Touching the Sun and staying alive
This week, the American spacecraft Parker passed just about 6.1 million kilometers from the Sun's surface, breaking its own previous record for the closest approach of an artificial object to the Sun. The record was set on Tuesday at noon (Israel time), but due to its extreme proximity to the Sun and the mission's unique characteristics, communication with the spacecraft is temporarily cut off.
The first signal from Parker was received on Friday, December 27, allowing NASA operators to assess how the spacecraft handled temperatures of approximately 1,000 degrees Celsius and whether all its instruments remained functional. As it moves slightly farther from the Sun, Parker will transmit the scientific data gathered during this close pass.
To withstand the intense heat, the spacecraft is equipped with a specialized heat shield on its Sun-facing side. The shield comprises multiple layers of carbon fiber and a bright white aluminum oxide coating, which reflects sunlight to reduce heat absorption. The shield keeps the instruments shielded by it at a stable temperature of around 30 degrees Celsius. Parker’s scientific instruments are designed to study the transfer of energy in the Sun's corona—the outermost layer of the Sun.
Researchers hope this data will enhance our understanding of the processes that generate the solar wind, trigger solar storms, and drive these phenomena. They also aim to address one of the Sun's most intriguing mysteries: why the corona is significantly hotter than the Sun’s surface, despite being farther from its energy source at the Sun’s core.
The unmanned spacecraft was launched in 2018 and became the first to be named after a living person—Eugene Parker, the American physicist and solar researcher, who passed away in 2022 at the age of 94. Parker orbits the Sun in a highly elliptical path, approaching the Sun several times a year. It began its mission with passes at a distance of about 25 million kilometers, gradually moving closer.
Between these close passes, the spacecraft occasionally flies by Venus, using the planet’s gravity to alter its trajectory and increase its speed in maneuvers known as "gravity assists." Thanks to these maneuvers and the Sun’s immense gravitational pull, Parker also broke the record for the fastest artificial object during its 22nd solar flyby this week, reaching a staggering speed of about 690,000 km/h. At that speed, it could cover the distance from Earth to the Moon in just about 35 minutes.
Next year, Parker is scheduled to make two more close passes to the Sun, in March and June, though it is not expected to surpass this week's record. After the mission officially concludes, the spacecraft is expected to remain in its elliptical orbit around the Sun. If nothing unusual occurs, it could continue transmitting data for many years to come.
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Breaking records on the way to unraveling the Sun's mysteries. The Parker Solar Probe near the Sun
( Illustration: Applied Physics Lab and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)
Delays in another solar mission
While Parker breaks records, NASA has announced that another solar research spacecraft will be delayed by a few additional months. The IMAP spacecraft, scheduled for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, was initially planned for spring 2025. However, the agency has now stated that the launch will not occur before September. The only explanation provided by the agency for the delay was that the delay provides "additional time for IMAP flight systems preparations prior ro launch"
The American spacecraft will be positioned at the L1 point, approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, where the gravitational forces of the Sun and Earth balance, enabling the spacecraft to maintain a stable orbit with minimal fuel usage. From this vantage point, IMAP will study the heliosphere—the region influenced by the Sun—and how solar processes impact it. Additionally, the spacecraft will serve as a "space weather station," providing alerts about solar storms and other changes in solar activity.
The delay in IMAP's launch also postpones two other missions set to share its launch vehicle as secondary payloads. One is a spacecraft designed to monitor solar storms, and the other is a satellite developed by NOAA (the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) to study Earth's upper atmosphere.
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Investigating the Sun's sphere of influence and alerting about solar storms. An illustration of the IMAP spacecraft in space
(Source: NASA/Princeton/Patrick McPike)
Investing in communication
NASA has selected four companies to upgrade its space communication network at a total cost of nearly $5 billion. Intuitive Machines, which became the first private company to land a spacecraft on the Moon this year, secured two contracts for systems enabling direct communication with Earth from space. KSAT received a contract for lunar mission communications and another to provide communication channels for spacecraft in Earth's orbit. SSC also won two contracts—one for communication with satellites and spacecraft in low-Earth orbit and another for highly elliptical orbits. Viasat secured a single contract for Earth-orbit communication.
NASA did not disclose the value of each individual contract but noted that the total cost could reach $4.82 billion. These contracts cover services from February 2025 to September 2029, with an option to extend for an additional five years until 2034.
This new program is part of NASA's effort to revamp its near-space communication network, designed to support missions around Earth and the Moon. NASA’s current network includes ground-based radio stations and the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) system. Over the next few years, NASA plans to gradually phase out the TDRS system and replace it, along with other network components, with services provided by commercial companies. This initiative is part of a broader trend by NASA to outsource more services and responsibilities to private companies—a trend likely to accelerate and expand with Donald Trump’s return as president this month.
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Shifting communications to private companies. A NASA ground station for satellite communication
(Credit: NASA)
The old Moon
The Moon formed relatively soon after Earth came into existence, but a new study suggests the timeline might be even shorter than previously believed, while also offering potential solutions to several lunar mysteries.According to prevailing theories, Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old, and the Moon formed about 4.35 billion years ago—roughly 200 million years later. However, the question of how the Moon formed remains contentious. The leading hypothesis suggests that a massive planetary body collided with the young, molten Earth, ejecting part of Earth’s mass into space. This smaller mass cooled and solidified much more quickly.
