of what Juno has found include:

It’s kind of remarkable, considering that Juno was designed to focus on Jupiter itself, including its interior, atmosphere, and auroral features.

The JunoCam instrument aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft snapped several images of the second of Jupiter’s four large moons, Europa, during a close flyby of that world in September of 2022. It provided strong and suggestive evidence of true polar wander, supporting the notion that Europa’s surface ice sheet is a shell that floats above a worldwide liquid water ocean. Juno data also measured the smoothness of Europa’s surface, determining it to be the smoothest yet of any known major planetary body.

And yet, Juno has accomplished so much more than that. For starters, Juno collected key information that motivated the Europa Clipper mission’s existence. We’ve known for decades that Europa, the second-innermost of Jupiter’s four Galilean satellites, is covered in ice. In fact, Europa was measured, by Juno, to have the smoothest surface of any solid-surfaced world in the Solar System. But it was during three close flybys of Europa back in 2022 that Juno uncovered three key features about it:

1. It has an icy crust that migrates over time, suggesting that the crust sits atop a layer of liquid, and moves over time.
2. Features consistent with “plume stains” appeared in the Junocam data, suggesting that Europa’s subsurface ocean rises up and ruptures through the ice shell regularly.
3. And that the smooth surface could harbor either a thick ice crust and thin ocean, or a thin ice crust and a thick ocean, with either possibility admitting the existence of sub-surface hydrothermal vents. (Note: such vents are rich in life here on Earth.)

Yes, there are indeed locations beneath the ices of Europa that could potentially harbor sub-surface, extremophile life. Juno set the stage for the Europa Clipper mission, which can now work to take the next scientific steps towards that goal.

Scientists are all but certain that Europa has an ocean underneath its icy surface, but they do not know how thick this ice might be. This artist concept illustrates two possible cut-away views through Europa’s ice shell. In both, heat escapes, possibly volcanically, from Europa’s rocky mantle and is carried upward by buoyant oceanic currents. If a human-size feature were to be observed from Earth, a telescope the size of Alaska would be required. Whether there is life in this subsurface ocean or not still remains to be determined.

Juno also, from a technological point of view, has taught us more than we ever could have imagined about spacecraft survival in the radiation-harsh environment around Jupiter. Juno, being “only” five times as far from the Sun as Earth is (as opposed to ten, twenty, or thirty for missions that would focus Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune, respectively), isn’t powered by a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), but instead by plain old solar panels. At such great distances, solar energy is limited. When the spacecraft flies through Jupiter’s radiation belts, the intense radiation can trigger a “something is wrong” signal, forcing the spacecraft into safe mode. This has happened four times thus far, including twice here in 2025.

As part of Juno’s design, its most sensitive instruments — and its most precious, delicate electronics — are housed inside an enormous, thick titanium vault. The thick layers of titanium act as a shield for the electronics, the same way that lead is used for shielding from X-rays and high-energy particles here on Earth. However, due to space constraints, not all instruments could fit inside the titanium vault, and the ones that couldn’t would be more susceptible to the inevitable degradation that would ensue from being exposed to this radiation-rich environment. Sooner or later, one of the spacecraft’s components would be deleteriously affected.

This image shows NASA’s Juno spacecraft, on the floor, as it was being assembled. Above the main craft, a massive, heavy titanium vault, being lowered down onto the propulsion module here, stores the most sensitive instruments and electronics, protecting them from the intense radiation environment around Jupiter.

Believe it or not, the instrument that brought us nearly all of the visually spectacular images that have been the hallmark of the Juno mission, the JunoCam instrument, isn’t classified as one of the mission’s primary science instruments. As a result, this optical imager, whose inclusion was mostly for the benefit of the general public (as opposed to scientists, although it has made important scientific contributions), isn’t inside the titanium vault. As you might have expected, that means it encounters more of these energetic charged particles that exist within Jupiter’s radiation belts, and that, in turn, means it’s going to experience degradation due to radiation exposure.

