The NASA Europa Clipper mission has achieved a significant milestone by successfully testing its Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding: Ocean to Near-surface (REASON) instrument during a flyby of Mars in March. The test, which was impossible to conduct on Earth due to the scale and complexity of the radar system, aimed to determine the radar’s readiness for the mission at Jupiter’s moon Europa.

The REASON instrument, which will “see” into Europa’s icy shell, may have pockets of water inside, uses two pairs of slender antennas that jut out from the solar arrays, spanning a distance of about 58 feet (17.6 meters). This unusual radar setup for an interplanetary spacecraft was designed to catch as much light as possible at Europa, which receives only about 1/25th the sunlight as Earth.

During the Mars flyby, REASON sent and received radio waves for about 40 minutes, collecting a wealth of data that will help scientists understand how the ice may capture materials from the ocean and transfer them to the surface of the moon. The instrument’s performance was deemed successful, with engineers able to collect 60 gigabytes of rich data.

The Europa Clipper mission’s primary goal is to determine the thickness of the ice shell on Europa and its interactions with the ocean below. The REASON radar will play a crucial role in achieving this objective, providing scientists with valuable insights into the moon’s composition and geology. With the success of the REASON test, the mission is now one step closer to unlocking the secrets of Jupiter’s icy moon and potentially discovering habitable worlds beyond our planet.

The Europa Clipper spacecraft is currently on its journey to reach Europa, which will take approximately 1.8 billion miles (2.9 billion kilometers) and include a gravity assist using Earth in 2026. The mission is managed by Caltech, led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and includes partners such as the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

As scientists continue to analyze the data from the REASON test, they are exercising their skills and preparing for the detailed exploration of Europa that will take place in the future. The mission has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the solar system and provide new insights into the astrobiological potential of habitable worlds beyond Earth.

As scientists continue to explore the vast expanse of our solar system, a new study has shed light on a long-held assumption about the conditions necessary for life to thrive. Researchers at NYU Abu Dhabi have made a groundbreaking discovery that challenges the traditional view that life can only exist near sunlight or volcanic heat. Their findings suggest that high-energy particles from space, known as cosmic rays, could create the energy needed to support microscopic life underground on planets and moons in our solar system.

The research, led by Principal Investigator Dimitra Atri, focused on what happens when cosmic rays hit water or ice underground. The impact breaks water molecules apart and releases tiny particles called electrons. Some bacteria on Earth can use these electrons for energy, similar to how plants use sunlight. This process is called radiolysis, and it can power life even in dark, cold environments with no sunlight.

Using computer simulations, the researchers studied how much energy this process could produce on Mars and on the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn. These moons, which are covered in thick layers of ice, are believed to have water hidden below their surfaces. The study found that Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus had the most potential to support life in this way, followed by Mars, and then Jupiter’s moon Europa.

“This discovery changes the way we think about where life might exist,” said Atri. “Instead of looking only for warm planets with sunlight, we can now consider places that are cold and dark, as long as they have some water beneath the surface and are exposed to cosmic rays. Life might be able to survive in more places than we ever imagined.”

The study introduces a new idea called the Radiolytic Habitable Zone. Unlike the traditional “Goldilocks Zone” — the area around a star where a planet could have liquid water on its surface — this new zone focuses on places where water exists underground and can be energized by cosmic radiation. Since cosmic rays are found throughout space, this could mean there are many more places in the universe where life could exist.

The findings provide new guidance for future space missions. Instead of only looking for signs of life on the surface, scientists might also explore underground environments on Mars and the icy moons, using tools that can detect chemical energy created by cosmic radiation.

This research opens up exciting new possibilities in the search for life beyond Earth and suggests that even the darkest, coldest places in the solar system could have the right conditions for life to survive. As we continue to explore the mysteries of our universe, it’s clear that there’s still much to learn, and this discovery is a thrilling reminder of the incredible potential that lies just beneath the surface.

The discovery of a retrograde planet in the nu Octantis binary star system has sent shockwaves through the astronomical community. Led by Professor Man Hoi Lee from the University of Hong Kong, an international team of researchers has confirmed the existence of this unprecedented planet, which orbits in the opposite direction to its parent stars. The findings, published in Nature, have shed new light on the formation and evolution of planets in tight binary systems.

The nu Octantis system consists of two stars: a primary subgiant star, nu Oct A, with about 1.6 times the mass of the Sun, and a secondary star, nu Oct B, with approximately half the mass of the Sun. The two stars orbit each other with a period of 1,050 days. An additional periodic signal in the radial velocity observations was first reported by Dr David Ramm during his PhD studies at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, in 2004. This signal suggested the presence of a Jovian planet of about twice the mass of Jupiter orbiting around nu Oct A, with a period of approximately 400 days.

However, the existence of this planet was controversial due to its wide orbit and the strong theoretical grounds against its formation. To settle the debate, the research team obtained new high-precision radial velocity observations using the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) HARPS spectrograph. The analysis confirmed the presence of the planet signal, with stable fits that required the planetary orbit to be retrograde and nearly in the same plane as the binary orbit.

Another key focus of the study was the determination of the nature of the secondary star, nu Oct B. The mass of nu Oct B suggested that it could be either a low-mass main-sequence star or a white dwarf. Using the adaptive optics imaging instrument SPHERE at ESO’s Very Large Telescope, the research team observed the system and found that nu Oct B was not detected, indicating that it must be a very faint white dwarf.

The discovery that nu Oct B is a white dwarf opens new possibilities for how the retrograde planet may have originated. The research team proposed two scenarios: either the planet formed in a retrograde disc of material around nu Oct A accreted from the mass ejected by nu Oct B, or it could be captured from a prograde orbit around the binary into a retrograde orbit around nu Oct A.

As astronomers continue to search for planets in different environments, this study highlights that planets in tight binary systems with evolved stellar components could offer unique insights into the formation and evolution of planets. The research uses two facilities operated by ESO: HARPS and SPHERE.