Category: 7. Science

Scientists studying asteroids found that two seemingly unrelated types share a strange dusty coating of troilite.

By using polarization of light instead of traditional spectra, Joe Masiero uncovered evidence that these space rocks may have originated from the same ancient parent bodies, offering a new glimpse into the chaotic past of the early solar system.

Ancient Solar System Origins

Around 4.6 billion years ago, the solar system took shape out of a vast swirl of gas and dust surrounding the Sun. The asteroids that remain today are among the most complete relics from that chaotic era, comparable to scraps and spare parts left behind at a construction site. By analyzing their shapes, surfaces, and chemical makeup, scientists can uncover clues about what conditions were like when the solar system first formed.

To better understand these rocky remnants, researchers sort asteroids into groups based on shared traits. A new study in The Planetary Science Journal, led by IPAC scientist Joe Masiero, presents evidence that two very different types of asteroids may have endured the same turbulent history.

“Asteroids offer us the chance to look at what was going on in the early solar system like a freeze frame of the conditions that existed when the first solid objects formed,” said Masiero.

A Rare Fingerprint in Space Rocks

Drawing on data from Caltech’s Palomar Observatory, Masiero and his team examined two asteroid types: one dominated by metal and another composed largely of silicates and other minerals. Despite their contrasting makeups, both were found to carry the same unusual dusty coating made of iron and sulfur, a substance known as troilite.

“Troilite is very uncommon, so we can use it as a fingerprint that links these two different types of objects to each other,” said Masiero.

This animation shows how an asteroid would appear during different phases depending on its location relative to the Sun, similar to how the Moon has phases. Credit: Caltech/IPAC/K. Miller

Asteroid Spectra and Classifications

Asteroids are separated into different classes based on the spectrum of light reflected off of their surface, denoted by letters such as M, K, C, and more. The spectra can show the presence of carbon, silicates, or metals in the regolith, or surface dirt, of the asteroid.

In this study, Masiero looked at M- and K-type asteroids. M-types are metal-rich, while K-types are composed of silicates and other materials and thought to be linked to an ancient giant collision between asteroids. About 95 percent of Earth’s crust and mantle are made up of silicates.

But the same materials on asteroids can appear differently depending on the shape of the asteroid, the size of the regolith (dust, pebbles, boulders), and the phase angle of the asteroid relative to the Sun.

Asteroids in our solar system are constantly moving: orbiting the Sun and rotating on their own axis, and because of this, just like how the Moon has phases, asteroids do too. The phase angle is the angle between the Sun, asteroid, and the Earth.

“While spectra indicate that there are different minerals on the surface of these objects, we’re trying to figure out how different these bodies truly are,” said Masiero. “We want to wind the clock back to when these formed and what conditions they formed under in the early solar system.”

Probing Asteroids with Polarization

Masiero turned to polarization, particularly in the near-infrared, as a method for studying asteroids. By measuring the polarization of the reflected light on the M- and K-type asteroids he was studying, Masiero shows that the two previously discrete asteroid spectral classes may actually be linked through their surface composition.

Polarization describes the direction of the waves that make up light, similar to how brightness is a measurement of how many photons there are, or how color is a measurement of the wavelength. Different surface minerals have different polarization responses when they reflect light, the same way they can have different colors.

Changes in an asteroid’s phase angle can significantly affect polarization, and this response is a result of the variety of materials on the surface. Masiero used the way the degree of polarization changes with phase angle to investigate the makeup of the asteroids’ surfaces. This technique can probe the composition even when the minerals don’t show any color or spectral response.

“Polarization gives us insight into the minerals in the asteroids that we can’t get from just how well the asteroid reflects sunlight, or what the reflected light’s spectrum looks like,” said Masiero. “Polarization gives you a third axis to ask questions about the surface mineralogy that’s independent of brightness or spectral information.”

Unlocking Secrets at Palomar

Masiero used the WIRC+Pol instrument at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in the mountains above San Diego, California.