As originally reported by Universe Today’s Evan Gough, JunoCam began showing signs of degradation during its 47th orbit around Jupiter, and by the 56th orbit, practically every image that was acquired with JunoCam showed signs of corruption. In particular, the images were grainy, showing evidence of noise that appeared in horizontal streaks across the field-of-view. Areas that should have been completely dark were instead illuminated with noisy streaks; areas that should have been uniformly bright had darkened streaks streaking across them. In addition, these streams weren’t random, but appeared in clusters: bands and groups.

This image, taken of one of the circumpolar cyclones near Jupiter’s north pole, was acquired on November 22, 2023. As you can see, there are horizontal lines and graininess polluting the image: effects of the radiation damage on JunoCam. By heating up the camera, similar to the annealing process, this damage was successfully undone.

This type of damage was consistent with the type of degradation you’d expect from radiation acting on a digital camera: a camera powered by charge-coupled devices, or CCDs. CCDs work by detecting photons, and then converting those photons into electrical signals that get recorded by the internal electronics within the camera. With extra radiation, of course there are going to be extra, unwanted electrical signals within the camera, but what’s more troubling is the features that persist even when there’s no longer active radiation affecting the camera. Over time, cumulative damage from radiation will damage the internal structure, made largely of silicon crystal, which can (for example) cause electrons to be kicked into the conduction band, which results in the dark streaks you see across Jupiter, above.

There are approximately 200 people, including technicians, engineers, and scientists, who work on Juno at any given time. (And most only do it part-time, working on other missions and endeavors as well.) You might think that prospects for repairing a radiation-damaged digital camera, from hundreds of millions of kilometers away, would be out of the realm of possibility. But the clues as to what was happening were written on the images, allowing mission personnel to experiment on a clone of the camera, in a laboratory setting. At last, they figured it out: there must have been a malfunctioning voltage regulator in the power supply that was powering the camera.

This color-balanced image of Jupiter’s moon Io, taken with NASA’s Juno spacecraft, shows the moon in close to true color, with volcanically active mountains, calderas, and features resembling lava flows all visible. Toward the lower-right of the image, just past the shadow line marking the day/night boundary, an erupting volcanic plume can be seen. This JunoCam composite was designed to show Io in as close to true color as possible.

There aren’t very many tools on board the spacecraft, but one thing that JunoCam was equipped with was an on-board heater. Thinking that if they heated up the camera, it might serve the same function as the annealing process common to metalworking scenarios, thye gave it a shot: commanding JunoCam’s lone heater to raise the temperature to 77 °F (25 °C), or some 243 °F (135 °C) hotter than ambient temperatures. It worked, and when the degradation reappeared, they turned the heater up even higher and it worked again. It was only by:

• extending the mission,
• identifying the problems that arose,
• and using what tools were available to solve them,

that enabled scientists to discover a method for healing the radiation damage to Juno’s main imaging camera.

Today, Juno scientists are looking forward to the possibility of investigating previously unexplored regions of the Jovian system, including several moons that have never had a close flyby performed of them. In addition to Amalthea, the moons Thebe, Adrastea, and Metis are all targeted for future flybys if an extended mission gets approved. And the lessons from Juno go beyond its scientific lessons as well. As the mission’s principal investigator, Dr. Scott Bolton, also noted, “In addition to scientific exploration, Juno is providing critical new information directly relevant to national security by teaching us how space systems can survive and even reverse degradation from exposure to intense radiation.”

This image shows the JunoCam imager, which was marketed as the Juno mission’s outreach camera. JunoCam, although it also had science goals related to properties of and weather within Jupiter’s cloudtops, has provided a wealth of information through its images, and continues to do so here in September of 2025, for now.

