Category: 7. Science

  • NASA Spaceline Current Awareness List #1,156 3 July 2025 (Space Life Science Research Results)

    NASA Spaceline Current Awareness List #1,156 3 July 2025 (Space Life Science Research Results)

    The abstract in PubMed or at the publisher’s site is linked when available and will open in a new window.

  • Parafati M, Thwin Z, Malany LK, Coen PM, Malany S.Microgravity accelerates skeletal muscle degeneration: Functional and transcriptomic insights from an ISS muscle lab-on-chip model.Stem Cell Reports. 2025 Jun 26;102550. Online ahead of print.Note: ISS results. This article may be obtained online without charge.

    Journal Impact Factor: 5.1

    Funding: “We acknowledge the following funding sources: National Institutes of Health grant 5UG3/UH#TR002598 (S.M.), National Institutes of Health grant 5UH3TR002598-05S1 Admin Suppl (S.M.), University of Florida Prosper Bridge Fund (M.P.), Center for the Advancement of Science in Space #UA2019-011 (S.M.), and NASA task order to Space Tango.”

  • Yang J, Kim HD, Barrila J, Lee SH, Nickerson CA, Ott CM, Israel SA, Choukér A, Yang JY.Navigating mental health in space: Gut-brain axis and microbiome dynamics.Exp Mol Med. 2025 Jun 30. Review. Online ahead of print.PI: J. YangNote: This article may be obtained online without charge.

    Journal Impact Factor: 12.9

    Funding: “J.Y. conceived and wrote the manuscript. H.-D.K. wrote part of the manuscript. J.Y., S.- H.L. and H.-D.K created the figures. J.B., A.C., C.M.O., C.A.N. and S.A.I. revised the manuscript. J.-Y.Y. conceived and supervised manuscript preparation. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. This work was supported by NASA grant 80NSSC19K1597, Brain Pool program funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT through the National Research Foundation of Korea (grant nos. RS-2023- 00263702 and NRF-2018R1A5A2023879) and Learning & Academic research institution for MS and PhD students and Postdocs (LAMP) Program of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Ministry of Education (grant no. RS2023-00301938). A.C. was supported by the German Space Agency (DLR, grant no. 50WB2222).”

  • Ulusoy U, Reisman G.Investment construct in human autonomy teaming for deep space habitat operations.Acta Astronaut. 2025 Nov;236:117-27.Note: From the abstract: “Operations in deep space habitats will differ significantly from those in Earth orbit. Astronauts must perform many tasks independently due to communication delays and bandwidth limitations. As intelligent systems (e.g., autonomous agents) are integrated to support astronauts in various tasks, it is crucial that these systems are utilized effectively. Since such systems depend on human interaction to learn, it is essential that astronauts are willing to assist them. This paper proposes a novel approach to explaining the utilization of autonomous agents through a new construct called Investment in human-autonomy teaming.”

    Journal Impact Factor: 3.4

    Funding: “This study is funded by NASA under grant number 80NSSC19K1052 as part of the Habitats Optimized for Missions of Exploration (HOME), which is a NASA Space Technology Research Institute (STRI).”

  • Brumfield KD, Enke S, Swan BK, Carrasquilla L, Lee MD, Stern DB, Gieser L, Hasan NA, Usmani M, Jutla AS, Huq A, Caviness K, Goodrich JS, Bull R, Colwell RR.Hybridization capture sequencing for Vibrio spp. and associated virulence factors.mBio. 2025 Jun 25;e0051625. Online ahead of print.Note: This article may be obtained online without charge.

    Journal Impact Factor: 5.1

    Funding: “This research was supported in part by an appointment to the Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program at University of Maryland, College Park, administered by Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) through an interagency agreement between the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) awarded to K.D.B. and R.R.C. Further support was provided by the National Science Foundation (OCE1839171 and CCF1918749), National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health (R01ES030317A), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NSSC20K0814 and 80NSSC22K1044), awarded to A.H., A.S.J., and R.R.C. This work was also funded in part under agreement no. HSHQDC-15-C-00064 awarded to Battelle National Biodefense Institute (BNBI) by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) for the management and operation of the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC), a Federally Funded Research and Development Center.”

