The Apollo astronauts stumbled upon an unexpected treasure on the lunar surface – tiny, bright orange glass beads that had been frozen in time for billions of years. These minuscule, 1mm-wide capsules hold secrets about the moon’s explosive past, revealing a chapter of volcanic eruptions that shaped the satellite’s history.

Researchers led by Thomas Williams, Stephen Parman, and Alberto Saal from Brown University, in collaboration with WashU scientists, have employed cutting-edge techniques to study these ancient artifacts. Using instruments like NanoSIMS 50, atom probe tomography, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, they have gained unprecedented insights into the surface of the beads.

Each glass bead is a testament to the moon’s volcanic activity, where lava droplets solidified instantly in the cold vacuum surrounding the satellite. The colors, shapes, and chemical compositions of these tiny minerals are unlike anything found on Earth, serving as probes into the pressure, temperature, and chemical environment of lunar eruptions 3.5 billion years ago.

The study reveals that the style of volcanic eruptions changed over time, much like reading the journal of an ancient lunar volcanologist. These findings not only shed light on the moon’s past but also demonstrate the importance of preserving samples for future generations, as technology advances and new instruments become available to uncover hidden secrets.

The article “Revolutionizing Our Knowledge: The Rubin Observatory’s Groundbreaking Discoveries in the Solar System” reveals that millions of new solar system objects will be detected by the NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory, set to revolutionize our knowledge of the solar system’s small bodies – asteroids, comets, and other minor planets.

A team of astronomers from across the globe, led by Queen’s University Belfast, created Sorcha, an innovative new open-source software used to predict what discoveries are likely to be made. Sorcha is the first end-to-end simulator that ingests Rubin’s planned observing schedule, applying assumptions on how Rubin Observatory sees and detects astronomical sources in its images with the best model of what the solar system and its small body reservoirs look like today.

The team’s simulations show that Rubin will map:

* 127,000 near-Earth objects – asteroids and comets whose orbits cross or approach Earth. This will cut the risk of undetected asteroid impact of catastrophic proportions by at least two times.
* Over 5 million main-belt asteroids, up from about 1.4 million, with precise color and rotation data on roughly one in three asteroids within the survey’s first years.
* 109,000 Jupiter Trojans, bodies sharing Jupiter’s orbit at stable “Lagrange” points – more than seven times the number cataloged today.
* 37,000 trans-Neptunian objects, residents of the distant Kuiper Belt – nearly 10 times the current census.
* Approximately 1,500-2,000 Centaurs, bodies on short-lived giant planet-crossing orbits in the middle solar system.

The Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to fill in the missing pieces of our solar system. With this data, we’ll be able to update the textbooks of solar system formation and vastly improve our ability to spot – and potentially deflect – the asteroids that could threaten Earth.

The Sorcha code is open-source and freely available with the simulated catalogs, animations at https://sorcha.space. By making these resources available, the Sorcha team has enabled researchers worldwide to refine their tools and be ready for the flood of LSST data that Rubin will generate, advancing the understanding of the small bodies that illuminate the solar system like never before.

Researchers from the University of Rochester and University of California, Santa Barbara, have made a groundbreaking discovery that could change the game for various industries. By engineering a laser device smaller than a penny, they’ve created a tool that can power LiDAR systems in self-driving vehicles to gravitational wave detection – one of the most delicate experiments in existence.

The new chip-scale laser is a marvel of miniaturization, capable of conducting extremely fast and accurate measurements by precisely changing its color across a broad spectrum of light at rates of about 10 quintillion times per second. Unlike traditional silicon photonics, this laser is made with synthetic material lithium niobate, leveraging the Pockels effect to change the refractive index of a material when an electric field is present.

This tiny powerhouse has numerous applications that can already benefit from its designs. For instance, it can drive a LiDAR system on a spinning disc and identify objects at highway speeds and distances. The researchers demonstrated this capability by using their laser to spot toy building blocks forming the letters U and R.

Another significant application is the Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) laser frequency locking technique, essential for optical clocks that can measure time with extreme precision. A typical setup would require instruments the size of a desktop computer, but the chip-scale laser can integrate all these components into a single tiny chip that can be tuned electrically.

The research was supported in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Science Foundation, showcasing the potential of this miniature marvel to revolutionize metrology and beyond.