Due to the quality at which Juno is operating, today, planetary scientists are seeking a further 3 year extension of Juno, leaving only a tiny gap during which Jupiter will be devoid of having an operational scientific spacecraft orbiting it. For a mission whose initial costs exceeded a total of $1 billion, and that maybe are approaching $1.5 billion total, it’s kind of amazing that for just a few tens of millions of dollars, we could keep it operating for several years more, squeezing more science, more technology lessons, and more information out of a spacecraft that’s already exceeded expectations and enabled its already-on-the-way successors.

Too bad that, here in 2025, the mission has already been zeroed out for funding by the current administration. It doesn’t need to die just yet, and there are still many lessons that Juno will be uniquely poised to teach us in the coming months and years. But if no additional funding comes by the end of September, its fate is sealed: it’s going to be directed into Jupiter itself. Just as Cassini was sent into Saturn at the end of its mission to avoid contaminating Saturn’s moons with any stowaway organics brought from Earth, so too will Juno be brought to an end by forcing it to plunge into a gas giant world. It doesn’t have to end this way, of course, but unless something drastic changes in the next few weeks, Juno will die an unnecessarily premature death, like so much of NASA science here in 2025.

Embry-Riddle Students Prepare to Launch CubeSat to Study Memory Chip Decay From Radiation

by Keaton S. Ziem for ERAU News

Daytona Beach FL (SPX) Sep 03, 2025

After seven years of painstaking work, an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University student team is finally cleared to launch its second small satellite into orbit.

The CubeSat, named EagleSat-2, will hitch a ride aboard Northrop Grumman’s NG-23 rocket mission, scheduled to lift off this month from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The small satellite is designed to investigate how computer memory degrades when exposed to harsh solar radiation.

The opportunity to launch EagleSat-2 came after the successful 2017 flight of EagleSat-1, which studied satellite orbital decay and the effectiveness of supercapacitors. Building on that achievement, the Embry-Riddle student group proposed a second satellite to NASA’s highly competitive CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) and was one of 11 university teams selected.

“I believe we are looking at a new era of CubeSat development at Embry-Riddle,” said Bruce Noble, project manager for EagleSat-2 and an aerospace engineering student.

Noble said EagleSat-2’s mission objective strikes a balance between feasibility and the ability to provide satellite researchers with the most valuable data, regardless of whether the satellite remains operational for weeks or years.

“The payload for EagleSat-2 was decided before I joined,” he said. “There were several options as to what the project goal should be, but memory degradation was chosen because the research could reliably be conducted over the lifespan of a CubeSat.”

The EagleSat-2 team has outfitted the CubeSat with several types of computer memory chips – FRAM, SRAM, MRAM and flash storage. Each chip has been loaded with a known set of data before launch. Once in orbit, the EagleSat-2 team will monitor for changes in the data caused by radiation.

Team member Ela Ozatay says that by comparing the received data against the original input, the team will be able to track which types of memory degrade faster and how reliably they perform in a high-radiation environment.

If successful, EagleSat-2 can contribute to vital research on developing more resilient memory chips to withstand the harsh conditions of solar decay. This knowledge is essential for designing more robust and longer-lasting space systems needed for ambitious deep-space missions.

A Difficult Journey

Low-cost satellites the size of loaves of bread, CubeSats are designed to be carried into space by fitting into standardized deployers that are mounted aboard larger rockets. To qualify for launch, each CubeSat must meet strict requirements for size, weight and safety, as well as pass rigorous inspections and vibration testing.

While designing and building its CubeSat, the EagleSat-2 team faced persistent challenges, ranging from software issues to supply chain delays.

A critical hurdle occurred shortly before the final integration deadline with the team’s launch provider, Voyager Technologies. The team discovered a short circuit between the solar panels and the CubeSat’s power system. The error would have prevented the satellite from charging.

“The only way to fix the short was to take the satellite completely apart,” said Noble. “Everybody worked diligently and had EagleSat-2 ready for another inspection and vibration test in a single semester.”

The team’s perseverance paid off.