Astrobiology, space biology, space life science, space medicine, Microgravity, ISS,

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  • Alien planet lashed by huge flares from its ‘angry beast’ star – Newspaper

    Alien planet lashed by huge flares from its ‘angry beast’ star – Newspaper

    WASHINGTON: Scientists are tracking a large gas planet experiencing quite a quandary as it orbits extremely close to a young star — a predicament never previously observed.

    This exoplanet, as planets beyond our solar system are called, orbits its star so tightly that it appears to trigger flares from the stellar surface — larger than any observed from the sun — reaching several million miles (km) into space that over time may strip much of this unlucky world’s atmosphere.

    The phenomenon appears to be caused by the planet’s interaction with the star’s magnetic field, according to the researchers. And this star is a kind known to flare, especially when young.

    “A young star of this type is an angry beast, especially if you’re sitting as close up as this planet does,” said Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy astrophysicist Ekaterina Ilin, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.

    The star, called HIP 67522, is slightly more massive than the sun and is located about 407 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km). This star and planet, as well as a second smaller gas planet also detected in this planetary system, are practically newborns. Whereas the sun and our solar system’s planets are roughly 4.5 billion years old, this star is about 17 million years old, with its planets slightly younger.

    The planet, named HIP 67522 b, has a diameter almost the size of Jupiter, our solar system’s largest planet, but with only 5pc of Jupiter’s mass. That makes it one of the puffiest exoplanets known, with a consistency reminiscent of cotton candy (candy floss).

    It orbits five times closer to its star than our solar system’s innermost planet Mercury orbits the sun, needing only seven days to complete an orbit. A flare is an intense eruption of electromagnetic radiation emanating from the outermost part of a star’s atmosphere, called the corona. So how does HIP 67522 b elicit huge flares from the star? As it orbits, it apparently interacts with the star’s magnetic field — either through its own magnetic field or perhaps through the presence of conducting material such as iron in the planet’s composition.

    “We don’t know for sure what the mechanism is. We think it is plausible that the planet moves within the star’s magnetic field and whips up a wave that travels along magnetic field lines to the star. When the wave reaches the stellar corona, it triggers flares in large magnetic field loops that store energy, which is released by the wave,” Ilin said.

    “As it moves through the field like a boat on a lake, it creates waves in its wake,” Ilin added. “The flares these waves trigger when they crash into the star are a new phenomenon. This is important because it had never been observed before, especially at the intensity detected.” The researchers believe it is a specific type of wave called an Alfvn wave, named for 20th century Swedish physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Hannes Alfvn, that propagates due to the interaction of magnetic fields. The flares may heat up and inflate the planet’s atmosphere, which is dominated by hydrogen and helium. Being lashed by these flares could blast away lighter elements from the atmosphere and reduce the planet’s mass over perhaps hundreds of millions of years.

    Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2025

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  • Scientists isolate lone spinon in breakthrough for quantum magnetism

    Scientists isolate lone spinon in breakthrough for quantum magnetism

    In a breakthrough that could transform the understanding of quantum magnetism, scientists have shown that a spinon, which was once believed to exist only in pairs, can travel alone.

    The discovery further enhances understanding of magnetism and could help pave the way for future technologies, including quantum computers and advanced magnetic materials.

    When spin flips ripple

    Spinons are quasiparticles that arise as quantum disturbances behaving like individual particles within magnetic systems.

    They emerge in low-dimensional quantum materials, particularly in one-dimensional (1D) spin chains, where electrons are arranged in a linear sequence and interact through their quantum spins.

    In such systems, flipping a single spin doesn’t just affect one electron; it creates a ripple across the chain. This ripple can act as a discrete entity, carrying a spin value of ½. That entity is the spinon.

    Today, magnets are central to a wide range of technologies, including computer memory, speakers, electric motors, and medical imaging devices.

    The idea of spinons dates back to the early 1980s, when physicists Ludwig Faddeev and Leon Takhtajan proposed that a spin-1 excitation in certain quantum models could fractionalize into two spin-½ excitations.

    These were named spinons, which are considered exotic because they behave as if an indivisible quantum of spin has split into two.

    However, all experimental observations until now had detected spinons only in pairs, reinforcing the belief that they could not exist independently.

    That assumption has now been challenged.

    One spin to rule

    In a new theoretical study, physicists from the University of Warsaw and the University of British Columbia showed how to isolate a lone spinon using a well-known model of quantum magnetism, the Heisenberg spin-½ chain.