“Palomar is such a fabulous facility. It’s great to interact with the observing team there; the telescope operators and the support astronomers really are helpful in making sure you can get the best data possible,” said Masiero. “For the infrared polarization data I needed, there is no other instrument that can get nearly as deep. This is an asset unique to Palomar.”

Tracing a Shared Ancestry

After the polarization studies, Masiero concludes that both M- and K-type asteroids share the same dusty surface of troilite, an iron sulfide material.

Masiero argues that the evidence of troilite is a sign that these two types of asteroids actually came from similar types of original, larger objects that later broke apart to create the asteroids we see today.

The different overall compositions of the asteroids can be linked to the different layers within the large original objects. Like how Earth has a core, mantle, and crust made of different materials, these types of asteroids could originate from the different layers.

The troilite dust may have been abundant on an original object before breaking up, or it could have been a cloud of dust that covered everything after it broke up, but its roots are still unknown.

“You can’t go and rip the Earth open to see what is inside, but you can look at asteroids—the leftover bits and pieces, the unused components from solar system formation—and use them to see how our planets were built,” said Masiero.

Reference: “The Mineralogical Connection between M- and K-type Asteroids as Indicated by Polarimetry” by Joseph R. Masiero, Yuna G. Kwon, Elena Selmi and Manaswi Kondapally, 20 August 2025, The Planetary Science Journal.
DOI: 10.3847/PSJ/ade433

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A red supergiant star has blown an enormous bubble of gas and dust, baffling astronomers.

The structure, as massive as the Sun and larger than our solar system, formed in a sudden eruption thousands of years ago. Why the star didn’t explode as a supernova remains a mystery.

Discovery of a Vast Stellar Bubble

Astronomers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have identified a gigantic, expanding bubble of gas and dust surrounding a red supergiant star. It is the largest structure of this kind ever observed in the Milky Way. Containing as much mass as the Sun, the bubble was expelled in a violent stellar eruption about 4000 years ago. Scientists are still puzzled as to how the star managed to survive such a dramatic event.

The findings, published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, come from a team led by Mark Siebert of Chalmers. Using the ALMA radio telescope in Chile, the researchers studied the red supergiant known as DFK 52, a star similar in many ways to the famous Betelgeuse.

A Giant, Expanding Cloud of Gas and Dust

“We got a big surprise when we saw what ALMA was showing us. The star is more or less a twin of Betelgeuse, but it’s surrounded by a vast, messy bubble of material,” says Mark Siebert at Chalmers.

This immense cloud, made of gas and dust, holds as much mass as the Sun and stretches 1.4 light years from the star. To put that in perspective, the bubble is thousands of times wider than our entire solar system.

If DFK 52 were as close to Earth as Betelgeuse, the bubble would appear to cover about one third of the full Moon’s width in the night sky.

By tracking the movement of molecules in the gas with ALMA’s radio observations, astronomers determined that the bubble is still expanding. They believe it originated when the star violently ejected part of its outer layers during an explosive outburst a few thousand years ago.

“The bubble is made of material that used to be part of the star. It must have been ejected in a dramatic event, an explosion, that happened about four thousand years ago. In cosmic terms, that’s just a moment ago,” says Elvire De Beck, astronomer at Chalmers.

The Galaxy’s Next Supernova?

Why DFK 52 shed so much mass without exploding as a supernova is still unclear. One possibility is that the star has a hidden companion that helped it cast off its outer layers.

“To us, it’s a mystery as to how the star managed to expel so much material in such a short timeframe. Maybe, like Betelgeuse seems to, it has a companion star that’s still to be discovered,” says Mark Siebert.

Red supergiants like DFK 52 are nearing the ends of their lives and are expected to eventually explode as supernovae. Could this star be next?

“We’re planning more observations to understand what’s happening – and to find out whether this might be the Milky Way’s next supernova. If this is a typical red supergiant, it could explode sometime in the next million years,” says Elvire De Beck.