“The resilience demonstrated by the EagleSat-2 team throughout this project has been truly remarkable,” said Dr. Ahmed Iyanda Sulyman, professor and interim chair for the Computer, Electrical and Software Engineering Department, as well as faculty mentor for the team. “There were moments when it looked like the project was doomed to fail, but the team managed to turn things around for the success story that we have today.”

Preparing for Launch

On March 17, the EagleSat team arrived at the Voyager Technologies facility in Webster, Texas, where they received a guided tour, an experience that Noble and his fellow EagleSat-2 teammates won’t forget.

“We got to see some of their larger projects, such as the Bishop Airlock mockup they use for training astronauts,” said Noble. “The whole process was very exciting.”

After final weight checks, fit verification and removal of pre-flight components, EagleSat-2 was secured in its deployer and readied for its eventual trip into space.

“The EagleSat-2 team did a wonderful job assembling and supporting integration of their spacecraft on the NRCSD29 mission campaign,” said Brenden Swanik, mission manager at Space Solutions, a business segment of Voyager Technologies. “We are looking forward to the flight!”

Once launched, the satellite will be tracked from Embry-Riddle’s ground station atop the Aerospace Experimentation and Fabrication Building (AXFAB). Monitoring EagleSat-2 is essential for downloading data and maintaining satellite longevity.

The team expects EagleSat-2 to transmit two major sets of information: general performance metrics and results from the memory degradation experiment.

“By tracking the satellite, we can determine what data we want to be sent back and observe how the satellite’s health affects the data,” said Ozatay. “It allows us to adjust operations as needed during the mission.”

‘Collaboration Is Key’

Reflecting on his journey, Noble believes the most rewarding aspect of the project has been his experiences as EagleSat-2’s project manager.

“I started as a member of the structures team, then volunteered for project management, where I developed the ground station team and training,” he said. “Collaboration is key in systems engineering. Each subsystem must work together, and the project manager needs to maintain the big picture, ensuring communication between teams.”

The early success of EagleSat-2 is already shaping Embry-Riddle’s future CubeSat initiatives. Under Noble’s leadership, the program has been restructured to include a dedicated Payload Research and Development section focused on the research, design and testing of new payloads.

The team has also begun considering the development of a CubeSat twice the size of EagleSat-2.

“With renewed interest in space exploration, there’s been rapid growth in the industry – from commercial space to military involvement,” said Noble. “I hope that the success of EagleSat-2 will help bring the space industry to our campus and provide new opportunities for students.”

Related Links

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Computer Chip Architecture, Technology and Manufacture
Nano Technology News From SpaceMart.com

‘What did you say?’, exclaimed the student next to me in a seminar at the start of my chemistry degree. ‘It’s a secondary carbocation,’ I replied. What I had said wasn’t wrong, just how I said it. Instead of pronouncing the hard t in carbocation, I had used a soft t to rhyme with station. How had I made it through A-level chemistry without knowing how to say this vital term?

My inability to pronounce this word raised two questions for me. Firstly, was I being held back by not being able to verbally communicate ideas, and secondly, if I had not experienced using this terminology, what else had I missed or misunderstood during my A-level? While this memory makes me shudder, it highlights the importance of talk and oracy in teaching mechanisms in organic chemistry.

Talk allows students to explore ideas and exposes misconceptions 

Oracy involves explicitly teaching students to talk and through talk. While mechanisms may seem to be more about drawing than speaking, there is a vast pool of vocabulary that students need to communicate. Furthermore, students understand mechanisms better through talk. Talk allows them to explore ideas and exposes misconceptions, such as the carbocation situation. I’ve found that encouraging my students to talk about their mechanisms is a powerful tool for understanding the underlying chemistry. I recommend you try it.

The power of oracy

We start by providing a glossary (either online or on paper) of a few key terms such as electron rich, delta charge and my old nemesis, carbocation. As we introduce new words, teachers demonstrate correct pronunciation and students practise through choral repetition. Teachers then give students diagrams of a mechanism to describe out loud in pairs, using words from their glossary. We do this before they encounter mechanisms from the specification, and all through talk, not writing, so that they can grapple with ideas and change their minds as they speak.