    By adding a single spin to this system, either in its ground state or in a simplified model known as the valence-bond solid (VBS), they demonstrated how a single unpaired spin can move freely through the spin chain, acting as a solitary spinon.

    What makes the finding more impactful is that it’s not purely theoretical. A recent experiment led by C. Zhao and published in Nature Materials observed spin-½ excitations in nanographene-based antiferromagnetic chains that reflect the lone spinon behavior described in the study.

    This experimental validation confirms that the phenomenon can occur in real quantum materials, not just in simulations.

    Understanding how a single spinon can exist has far-reaching implications. Spinons are closely linked to quantum entanglement, a core principle of quantum computing and quantum information science.

    They’re also involved in exotic states of matter like high-temperature superconductors and quantum spin liquids.

    By gaining better control over spinon dynamics, scientists could open new pathways for developing advanced magnetic materials and potentially qubit systems for quantum computers.

    “Our research not only deepens our knowledge of magnets, but can also have far-reaching consequences in other areas of physics and technology”, said Prof Krzysztof Wohlfeld of the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw.

    The study was published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

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  • Scientists find new way to control electricity at tiniest scale | UCR News

    Scientists find new way to control electricity at tiniest scale | UCR News

    Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have uncovered how to manipulate electrical flow through crystalline silicon, a material at the heart of modern technology. The discovery could lead to smaller, faster, and more efficient devices by harnessing quantum electron behavior. 

    Chemical structure of bulk silicon, with the simplest building block of the solid highlighted in blue. (Tim Su/UCR)

    At the quantum scale, electrons behave more like waves than particles. And now, scientists have shown that the symmetrical structure of silicon molecules can be fine-tuned to create, or suppress, a phenomenon known as destructive interference. The effect can turn conductivity “on” or “off,” functioning as a molecular-scale switch.

    “We found that when tiny silicon structures are shaped with high symmetry, they can cancel out electron flow like noise-canceling headphones,” said Tim Su, a UCR chemistry professor who led the study. “What’s exciting is that we can control it.”

    Published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the research breaks ground in understanding how electricity moves through silicon at the smallest possible scale, atom by atom.

    The finding comes as the tech industry hits a wall in shrinking conventional silicon chips. Traditional methods rely on carving tiny circuits into silicon wafers or doping, which means adding small amounts of other elements to control how silicon conducts electricity.

    These techniques have worked well for decades, but they’re approaching physical limits: you can only carve so small, and added atoms can’t fix problems caused by quantum effects.

    By contrast, Su and his team used chemistry to build silicon molecules from the ground up, rather than carving them down. This “bottom-up” approach gave them precise control over how the atoms were arranged and, critically, control over the way electrons move through their silicon structures.

    electrodes affecting conductivity

    Electrodes along the blue path correspond to a high conducting state. With electrodes along the red paths, an insulating state was observed. (Tim Su/UCR)

    Silicon is the second most abundant element in Earth’s crust and the workhorse of computing. But as devices shrink, unpredictable quantum effects, like electrons leaking across insulating barriers, make traditional designs harder to manage. This new study suggests that engineers might embrace, rather than fight, this quantum behavior.

    “Our work shows how molecular symmetry in silicon leads to interference effects that control how electrons move through it,” Su said. “And we can switch that interference on or off by controlling how electrodes align with our molecule.”

    While the idea of using quantum interference in electronics isn’t new, this is one of the first demonstrations of the effect in three-dimensional, diamond-like silicon — the same structure used in commercial chips.

    Beyond ultra-small switches, the findings could aid in the development of thermoelectric devices that convert waste heat into electricity, or even quantum computing components built from familiar materials.

    “This gives us a fundamentally new way to think about switching and charge transport,” Su said. “It’s not just a tweak. It’s a rethink of what silicon can do.”

    (Cover image: mustafaU/iStock/Getty)

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  • New Species of Armored Dinosaur Identified in China

    New Species of Armored Dinosaur Identified in China

    Paleontologists have described a new species of the ankylosaurid dinosaur genus Zhongyuansaurus using a specimen found in China’s Henan province.

    Life reconstruction of Zhongyuansaurus junchangi. Image credit: Connor Ashbridge / CC BY 4.0.