Reference: “Stephenson 2 DFK 52: Discovery of an exotic red supergiant in the massive stellar cluster RSGC2” by M. A. Siebert, E. De Beck, G. Quintana-Lacaci and W. H. T. Vlemmings, 6 August 2025, Astronomy & Astrophysics.
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202555975

The study was carried out by Mark Siebert, Elvire De Beck, and Wouter Vlemmings from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, together with Guillermo Quintana Lacaci from the Instituto de Fisica Fundamental in Spain.

Red supergiants are among the brightest and rarest stars visible in the universe. They represent the final stage in the lives of stars that began with far greater mass than our Sun (more than eight times its mass). For astronomers, these stars are crucial for piecing together the life cycles of stars and planets. The most massive ones produce and release newly created elements into interstellar space, stirring up gas and dust and fueling the formation of future generations of stars.

Within our own galaxy, the Milky Way, some red supergiants are visible without a telescope to anyone under a dark sky. Two of the best-known examples are Betelgeuse in the constellation Orion and Antares in Scorpius.

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) is a world-class observatory located in Chile. It is operated as a collaboration between ESO, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), and Japan’s National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS), working together with the Republic of Chile.

In Sweden, Onsala Space Observatory at Chalmers University of Technology has played a role in ALMA from the very beginning. Among its contributions are specialized receivers built for the telescope. Onsala also hosts the Nordic ALMA Regional Centre, which offers technical expertise for the project and helps astronomers across the Nordic countries make full use of ALMA’s capabilities.

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By some measures, [Emma Maria Mazzenga] appears to have the cardiorespiratory fitness of someone in their 50s and her muscle’s mitochondria function as well as a healthy 20-year-old, [researchers in Italy] said.

…

“Either through genetics or her lifestyle — or a mixture of both — she is able to keep that communication between the brain, between the nerves and the muscle at a much healthier level than what we typically see in a 90-year-old,” [Chris] Sundberg said. The well-functioning parts of Mazzenga’s muscle appear to be “almost compensating” for her fast-twitch muscle fibers, he said.

To stay physically and mentally active later in life, a person needs a holistic approach to nutrition, cognition and exercise, [Luigi Ferrucci] said. “Exercise is a good base but you need to do a lot more. You need to take care of your entire body.”

Mazzenga said when she’s training she eats “what she generally eats.” And, she cooks “very simple things” such as steak, fish, fried eggs and “a little pasta, a little rice.” But, she avoids eating anything three hours before running.

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Researchers describe the newly discovered binary system as a cosmic oddball.

Stars often reach the end of their lives and fade from view, but astronomers were left baffled when a star that had remained steady for more than ten years suddenly seemed to vanish for nearly eight months.

From late 2024 through early 2025, a star in our galaxy known as ASASSN-24fw lost about 97% of its brightness before returning to normal. The unusual dimming quickly became the subject of debate as researchers searched for an explanation behind such an extraordinary event.

An international research team, led by scientists at The Ohio State University, now believes they may have solved the puzzle. In a study recently published in The Open Journal of Astrophysics, the group reports that because the star’s color did not change during the dimming, the cause was unlikely to be related to stellar evolution. Instead, they conclude that a massive cloud of dust and gas surrounding the star blocked it from Earth’s view.

“We explored three different scenarios for what could be going on,” said Raquel Forés-Toribio, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in astronomy at Ohio State. “Evidence suggests it is likely that there is a cloud of dust in the form of a disk around it.”

The Star and Its Surroundings

ASASSN-24fw is an F-type star — a star that is a little more massive than our sun and about twice as big — and is located about 3,000 light-years away from Earth. Researchers estimate that the cloudy disk it’s surrounded by is about 1.3 astronomical units (AU) across, even bigger than the distance between the sun and our planet. (One AU is the distance between the center of the Earth and the center of the sun.)

Researchers suggest this disk is also likely made up of large clusters of carbon or water ice close in size to a large grain of dust found on Earth. This material is similar enough to planet-forming disks that studying it could give astronomers novel insights into stellar formation and evolution.

