Science

Scientists at the University of Western Ontario have shown that the lunar crust was significantly enriched with water more than four billion years ago, which contradicts existing ideas. This is reported in a paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

In 2008, scientists discovered the presence of significant amounts of water and other volatile substances in lunar samples collected during the Apollo mission. Analyses of samples, such as the recently discovered lunar meteorites, showed that they contained the mineral apatite, which contains large amounts of volatile substances, including water.

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An international team of astronomers reported the discovery of a new cataclysmic variable SRGeJ041130.3+685350, which may contain a brown dwarf. The findings are published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS).

Cataclysmic variables (CVs) are close double star systems consisting of a primary white dwarf that typically accretes matter from a main-sequence star. Their brightness increases irregularly several times and then decreases again to quiescent.

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Astronomers have discovered a pair of exoplanets that orbit a red dwarf. According to a study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, one of the planets is the coldest planet orbiting an M-class star discovered so far by the TESS space observatory.

Both planets orbit the star TOI 904, which is 150 light-years away from Earth, and both are sub-Neptunes, with radii more than twice as large as Earth’s but smaller than Neptune’s. The outer planet TOI 904c orbits its star in 84 days and has an estimated equilibrium temperature of 217 Kelvin, or -56 degrees Celsius.

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Scientists from Spain and Germany have discovered a fundamental asymmetry between the rate of heating and the rate of cooling, explaining with the help of a mathematical model why the first process is faster than the second. The results of the study are published in the journal Nature Physics.

Previously, heating and cooling were considered as symmetric processes that proceed in a similar way. While an increase in temperature represents a transfer of energy to individual particles, enhancing their motion, cooling entails the release of energy with the attenuation of thermal motion.

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Scientists at Newcastle University have uncovered one of the reasons for the origin of life 3.5 billion years ago. According to a study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, the mixing of hydrogen, bicarbonate and iron-rich magnetite in hydrothermal vents leads to the formation of various organic molecules, including fatty acids.

Fatty acids play an important role in the formation of cell membranes because their molecules have hydrophilic and hydrophobic sites, causing them to spontaneously form hollow organic bubbles in water. This property is thought to have led to the first cells within which chains of biochemical reactions took place. However, it was unclear how fatty acids arose in the early stages of abiogenesis.

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