    Ankylosaurids (family Ankylosauridae) were herbivorous quadruped dinosaurs known for their robust, scute-covered bodies, distinctive body armor, leaf-shaped teeth, and club-like tails.

    The earliest-known ankylosaurids date to around 122 million years ago, and the youngest species went extinct 66 million years ago during the end-Cretaceous extinction.

    The newly-identified species belongs to a previously monospecific ankylosaurid genus called Zhongyuansaurus.

    Named Zhongyuansaurus junchangi, it lived in what is now China during the Albian age of the latest Early Cretaceous.

    The dinosaur’s fossilized remains were collected from the upper part of the Haoling Formation at Zhongwa village in Henan province, China.

    “The fossils are preserved within an area of about 9 m2,” said Dr. Ji-ming Zhang from the Henan Natural History Museum and colleagues.

    “They are disarticulated and show no overlapping preservation, suggesting they belong to a single individual.”

    “The specimen includes one right mandible, 14 free caudal vertebrae, seven fused terminal caudal vertebrae forming a rod-like structure, four ribs, 10 haemal arches, one left humerus, one slender metatarsal, and 41 osteoderms of various sizes and shapes.”

    Right mandible of Zhongyuansaurus junchangi. Image credit: Zhang et al., doi: 10.19800/ j.cnki.aps.2023037.

    Right mandible of Zhongyuansaurus junchangi. Image credit: Zhang et al., doi: 10.19800/ j.cnki.aps.2023037.

    Zhongyuansaurus junchangi is characterized by a unique autapomorphy: at least five caudal armor plates arranged in a shingle-like pattern with a distinctive swallowtail shape.

    “Additionally, it exhibits relatively slender mandibular bones compared to the more robust mandibles of advanced Ankylosaurinae,” the paleontologists said.

    “The anterior tip of the coronoid process extends only to the last two alveoli, differing from Shamosaurus.”

    “The distal caudal vertebrae are adorned with small osteoderms, and the humerus has a midshaft circumference-to-total-length ratio of 0.46, distinguishing it from Zhongyuansaurus luoyangensis.”

    “The discovery of Zhongyuansaurus junchangi provides new insights into the evolution of ankylosaurs in the Lower Cretaceous strata of Ruyang and enhances the species diversity of the Ruyang dinosaur fauna,” the researchers concluded.

    Their paper was published in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Sinica.

    _____

    Ji-ming Zhang et al. 2025. New ankylosaurid material from the Lower Cretaceous of the Ruyang Basin, Henan Province. Acta Palaeontologica Sinica 64 (1): 60-73; doi: 10.19800/ j.cnki.aps.2023037

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  • Melting glaciers and ice caps could unleash wave of volcanic eruptions, study says | Climate crisis

    Melting glaciers and ice caps could unleash wave of volcanic eruptions, study says | Climate crisis

    The melting of glaciers and ice caps by the climate crisis could unleash a barrage of explosive volcanic eruptions, a study suggests.

    The loss of ice releases the pressure on underground magma chambers and makes eruptions more likely. This process has been seen in Iceland, an unusual island that sits on a mid-ocean tectonic plate boundary. But the research in Chile is one of the first studies to show a surge in volcanism on a continent in the past, after the last ice age ended.

    Global heating caused by the burning of fossil fuels is now melting ice caps and glaciers across the world. The biggest risk of a resurgence of volcanic eruptions is in west Antarctica, the researchers said, where at least 100 volcanoes lie under the thick ice. This ice is very likely to be lost in the coming decades and centuries as the world warms.

    Volcanic eruptions can cool the planet temporarily by shooting sunlight-reflecting particles into the atmosphere. However, sustained eruptions would pump significant greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide and methane. This would further heat the planet and potentially create a vicious circle, in which rising temperatures melt ice that leads to further eruptions and more global heating.

    Pablo Moreno-Yaeger, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US, who led the research, said: “As glaciers retreat due to climate change, our findings suggest these volcanoes go on to erupt more frequently and more explosively.”

    The research, which was presented at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in Prague, and is in the final stages of review with an academic journal, involved camping high in the Andes, among active and dormant volcanoes.