After trialling this approach, I found that students needed more than just a word list. They needed model phrases, which may not be on the specification but allow for a much richer description of what is happening in any mechanism, for example nucleophilic attack or flow of electrons.

Once students have practised speaking the language of mechanisms, they work in small groups to solve problems, talking through where electrons may move. I often use a ‘what happens next?’ style of question. Oracy prompts and sentence stems such as ‘the ammonia in this mechanism is a nucleophile because …’ and ‘the lone pair of electrons flow towards …’ are valuable scaffolds that you can fade over time.

Problem solve through speaking out loud

Problem solve through speech

Speaking these out loud allows more fluid problem solving. Students can correct or adapt their answers as they speak and challenge each other’s ideas more easily than when they commit them to paper. After this practice, students are more able to confidently approach specification mechanisms.

Using an oracy-based approach is not always easy for students. Some can be nervous about speaking in front of peers, others are afraid of making mistakes. Providing prompts and choral repetition reduce some of this fear. Most of all, creating a culture of positive mistakes is really helpful. I start my topic by sharing my own mistake with carbocations. This puts them at ease and allows for humour at my expense!

Oracy has real power for teaching organic mechanisms. Students learn to talk, becoming confident communicators who use the language of mechanisms effectively. They also learn through talk, by speaking to each other to solve problems rather than by rote-learning diagrams.

Scientists have long used sound to study wildlife. Bird calls, bat echolocation and whale songs, for example, have provided valuable insights for decades. But listening to entire ecosystems is a much newer frontier.

Listening to rivers is especially tricky. Beneath the water is a soundscape of clicks, pops and hums that most of us never hear. Many of these sounds are a mystery. What produces them – an insect? A fish? The water itself?

A new tool developed by my colleagues and I aims to help scientists decode what underwater river sounds really mean. We hope it will help monitor river health and tell the untold stories of these fascinating underwater places.

Sonic sleuthing

Rivers around the world face growing threats, including pollution, water extraction and climate change. So scientists are always looking for better ways to keep an eye on river health.

Sometimes river animals make sounds to attract a mate or ward off rivals. Other times the noise may simply be incidental, made when the animal moves or feeds.

These sounds can reveal a lot. Changes in the pattern or abundance of a sound can be a sign that a species is in decline or the ecosystem is under stress. They might reveal that a species we thought was silent actually makes sounds. Or we might discover a whole new species!

That’s why scientists use sound to monitor ecosystems. It essentially involves lowering waterproof microphones into the water and recording what’s picked up.

Recorders can run continuously, day and night, without disturbing wildlife. Unlike cameras, the recorders work in murky waters. And scientists can leave a recorder running and leave, allowing them to capture far more information with far less effort than traditional surveys.

Every recording is a time capsule. And as new technology develops, these sound files can be re-analysed, offering fresh insights into the state of our rivers.

But there’s a catch. Analysing the hours of recordings can be very time-consuming. Unlike for land-based recordings, no automatic tools have existed to help scientists identify or document what they’ve recorded underwater.

The best method available has been painfully old-fashioned: listening to recordings in real time. But a single recorder can capture tens of thousands of sounds each day. Manually analysing them can take a trained professional up to four times longer than the recording itself.

Our new, publicly available tool sought to address that problem.

A smarter way to listen to rivers

Our tool uses R, a free program for analysing data. The author of this article wrote a code instructing the program to analyse sound from underwater recordings.

We then uploaded sound recordings from Warrill Creek in Southeast Queensland. The program scanned the recordings and pulled out each individual sound.

Using the frequency, loudness and duration of every sound, it compared them all — a mammoth task if done by hand. Finally, it grouped similar sounds together — for example, clicks with clicks or hums with hums — turning them into simple clusters of data.

