Using a new satellite observation technique, researchers from MIT and elsewhere have determined the flow of dried-up rivers on Mars and currently active liquid methane rivers on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. “Both kinds are of scientific interest because they could reveal the role rivers play in shaping the worlds’ environments,” reports Isaac Schultz for Gizmodo.
Al Jazeera spotlights a study co-authored by postdoctoral associate Qian Li that finds that rapidly melting Antarctic ice is slowing down the flow of water through the world’s oceans and “could have a disastrous effect on global climate.”
MIT scientists have uncovered evidence that wildfire smoke particles can lead to chemical reactions in the atmosphere that erode the ozone layer, reports Margaret Osborne for Smithsonian Magazine. “From a scientific point of view, it’s very exciting to see this brand new effect,” says Solomon. “From a planetary point of view… it would be just tragic to have mankind screw up solving the ozone hole by deciding that we’re going to [allow] a lot more of these fires if we don’t mitigate climate change.”
Postdoc Saverio Cambioni speaks with Andrew Corselli of Tech Briefs about NASA’s DART mission, which was aimed at testing a method to protect Earth in case of an asteroid impact threat. “DART showed that it is technologically possible to intercept and impact a sub-kilometer asteroid, with limited prior knowledge of its shape and surface properties,” Cambioni explains.
Researchers from MIT have found that wildfire smoke can activate chlorine-containing molecules that destroy the ozone layer, writes Donna Lu for The Guardian. “The question in my mind is: is the man-made chlorine going to get … diluted and destroyed out of the atmosphere faster than global climate change is going to increase the frequency and intensity of this kind of fire?” says Prof. Susan Solomon. “I think it’s going to be a race.”
Axios reporter Jacob Knutson highlights a new study by MIT researchers that finds the smoke released by major wildfires likely reactive chlorine-containing molecules in the atmosphere, delaying the recovery of the hole in the ozone layer. The researchers developed a model that found smoke released by Australian wildfires “chemically depleted between 3% to 5% of the total ozone column in the Southern Hemisphere mid-latitudes in June and July of 2020.”
New Scientist reporter James Dinneen writes that a new study by MIT researchers finds the smoke from Australian wildfires “may have enabled hydrochloric acid to dissolve at higher temperatures, generating more of the reactive chlorine molecules that destroy ozone.” Research scientist Kane Stone explains that “satellite observations showed chemistry that has never been seen before.”
MIT scientists have found that the Australian wildfires in 2019 and 2020 unleashed remnants of chlorine-containing molecules in the stratosphere, expanding the ozone hole and suggesting that more frequent wildfires could threaten the ozone hole’s recovery, reports Dyani Lewis for Nature. “It’s like a race,” says Prof. Susan Solomon. “Does the chlorine decay out of the stratosphere fast enough in the next, say, 40–50 years that the likely increase in intense and frequent wildfires doesn’t end up prolonging the ozone hole?”
Prof. Sara Seager and her colleagues write for Physics Today about how the SpaceX Starship could help transform astrophysics missions. “Assuming it is successful, Starship will dramatically enhance our space capabilities in ways that will qualitatively alter how astrophysics missions can be built,” write Seager and her colleagues.
Scientists from around the world, including researchers at MIT, have found evidence of past chemical reactions between liquid water and carbon-compounds on Mars, reports Laura Baisas for Popular Science. “We believe we have found these kinds of liquid water environments and organic compounds together. That’s sort of the limit to how we can describe what we call habitability,” explains postdoc Eva Linghan Scheller.
A team of scientists, including researchers from MIT, have found that Martian rocks uncovered by NASA’s Perseverance contain “signs of a watery past and are loaded with the kind of organic molecules that are the foundations for life as we know it,” reports Joel Achenbach for The Washington Post. “On balance, we are actually super lucky that there are igneous rocks in the crater, and that we happened to land right on them, since they are ideal for determining ages and studying the past history of Mars’ magnetic field,” says Prof. Benjamin Weiss.
NASA’s Perseverance rover has uncovered evidence of habitable conditions that once existed on Mars, reports Becky Ferreira for Vice. “In that kind of environment, we’re seeing very, very strange chemistry which is not common on Earth at all, but seems to be more common on Mars because we’ve seen these kinds of materials in almost all the missions now,” says postdoctoral fellow Eva Scheller.
A new study by MIT scientists finds that Earth can self-regulate its temperature thanks to a stabilizing feedback mechanism that works over hundreds of thousands of years, reports Troy Farah for Salon. “The finding has big implications for our understanding of the past, but also how global heating is shaping the future of our home world,” writes Farah. “It even helps us better understand the evolution of planetary temperatures that can make the search for alien-inhabited exoplanets more fruitful.”
Researchers at MIT and Stanford have developed a new tool that can better map the inside of an asteroid that risks crashing into earth, writes Pranshu Verma for The Washington Post. “Understanding the interior," said Prof. Julian De Witt, "helps us understand the extent to which close encounters could be of concern, and how to deal with them.”
A new tool developed by researchers at MIT and Stanford could help map out the interior of asteroids, reports Alison Synder and Miriam Kramer for Axios. This could make “it easier to know the most effective way of throwing them off-course,” writes Synder and Kramer.