Latest Articles

Latest published articles from SpaceOne Times.

Mercury

Mercury’s Magma Ocean May Have Built Its Layered Mantle

Laboratory experiments and numerical modeling suggest that Mercury’s sulfur-rich primordial magma ocean crystallized into a strongly layered mantle, with its deepest structure depending on the planet’s original magnesium-to-silicon ratio. The study finds that a shallower, clinopyroxene-bearing fertile mantle could have supplied enough partial melt to build much of Mercury’s volcanic crust, while sulfur may have driven dense sulfides into the mantle and altered the distribution of heat-producing elements.

Mars

Marsquake Linked to 27 Fresh Boulder Falls in Cerberus Fossae

Researchers have linked the S0235b marsquake detected by NASA’s InSight mission to a concentrated outbreak of fresh boulder falls in Mars’ Cerberus Fossae. HiRISE images show 27 new boulder-fall tracks appearing after the July 2019 quake, while statistical and seismic analyses indicate the activity was unusually intense and physically consistent with quake-triggered slope failure.

Space Mining

Robot Trial Reveals Key Bottleneck in Lunar Oxygen Feedstock

A robotic lunar resource-processing trial at ESA’s LUNA facility has identified material transfer as a key recoverable inefficiency in preparing regolith for future oxygen production. The MoLES3 system completed 37 excavation-and-deposit cycles, achieving 93% transfer efficiency while showing that separator power and excavation trajectory planning can strongly influence overall performance.

Space Power Systems

Lunar Bases Need More Than Batteries for 14-Day Moon Nights

Future lunar bases will need to remain powered through roughly two-week-long lunar nights while coping with extreme temperatures, vacuum and radiation. A 2026 technical Comment in npj Space Exploration argues that solar panels and batteries alone could become prohibitively heavy, and proposes an integrated system combining photovoltaic power, lunar-regolith heat storage, advanced batteries, hydrogen and oxygen energy storage, fuel cells and autonomous energy management.

Spacewalks

NASA Sets Aug. 25 Spacewalk to Complete ISS Antenna Upgrade

NASA astronaut Anil Menon and ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot are scheduled to conduct a spacewalk on Aug. 25 to complete replacement of a space-to-ground antenna on the International Space Station. The approximately six-and-a-half-hour excursion will focus on installing and connecting a spare antenna, with an additional navigation-hardware task planned if time permits.

Black Holes

S301 Star Could Reveal Sagittarius A*’s Spin Within a Decade

Astronomers using the GRAVITY instrument have discovered S301, a faint star completing an exceptionally tight 8.7-year orbit around Sagittarius A*, the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole. Its extreme eccentricity carries it to within roughly 136–142 Schwarzschild radii of the black hole, where relativistic effects become unusually strong. Continued observations could make S301 one of the first stars capable of providing a direct dynamical measurement of Sagittarius A*’s spin within about a decade.

Radio Astronomy

Proposed LFT3 Moon Telescope Targets Farside Radio Silence

A proposed lunar farside radio observatory called LFT3 aims to exploit the Moon’s natural shielding from Earth-based radio interference before growing activity around the Moon makes the environment noisier. Covering frequencies from 0.1 MHz to 2.7 GHz, the telescope could search for technosignatures, radio transients, planetary emissions, exoplanet magnetic fields and signals from the early Universe. The team aims to deploy the mission before 2030 under a roughly US$150 million mission concept.

Galaxies

Simulation Links Nuclear Star Clusters and Stellar Disks

A high-resolution simulation of a Milky Way-mass galaxy shows how a stellar bar can funnel gas towards the galactic centre, allowing a nuclear star cluster and a surrounding nuclear stellar disk to grow together. Repeated feedback-driven shocks regulate star formation, while the merger of a star cluster containing about 3 crore solar masses substantially alters the central cluster. The results may help explain why observations have struggled to identify a consistent relationship between these structures.

Asteroids

Asteroid Nysa May Have Three Lobes and a Tiny Moon

High-resolution observations suggest that asteroid (44) Nysa has two deep, neck-like valleys separating three apparent lobes. Researchers also detected a faint satellite estimated to be about 1 kilometre across. Nysa may therefore be a binary system with an unusually shaped, possibly contact-trinary primary, although its formation remains uncertain.

Microgravity Research

Microgravity Disrupts Human Coordination, Flight Study Finds

A parabolic-flight experiment found that microgravity selectively destabilised complex two-arm coordination, causing greater error, timing variability and drift towards simpler in-phase movement. Partial-gravity conditions restored some stability, suggesting that gravity acts as both a physical load and a sensory anchor for human motor control.

Meteorites

Martian Meteorite Preserves Hidden Record of Crustal Strain

A three-dimensional examination of the Martian meteorite NWA 7721 has revealed two contrasting deformation structures inside a single olivine crystal. Researchers conclude that the crystal preserves evidence of both pre-impact magmatic strain within Mars and later shock-driven recrystallization during an impact event.

Materials Science

Moon and Mars Soil Falls Short as Space Cement, Study Finds

Researchers have conducted one of the most comprehensive assessments to date of whether lunar and Martian regolith simulants can function as cementitious binders for future extraterrestrial construction. The study found that neither untreated nor moderately processed regolith simulants exhibited meaningful cement-like reactivity. Instead, the materials primarily acted as inert fillers while still contributing to structurally stable concrete mixtures suitable for certain construction applications.

Microgravity Research

How Variable Gravity Could Change Flame Science in Space

A new perspective paper highlights variable gravity combustion as an emerging research frontier for spaceflight safety, rocket operations, and deep-space missions. The study explains why flames behave differently in microgravity, normal gravity, and supergravity, and why changing gravity conditions may create combustion effects that fixed-gravity experiments cannot fully predict.

Galaxies

JWST Finds Earliest Known Barred Spiral Galaxy

Astronomers report M1149-BSG-z5, a massive barred spiral galaxy seen at redshift 5.102, when the universe was about 1.1 billion years old. JWST and HST observations suggest the galaxy already had a stellar bar, spiral-arm structure, active star formation, and an AGN, challenging expectations for how early mature disk galaxies could form.

Early Universe

Rare Galaxy Leak May Reveal How Early Universe Lit Up

Astronomers report LCEz4-M1, a candidate Lyman continuum emitter at redshift 4.444 in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Detected using VLT/MUSE, HST and JWST data, the galaxy may offer a rare direct view of how ionizing radiation escaped from early galaxies and helped shape cosmic reionization.

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