    Detailed work on one volcano, called Mocho-Choshuenco, used radioisotope dating to estimate the age of volcanic rocks produced before, during and after the last ice age, when the 1,500-metre-thick Patagonian ice sheet covered the area. Analysis of the minerals in the rocks also revealed the depth and temperature at which the rocks formed.

    This data revealed that thick ice cover had suppressed the volume of eruptions between 26,000 and 18,000 years ago, allowing a large reservoir of magma to build up 10-15km (6.2-9.3 miles) below the surface. After the ice melted, from about 13,000 years ago, the pressure on the magma chamber was released, gasses in the liquid or molten rock expanded and explosive eruptions followed.

    “We found that following deglaciation, the volcano starts to erupt way more, and also changes composition,” said Moreno-Yaeger. The composition changed as the magma melted crustal rocks while eruptions were suppressed. This made the molten rock more viscous and more explosive on eruption.

    Iceland has experienced eruptions linked to the melting of its glaciers and ice caps. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

    “Our study suggests this phenomenon isn’t limited to Iceland, where increased volcanicity has been observed, but could also occur in Antarctica,” he said. “Other continental regions, like parts of North America, New Zealand and Russia, also now warrant closer scientific attention.”

    Previous research has shown volcanic activity increased globally by two to six times after the last ice age, but the Chilean study was one of the first to show how this happened. A similar phenomenon was reported via the analysis of rocks in eastern California in 2004.

    A recent review by scientists found there had been relatively little study on how the climate crisis had been affecting volcanic activity. They said more research was “critically important” in order to be better prepared for the damage caused by volcanic eruptions to people and their livelihoods and for possible climate-volcano feedback loops that could amplify the climate crisis. For example, more extreme rainfall is also expected to increase violent explosive eruptions.

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  • Mysterious ‘sprite’ over Mexico caught on camera by astronaut

    Mysterious ‘sprite’ over Mexico caught on camera by astronaut

    NASA recently captured a light phenomenon known as an “atmospheric sprite” over Mexican territory, near the border with the United States. This event, which looks like an inverted red lightning strike, was photographed from the International Space Station (ISS). 

    Sprites — more formally, transient luminous events or TLEs —  are rare electrical discharges that occur between 50 and 90 km above the Earth’s surface, in the mesosphere. 

    Unlike traditional lightning, which shoots downward, sprites shoot upward from the tops of storm clouds, forming branching, reddish or bluish structures that can extend up to 96 km above the storm. They typically last only fractions of a second, making them difficult to observe from the ground.

    The geographic location and frequency of convective thunderstorms make Mexico’s skies an ideal environment for the sprite phenomenon. 

    “Just. Wow. As we went over Mexico and the U.S. this morning, I caught this sprite,” Nichole Ayers, the astronaut who took the photograph, wrote in her official Instagram account, accompanied by the image taken from space.

    The ISS offers a privileged view for capturing these phenomena, as they can be observed from space above the clouds. 

    According to Ayers, sprite images help scientists better understand the formation of these electrical events, their relationship to storms, and their impact on the upper atmosphere. They also contribute to improving weather and atmospheric electrical activity models.

    Ayers’s image aligns with NASA’s “Spritacular” project, an initiative that seeks to collect images of these events.

    Sprites were first photographed in 1989, and although pilots had previously reported them, they remain enigmatic and little-studied due to their transience and altitude. The recent image captured by NASA represents an important contribution to atmospheric science and the understanding of these electrical phenomena.

    With reports from El Imparcial and W Radio


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  • Launch Roundup: Falcon 9 set to fly 500th orbital mission during quiet week

    Launch Roundup: Falcon 9 set to fly 500th orbital mission during quiet week













    Launch Roundup: Falcon 9 set to fly 500th orbital mission during quiet week – NASASpaceFlight.com






















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  • Scientists Uncover Mechanism That Causes Formation of Planets

    Scientists Uncover Mechanism That Causes Formation of Planets

    Newswise — Instead of a tempest in a teapot, imagine the cosmos in a canister. Scientists have performed experiments using nested, spinning cylinders to confirm that an uneven wobble in a ring of electrically conductive fluid like liquid metal or plasma causes particles on the inside of the ring to drift inward. Since revolving rings of plasma also occur around stars and black holes, these new findings imply that the wobbles can cause matter in those rings to fall toward the central mass and form planets.