Yet these findings alone don’t explain all of the system’s abnormalities, said Forés-Toribio. Instead, researchers think that a smaller, cooler star may also orbit ASASSN-24fw, which would make it a hidden binary system.

“At this moment, with the data that we have, what we propose is that there should be two stars together in a binary system,” said Forés-Toribio. “The second star, which is much fainter and less massive, may be driving the changes in geometry leading to the eclipses.”

A Rare and Dramatic Event

While dimming systems like the one the team saw are rare, this one-in-a-million eclipsing was especially dramatic, said Chris Kochanek, co-author of the study and a professor of astronomy at Ohio State, as even when researchers searched for similar objects, they couldn’t find one that fit the same exact pattern.

“We were hoping to find some similarities and we didn’t really find very many, which is interesting in and of itself,” said Kochanek. “But the hope is, as we find more in the future, some patterns might eventually be revealed.”

The system was discovered as part of the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN) project, a network of small telescopes that monitor the entire visible night sky. Since its establishment more than a decade ago, ASAS-SN has collected about 14 million images and counting of the cosmos.

“The universe’s capacity to surprise us is continuous,” said Krzysztof Stanek, another co-author of the study and a professor of astronomy at Ohio State. “Even with small telescopes on the ground and big telescopes in space, every time we get a new capability, we still discover new things.”

The Next Eclipse

According to the team, the ASASSN-24fw system likely experiences an eclipse about once every 43.8 years, with the next one not expected to occur until around 2068. While some members of the team don’t expect to be around to study that event, they hope that the work they leave in cultivating these long-term sky surveys gives future scientists a foundation to make all sorts of new, exciting discoveries.

“We want our data to be accessible a hundred years from now, even if we are not around,” said Stanek. “The main point of ASAS-SN is, if something happens in the sky, we’ll have historical data for it.”

In the meantime, the team wants to make use of larger telescopes like The James Webb Space Telescope and the ground-based Large Binocular Telescope Observatory to make more complete observations of the system as it returns to full brightness.

“This study is a particularly interesting example of a broader class of still very strange objects,” said Stanek. “We learn more about astrophysics when we find things that are unusual, because it pushes our theories to the test.”

Reference: “ASASSN-24fw: An 8-month long, 4.1 mag, optically achromatic and polarized dimming event” by Raquel Forés-Toribio, B. Jo, Hantgen, C. S. Kochanek, S. G. Jorstad, J. J. Hermes, J. D. Armstrong, C. Ashall, C. R. Burns, E. Gaidos, W. B. Hoogendam, E. Y. Hsiao, K. Medler, N. Morrell, C. Pfeffer, B. J. Shappee, K. Stanek, M. A. Tucker, H. Xiao, K. Auchettl, L. Lu, D. M. Rowan, T. Vaccaro and J. P. Williams, 7 August 2025, The Open Journal of Astrophysics.
DOI: 10.33232/001c.143105

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation and NASA, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

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The fossil was embedded in a block of muddy sandstone measuring 59 cm wide, 34.5 cm deep, and 26 cm high. The rock had been on display at the Nariwa Museum of Art in Takahashi City as a fossil of Monotis, a Late Triassic index fossil bivalve. Records show the specimen had already been on display prior to the museum’s 1994 renovation and was known to have been sourced from Takahashi.

On July 26, 2023, while leading an educational field program for middle and high school students, Professor Kato, along with his longtime colleague Dr. Hirokazu Yukawa of the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum, happened to glance at the side of the rock during a lecture in the museum’s fossil gallery — and noticed a sizable bone fragment embedded in it. “Wait — that’s a bone!” he exclaimed. Upon closer inspection, he observed a porous structure typical of spongy bone, with a very thin layer of compact bone — features characteristic of marine-adapted reptiles. With his expertise in paleontology, Professor Kato quickly realized the significance.