This process allows researchers to study the sounds more easily. Instead of spending hours listening to a recording and trying to distinguish the clicks of waterbugs from the grunts of a fish, the tool sorts the sounds into groups so researchers can jump straight to analysing patterns in the data.

For example, they might analyse which sounds are present in which rivers, or how the sounds change over time or between regions.

In yet-to-be published research, we tested the tool on a further 22 streams and found it successfully processed the sound data into groupings.

Our study found the tool is accurate. It correctly identified almost 90% of distinct sounds – faster and with far less effort than manual listening.

Listen to life beneath the surface

Listen to this recording of waterbugs from the order Hempitera. You’ll hear a chorus of sharp clicks, like marbles rattling in a glass. The recording is filled with hundreds of near-identical calls — a task that would take hours to label by hand.

After we uploaded the sound file, the tool grouped these repetitive calls automatically, saving huge amounts of listening time.

Below is an underwater recording of aquatic macroinvertebrates. The calls of these tiny river creatures, from the orders Hemiptera and Coleoptera, hum like cicadas. The sound is interspersed with the grunts of a fish (order Terapontidae), all set against the quiet backdrop of flowing water.

The tool can handle these layers, grouping sounds to show the community beneath the surface.

In this next clip, the sound of flowing water is prominent. This is one of the biggest challenges in listening to rivers. But our tool can separate out sounds masked by the constant background noise, so scientists can analyse them.

Below, a chorus of clicking macroinvertebrates fills the recording, until a vehicle sound cuts across from above the water’s surface. It shows how easily human noise crosses the boundary between air and water.

Helping protect our rivers

The tool allows underwater recordings to be processed at scale. It moves beyond hours of manual listening towards truly exploring what rivers are telling us.

It’s also flexible, able to handle data sets of any size, and adaptable to different ecosystems.

We hope the tool will help protect rivers and other water resources, such as oceans. It opens up new ways to monitor these environments and find strategies to protect them.

Scientists have only just begun exploring freshwater sound. By making this tool free, easy to use and publicly available, we hope more people can join in, ask questions and make discoveries of their own.

Gloabl team expands gravitational wave catalogue with 128 new detections

by Sophie Jenkins

London, UK (SPX) Sep 03, 2025

An international network of gravitational wave observatories has more than doubled the number of known cosmic collisions, detecting 128 new mergers of black holes and neutron stars. The results, published in the updated Gravitational Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC-4.0), showcase the expanding reach of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration.

The detections, gathered between May 2023 and January 2024, mark a turning point in gravitational-wave astronomy. Improved sensitivity in the detectors, now 25 percent greater than before, enabled scientists to probe deeper into the cosmos and uncover signals from massive and distant systems.

Among the discoveries is GW230814, the loudest gravitational wave recorded to date, which hints at black holes formed from previous mergers. The catalogue also includes evidence of two black hole-neutron star collisions, broadening the variety of cosmic events studied.

UK researchers have played a central role in both instrumentation and data analysis, supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council. Teams from the University of Glasgow, the University of Portsmouth, and Royal Holloway contributed significantly to the detectors’ precision and to extracting faint signals buried in noise.

Dr Daniel Williams from the University of Glasgow noted that the new results highlight the strength of the international network and the analytical tools developed to interpret complex data.

The expanded catalogue enables more precise tests of Einstein’s general relativity and refines measurements of the Universe’s expansion rate, including the contested Hubble constant. Tessa Baker of the University of Portsmouth emphasized the excitement of releasing over a hundred new events, providing vital cosmological insights while affirming the consistency of gravity on large scales with Einstein’s theory.

Looking ahead, researchers expect even more breakthroughs as future facilities, such as the Vera Rubin Observatory, link gravitational wave detections with light-based observations. This multi-messenger approach promises to unravel deeper mysteries about stars, black holes, and the forces shaping the Universe.

Research Report:GWTC-4.0: Updating the Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog with Observations from the First Part of the Fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Observing Run

Related Links

LIGO

The Physics of Time and Space