    The scientists found that the wobble could grow in a new, unexpected way. Researchers already knew that wobbles could grow from the interaction between plasma and magnetic fields in a gravitational field. But these new results show that wobbles can more easily arise in a region between two jets of fluid with different velocities, an area known as a free shear layer.

    “This finding shows that the wobble might occur more often throughout the universe than we expected, potentially being responsible for the formation of more solar systems than once thought,” said Yin Wang, a staff research physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and lead author of the paper reporting the results in Physical Review Letters. “It’s an important insight into the formation of planets throughout the cosmos.”

    The findings follow up on previous results from 2022 that focused on a simpler picture of fluid behavior. Together, the two findings strengthen the evidence that a type of plasma wobble known as the magnetorotational instability (MRI) can cause the formation of planets from so-called accretion disks of matter circling stars.

    Creating a stellar accretion disk in a lab

    The original experiment occurred in 2022 and involved PPPL’s MRI Experiment, a device consisting of two nested metal cylinders, each around 1 foot high and 2 inches wide, that can spin at different rates. The scientists created regions of galinstan — a fluid mixture of the elements gallium, iridium and tin — that mimicked how different parts of an accretion disk move at varying speeds. The scientists then applied a magnetic field.

    Using computer programs to analyze the 2022 results, the scientists confirmed that they had created a form of the MRI in which magnetic field lines do not have the same orientation around and through the plasma. Instead, they wound around in a twisting shape, interlacing through the free shear layer and developing different strengths in different orientations.

    Just as in the 2022 result, the wobble causes particles on the outside of the plasma to move more quickly and those on the inside to move more slowly. While the quick particles can gain so much speed that they fly off into space, the slow particles can fall inward and coalesce into bodies, including planets.

    Using computer codes to interpret observations

    The scientists confirmed the findings using the computer programs SFEMaNS and Dedalus to create plasma simulations based on data from the earlier 2022 experiments. “Those computer simulations confirmed our previous experimental analyses, but they also opened up different frontiers to help us understand what that data meant,” said Fatima Ebrahimi, a principal research physicist at PPPL and one of the paper’s co-authors.

    The new simulations showed the researchers that this uneven wobble, or nonaxisymmetric MRI, is a type of magnetohydrodynamic instability. It resembles turbulence caused by the meeting of fluids of different velocities — like the swirls caused by an airplane flying through a cloud — but with added complexity caused by a magnetic field. Similar turbulence occurs on the sun’s surface and in the region of space influenced by Earth’s magnetic field.

    Uncovering a longstanding enigma

    “The simulations showed that in situations when two fluids with different velocities meet and mix, creating a free shear layer, a large-scale nonaxisymmetric MRI can grow, which makes the whole disk wobble,” Ebrahimi said. “This new understanding has led to new physics that helps solve a long-standing astrophysical mystery.”

    Collaborators included Erik Gilson, head of PPPL’s discovery plasma science; Hantao Ji, a PPPL distinguished research fellow and professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University; Jeremy Goodman, a professor of astrophysical sciences at Princeton University; and Hongke Lu, a summer intern.

    This research was supported by DOE under contract number DE-AC02-09CH11466, NASA under grant number NNH15AB25I, the National Science Foundation under grant number AST-2108871 and the Max-Planck-Princeton Center for Fusion and Astro Plasma Physics.

    ###

    PPPL is mastering the art of using plasma — the fourth state of matter — to solve some of the world’s toughest science and technology challenges. Nestled on Princeton University’s Forrestal Campus in Plainsboro, New Jersey, our research ignites innovation in a range of applications, including fusion energy, nanoscale fabrication, quantum materials and devices, and sustainability science. The University manages the Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which is the nation’s single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences. Feel the heat at https://energy.gov/science and http://www.pppl.gov. 

     


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  • Interstellar Amorphous Ice Contains Tiny Crystals, New Research Reveals

    Interstellar Amorphous Ice Contains Tiny Crystals, New Research Reveals

    Low-density amorphous ice is one of the most common solid materials in the Universe and a key material for understanding the many famous anomalies of liquid water. Yet, despite its significance and its discovery nearly 90 years ago, its structure is debated. In a new study, researchers from University College London and the University of Cambridge found that computer simulations of low-density amorphous ice best matched measurements from previous experiments if the ice was not fully amorphous but contained tiny crystals — about 3 nm wide, slightly wider than a single strand of DNA — embedded within its disordered structures. In an experimental work, they also re-crystallized (i.e. warmed up) real samples of amorphous ice that had formed in different ways. They found that the final crystal structure varied depending on how the amorphous ice had originated. If the ice had been fully amorphous (fully disordered), the researchers concluded, it would not retain any imprint of its earlier form.