Wondering how much fossil material was inside, the team cut a 14 cm-thick slab from the rock and examined it using a CT scanner at the University of Fukui’s School of Medical Sciences. They confirmed 21 bone fragments, including ribs, vertebrae, and a scapula. Their analysis revealed four distinct characteristics:

1. The vertebrae were thin and had a distinctive hourglass shape.
2. Each vertebra featured two rib articulation surfaces.
3. The ribs were grooved and had a gourd-shaped cross-section.
4. The scapula was slender and constricted in the middle.

These features led the team to conclude that the fossil belonged to an ichthyosaur.

Until now, all ichthyosaur fossils discovered in Japan — including Utatsu Gyoryu (Utatsusaurus) from the Early Triassic, Kudanohama Gyoryu (Mixosaurus) from the Middle Triassic, and Hosoura Gyoru (Leptopterygius) from the Early Jurassic — had been found in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture.

Commenting on the discovery, Dr. Ryosuke Motani, a leading authority on ichthyosaurs from the University of California, Davis, stated:

“The Norian age represents a critical transition in ichthyosaur evolution, when open-ocean species were nearly fully developed from their coastal ancestors. However, ichthyosaur fossils from this era are extremely rare globally, with well-preserved examples only known from British Columbia, Canada. The fact that one has now been found in Japan suggests that these advanced ichthyosaurs may have been capable of crossing the Panthalassic Ocean, which was even larger than today’s Pacific. This is a highly significant finding.”

The Norian is a stage of the Late Triassic spanning approximately 227 to 206 million years ago. The Panthalassic Ocean was the massive global ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea during that time.

Before the academic presentation, a press conference was held at Takahashi City Hall. Among those present were Mayor Yoshio Ishida, Professor Kato, Dr. Yukawa, and Nariwa Museum of Art curator Kyoko Ikari. Mayor Ishida expressed his enthusiasm for the discovery, stating, “We’re hopeful that continued research will lead to even more findings. We see this discovery as an opportunity to stimulate regional revitalization and public interest.”

Professor Kato emphasized the importance of the museum’s role in preserving local specimens and serving as an educational resource. “This discovery was made possible because the Nariwa Museum of Art has continuously maintained and managed regional materials, and because it functioned as an educational platform,” he noted. Speaking about the fossil itself, he added, “The shape of the scapula is particularly telling. It may indicate a high swimming ability, though further detailed analysis is needed. In any case, this fossil will serve as a valuable clue in understanding ichthyosaur evolution.”

Reflecting on the moment of discovery, he shared:

“I’ve made it a habit to look at rocks and fossils from different angles, always thinking, ‘Is there something more here?’ After doing this for over 40 years, this is the first time I’ve stumbled upon something like this. It was truly an unforgettable moment.”

The ichthyosaur fossil is scheduled to be on display for about a month at the Nariwa Museum of Art during the summer break. It is expected to be a valuable educational tool, helping children learn about both Earth’s profound history and their local heritage.

When NASA’s Dawn mission arrived at Ceres in 2015, scientists and the general public got their first detailed look at this strange and beautiful planetoid.

As the largest object in the Main Asteroid Belt, accounting for more than 39 percent of its total mass, Ceres is the only object in the belt that has undergone hydrostatic equilibrium (aka. became round under the influence of its own gravity).

The data Dawn obtained between 2015 and 2018, when the mission ran out of fuel, revealed some very interesting things about this mysterious, icy planetoid.

Related: Nearby Dwarf Planet Could Have a Crust That’s 90% Water

Like Jupiter’s moon Europa, and Saturn’s moons Titan and Enceladus, scientists have speculated that Ceres could be an ‘Ocean World,’ meaning that it could have a liquid water interior that could support life.

Dawn’s findings indicated that the planetoid is too cold in its interior to prevent water from freezing, and any liquid it contains is likely to be concentrated brines. But according to new research by NASA scientists, Ceres may have had the right conditions to support single-celled lifeforms about 2.5 to 4 billion years ago.