Researchers from the United States, Germany, and France have now proposed a new theory suggesting the Moon formed even earlier than previously thought. Scientists date the Moon’s age using zircon crystals found in lunar rocks collected during the Apollo missions. As these crystals cool from molten magma, they absorb uranium but exclude lead. Uranium decays at a predictable rate, acting as a radioactive clock, with lead as one of its byproducts. By comparing the uranium-to-lead ratio, researchers can determine the crystals’ age. Over time, some zircon crystals have been found to date back 4.46 billion or even 4.51 billion years—apparently older than the Moon itself. However, these are rare outliers, with most crystals dating to 4.35 billion years ago.
According to the theory, which was recently published in Nature, the Moon formed very early, between 100 million and 10 million years after Earth’s formation. During this initial period, the two bodies were extremely close, and Earth’s gravitational forces exerted immense tidal effects on the Moon, causing parts of its surface to reheat and remelt repeatedly.
Over time, the Moon gradually moved farther away, cooled, and solidified completely around 4.35 billion years ago. This could explain the abundance of crystals from that era while also accounting for the existence of older ones. The theory also provides an answer to why there are fewer ancient impact craters on the Moon than expected for its early formation period, during which asteroids were more prevalent. It’s possible that early impacts did occur, leaving craters that were later erased as the Moon’s surface remelted.
In its early years, the Moon was much closer to Earth, and Earth’s gravitational pull created immense tidal forces, causing parts of the Moon’s surface to reheat and remelt repeatedly. Over time, the Moon gradually moved farther away, cooled, and fully solidified around 4.35 billion years ago.
This process could explain the prevalence of crystals from that era while accounting for the presence of older ones. The theory also addresses the relative scarcity of ancient impact craters on the Moon, which would be expected if it formed during a time of heavy asteroid activity. Early impacts likely did occur but may have been erased when the Moon’s surface remelted.
The new theory might also explain why Earth’s crust contains significantly more metals than lunar soil. These metals likely originated from asteroids, planetary bodies, and other celestial objects that collided with both Earth and the Moon during the early solar system. According to the researchers, the Moon’s surface may have initially contained similar metal concentrations, but these likely sank deeper into its crust during repeated melting phases, leaving them buried deep below the surface today.
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An event much earlier than previously thought. Illustration of the collision with the early Earth, thought to have led to the Moon’s formation
(Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Stars for free
The US National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NSF NOIRLab) has launched a new project granting the public free access to high-resolution images of all 88 officially recognized constellations, as defined by the International Astronomical Union. The project, titled 88 Constellations, also features a large panoramic image of the entire sky, regarded as one of the best of its kind.
The collection consists of photographs taken by German astrophotographer Eckhard Slawik. Each image combines two exposures—one with a color filter and one without—to enhance the visibility of the stars' colors. Accompanying each image is a detailed description of the constellation, its historical significance, a diagram of its position in the sky, and an overview of prominent celestial objects within it. The project also includes downloadable information cards and supplementary materials designed to help educators integrate the content into classroom lessons.
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Bringing the skies to the classroom. A labeled and illustrated image of the Andromeda constellation from the 88 Constellations project
(Credit: E. Slawik/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani)
A wedding ring from another world
John Mesick from Colorado, a planning manager at Lockheed Martin—a company that manufactures aerospace vehicles, including spacecraft for NASA—has been a space enthusiast since childhood. When he decided to marry his fiancée this year, it was clear to him that his wedding ring would reflect his passion for space.
“I've always been fascinated with Space. I was the kid who wanted to be an astronaut and the next best thing has been working as a Planning Manager in the industry, currently at Lockheed Martin bust starting a new role at Blue Origin in a few weeks,” Mesick told the Davidson Institute website. “I got the idea by looking at meteorite rings, but then thought of more ways to make it special.”
Mesick decided that his ring would contain lunar soil. While the Apollo program’s lunar samples are reserved for research and cannot be sold to individuals, lunar meteorites—rocks ejected from the Moon by asteroid impacts that survived their journey through Earth’s atmosphere—are available. Mesick managed to purchase a small lunar meteorite discovered in Algeria in 2022. But he didn’t stop there; he wanted the ring to include a memento from Apollo 11, the first mission to land humans on the Moon in 1969.
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A one-of-a-kind ring with lunar meteorite fragments and insulation material from Apollo 11
(Photo: Honest Hands Ring Co., courtesy of John Mesick)
The Apollo 11 astronauts returned to Earth in the spacecraft Columbia, whose outer wall was coated with a special aluminum-based foil known as Kapton. Its silver-colored outer layer helped prevent overheating, while the gold-colored inner layer provided radiation shielding. During re-entry and splashdown, parts of this coating were torn, and some workers handling the spacecraft kept fragments as souvenirs, despite being prohibited from doing so. “I knew you could buy 1mm x 1mm pieces of space flown Kapton foil, but I had to do a lot of research to find a larger piece for the ring,” Mesick explained. Eventually, he obtained a 23-centimeter-long piece sold at auction from the estate of a former NASA employee.
“I contacted several ring companies, but Honest Hands Ring Co. was the only one that would use custom materials and they happened to be local,” Mesick said. The result is a zirconium ring, blackened through heat treatment, embedded with fragments of the lunar meteorite. Surrounding them is a band of Apollo 11’s golden Kapton.
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“The cost of the ring production was under $1000 usd, and I paid a few thousand dollars for the foil at auction, but I'm keeping the remainder of it to display at home,” Mesick concluded. When asked why the couple made only one such ring, he replied, “My Fiancée preferred a more traditional ring for herself, so mine is one of a kind. My bride supports my enthusiasm for Space, and just like Apollo 11, we are excited for this great adventure of marriage.”
Video detailing the crafting of Mesick’s wedding ring: