news 2022

The Coronagraph Instrument on NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will study planets around other stars. Putting it together will require a highly choreographed dance. Scientists have discovered more than 5,000 exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system. As technologies for studying these worlds continue to advance, researchers may someday be able to search for signs of life on exoplanets that are similar in size, composition, and temperature to Earth.

2022 was another packed year for news from the Faculty Science and Engineering. From dinosaurs, to robots and amazing students to distant stars, here are some of our highlights: Palaeontologists working on the Ichthyosaur skeleton found at Rutland Water August 26 2021 Matthew Power Photography www.matthewpowerphotography.co.uk 07969 088655 matthew@matthewpowerphotography.co.uk @mpowerphoto In January we kicked the year off with a colossal story.

A new study involving UCL has uncovered how magnetic waves are transmitted past a standing shock wave, known as the bow shock, that forms ahead of Earth as a result of the solar wind hitting our magnetic bubble (magnetosphere). Shock waves occur in air when a plane travels faster than the speed of sound and also occur in plasma (a fourth state of matter that makes up 99% of the visible Universe) in space.

Based partly on data from generations of NASA missions, including NASA's Voyager and Cassini, the work could help scientists determine how to predict weather on Jupiter. Scientists have completed the longest-ever study tracking temperatures in Jupiter's upper troposphere, the layer of the atmosphere where the giant planet's weather occurs and where its signature colorful striped clouds form.

A team led by UdeM astronomers has found evidence that two exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf star are "water worlds," planets where water makes up a large fraction of the volume. These worlds, located in a planetary system 218 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, are unlike any planets found in our solar system.

Though the telescopes can't directly observe the planets' surfaces, their densities indicate they're lighter than rock worlds but heavier than gas-dominated ones. A team led by of researchers at the University of Montreal has found evidence that two exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf star are "water worlds," where water makes up a large fraction of the entire planet.

Key takeaways The quake lasted four hours and identified layering in the crust that could indicate a meteoroid impact. The 4.7 magnitude temblor happened in May 2022 and released five times more energy than any previously recorded quake on Mars. Mapping the seismic activity on Mars will help inform scientists where and how to build structures to ensure the safety of future human explorers.

Using the new space telescope, international research team under Heidelberg leadership discovers galaxy cluster in formation Using the observations of a distant, very luminous galaxy, an international research team has discovered a cluster of galaxies with the aid of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and, at the same time, one of the densest known areas of galaxy formation in the early Universe.

New findings lay the foundation for the search for dark matter How are galaxies born, and what holds them together? Astronomers assume that dark matter plays an essential role. However, as yet it has not been possible to prove directly that dark matter exists. A research team including Technical University of Munich (TUM) scientists has now measured for the first time the survival rate of antihelium nuclei from the depths of the galaxy - a necessary prerequisite for the indirect search for Dark Matter.

LIFU's advantage comes from the large amount of information contained in each observation. Using small displacements of the pointer, the WEAVE spectrograph has produced, in two hours, spectra for 31,500 regions in and around these galaxies. The total light intensity of each of the fibres is used to form the image of the galaxies shown in the centre.

WEAVE has carried out its first-light observations on Stephan's Quintet, a group of five galaxies, some of which are undergoing collision. They provide a demonstration of its exceptional capabilities and hold out the promise of major discoveries. WEAVE, a new spectrograph on the William Herschel Telescope (Canary Islands, Spain), has successfully carried out first-light observations of a group of five galaxies called Stephan's Quintet, thus demonstrating its unprecedented capabilities and providing the astronomical community with the promise of many new discoveries.

In future it will be possible to incorporate data from deep space telescopes into the underlying atomic models with a high degree of reliability Very hot gas, as found in the sun's corona or in close proximity to black holes, emits very intense x-rays. It reveals the locally prevailing physical conditions, such as temperature and density.

Technically, it would be possible for future space missions to detect DNA, lipids and other bacterial components on icy moons with an ocean beneath the ice in our solar system - assuming these building blocks of life exist beyond Earth. This is the conclusion reached by an international team of scientists including Professor Abel's research group at Leipzig University.

Researchers from Western have shown that a fireball that originated at the edge of the Solar System was likely made of rock, not ice, challenging long-held beliefs about how the Solar System was formed. Just at the edge of our Solar System and halfway to the nearest stars is a collection of icy objects sailing through space, known as the Oort Cloud.

New findings confirm that JWST has surpassed the Hubble telescope in its ability to observe the early Universe So many questions about galaxies have been waiting for the transformative opportunity of Webb, and we are thrilled to be able to play a part in revealing this story Sandro Tacchella An international team of astronomers, including scientists at the Universities of Cambridge, Hertfordshire and Oxford, has reported the discovery of the earliest galaxies ever confirmed in our Universe.

JWST image of the Southern Ring planetary nebula, using a filter that shows molecular hydrogen. The nebula has a bright distorted ring consisting of 10,000 globules, surrounded by a faint halo with radial stripes and arcs JWST image of the Southern Ring planetary nebula, using a filter that shows molecular hydrogen.

A Yale-designed and developed instrument has given astronomers a better idea of how 55 Cnc e - also known as the -hell planet got where it is today. A piece of Yale-developed technology has helped astronomers follow the fiery trail of the so-called -hell planet,- an exoplanet located 40 light years from Earth and nicknamed for its extremely close orbit to its sun.

Researchers at Freie Universität Berlin Publish Study in the Journal Astrobiology. In the future, space missions would be at least technically capable of detecting DNA, lipids, and other components of bacteria on ocean moons in our solar system - if such building blocks of life exist outside Earth. This has now been demonstrated in laboratory experiments by an international team led by scientists from the Planetary Science and Remote Sensing Research Group at Freie Universität Berlin.

It would be technically possible for future space missions to detect DNA, lipids, and other bacterial components on ocean moons in our solar system - provided that these building blocks of life do exist beyond Earth. This is the conclusion that has now been reached by an international team of scientists, led by the Planetary Sciences and Remote Sensing research group at Freie Universität Berlin.

Research conducted by a University of Miami scientist and his graduate assistant accurately predicted which of the two rift zones of Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano would erupt. The Mauna Loa, the world's largest active volcano, began erupting on Nov. 27 for the first time in nearly 40 years, spewing lava 100 feet to 200 feet into the air.