The study was led by Samuel W. Courville, a Planetary and Earth Scientist from the School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) at Arizona State University (ASU), who conducted it while interning at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

He was joined by multiple researchers from SESE and JPL, the School of Molecular Sciences at ASU, and the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington. The paper summarizing their findings was published on August 20th in Science Advances.

According to Dawn’s data, scientists concluded Ceres has insufficient heat in its core from the decay of radioactive elements to maintain an interior ocean. Unlike Europa, Enceladus, and other ‘Ocean Worlds,’ it does not have the benefit of tidal heating caused by the gravitational influence of a massive planet.

Data obtained by the Dawn mission previously suggested that the bright, reflective patches on Ceres’ surface were largely composed of salts left over from liquid water that percolated up from a massive reservoir beneath the surface. Other research found evidence of organic carbon-bearing molecules on its surface.

For their study, the authors created thermal and chemical models that mimic the temperature and composition of Ceres’ interior over time. They found that 2.5 to 4 billion years ago (roughly 500 million to 2 billion years after it formed), Ceres’ subsurface region may have had a steady hot water supply.

This water was heated by the decay of radioactive elements in Cere’s rocky, metallic core when the planetoid was still young. Their analysis also showed that this water contained dissolved gases bubbling up from metamorphosed rocks at the core-mantle boundary.

These results indicate that Ceres had the third and final element needed for life in the past, and they have implications for other water-rich objects in the Solar System.

Many planetoids comparable in size to Ceres (~940 km; 585 mi) also don’t have sufficient internal heating mechanisms caused by radioactive decay or the gravitational influence of giant planets. These findings essentially state that while these bodies may not be habitable today, they may have been in the past.

Said Courville in a NASA press release:

On Earth, when hot water from deep underground mixes with the ocean, the result is often a buffet for microbes – a feast of chemical energy. So it could have big implications if we could determine whether Ceres’ ocean had an influx of hydrothermal fluid in the past.

This article was originally published by Universe Today. Read the original article.

Mapping star spots with NASA missions offers new insight into exoplanets

by Clarence Oxford

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Aug 26, 2025

Scientists have developed a new technique to chart the star spots of distant suns using data from NASA’s TESS and Kepler missions. The method, called StarryStarryProcess, builds on long-standing models of stellar spottiness and enhances how astronomers interpret transit light curves produced when planets cross their host stars.

Lead researcher Sabina Sagynbayeva of Stony Brook University explained that many exoplanet studies assume stars are evenly bright disks. “But we know just by looking at our own Sun that stars are more complicated than that,” she said. The new model estimates the number, location, and brightness of stellar spots, improving knowledge of both stars and their planets.

Transit light curves usually show smooth dips when planets block starlight. However, smaller peaks and troughs can signal dark surface features similar to sunspots. These variations affect planetary measurements such as size, orbit, and temperature. By incorporating stellar rotation into the analysis, Sagynbayeva’s team refined how spot patterns are mapped.

The researchers tested the approach on TOI 3884 b, a gas giant five times Earth’s size and 32 times its mass, orbiting a cool star about 141 light-years away in Virgo. Their results suggest the star has dense spot regions near its north pole, which tilts toward Earth.

Co-author Brett Morris of the Space Telescope Science Institute noted that distinguishing between star and planet signals is critical. “If we want to look for water in the atmospheres of planets around those stars – a key indicator of habitability – we better be very sure that we’re not confusing the two,” he said.

NASA’s upcoming Pandora mission, part of the Astrophysics Pioneers Program, will use tools like this to study exoplanet atmospheres and stellar activity with multiwavelength observations. “While Pandora will study about 20 worlds, it will advance our ability to pick out which signals come from stars and which come from planets,” said TESS project scientist Allison Youngblood.

Research Report:Polka-dotted Stars: A Hierarchical Model for Mapping Stellar Surfaces Using Occultation Light Curves and the Case of TOI-3884

Related Links

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Lands Beyond Beyond – extra solar planets – news and science
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