    The structure of low-density amorphous ice: many tiny crystallites (white) are concealed in the amorphous material (blue). Image credit: Michael B. Davies, UCL & University of Cambridge.

    “We now have a good idea of what the most common form of ice in the Universe looks like at an atomic level,” said Dr. Michael Davies, a researcher at University College London and the University of Cambridge.

    “This is important as ice is involved in many cosmological processes, for instance in how planets form, how galaxies evolve, and how matter moves around the Universe.”

    For their study, Dr Davies and colleagues used two computer models of water.

    They froze these virtual ‘boxes’ of water molecules by cooling to minus 120 degrees Celsius (minus 184 degrees Fahrenheit) at different rates.

    The different rates of cooling led to varying proportions of crystalline and amorphous ice.

    The researchers found that ice that was up to 20% crystalline (and 80% amorphous) appeared to closely match the structure of low-density amorphous ice as found in X-ray diffraction studies (that is, where researchers fire X-rays at the ice and analyze how these rays are deflected).

    Using another approach, they created large ‘boxes’ with many small ice crystals closely squeezed together.

    The simulation then disordered the regions between the ice crystals reaching very similar structures compared to the first approach with 25% crystalline ice.

    In additional experimental work, the scientists created real samples of low-density amorphous ice in a range of ways, from depositing water vapor on to an extremely cold surface (how ice forms on dust grains in interstellar clouds) to warming up what is known as high-density amorphous ice (ice that has been crushed at extremely cold temperatures).

    They then gently heated these amorphous ices so they had the energy to form crystals.

    They noticed differences in the ices’ structure depending on their origin — specifically, there was variation in the proportion of molecules stacked in a six-fold (hexagonal) arrangement.

    This was indirect evidence that low-density amorphous ice contained crystals.

    If it was fully disordered, the ice would not retain any memory of its earlier forms.

    The findings raised many additional questions about the nature of amorphous ices — for instance, whether the size of crystals varied depending on how the amorphous ice formed, and whether a truly amorphous ice was possible.

    “Water is the foundation of life but we still do not fully understand it,” said University of Cambridge’s Professor Angelos Michaelides.

    “Amorphous ices may hold the key to explaining some of water’s many anomalies.”

    “Ice is potentially a high-performance material in space,” Dr. Davies said.

    “It could shield spacecraft from radiation or provide fuel in the form of hydrogen and oxygen.”

    “So we need to know about its various forms and properties.”

    The findings also have implications for one speculative theory about how life on Earth began.

    According to this theory, known as Panspermia, the building blocks of life were carried here on an ice comet, with low-density amorphous ice the space shuttle material in which ingredients such as simple amino acids were transported.

    “Our findings suggest this ice would be a less good transport material for these origin of life molecules,” Dr. Davies said.

    “That is because a partly crystalline structure has less space in which these ingredients could become embedded.”

    “The theory could still hold true, though, as there are amorphous regions in the ice where life’s building blocks could be trapped and stored.”

    “Ice on Earth is a cosmological curiosity due to our warm temperatures,” said University College London’s Professor Christoph Salzmann.

    “You can see its ordered nature in the symmetry of a snowflake.”

    “Ice in the rest of the Universe has long been considered a snapshot of liquid water — that is, a disordered arrangement fixed in place. Our findings show this is not entirely true.”

    “Our results also raise questions about amorphous materials in general.”

    “These materials have important uses in much advanced technology.”

    “For instance, glass fibers that transport data long distances need to be amorphous, or disordered, for their function.”

    “If they do contain tiny crystals and we can remove them, this will improve their performance.”

    A paper on the findings was published today in the journal Physical Review B.

    _____

    Michael Benedict Davies et al. 2025. Low-density amorphous ice contains crystalline ice grains. Phys. Rev. B 112, 024203; doi: 10.1103/PhysRevB.112.024203

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