A University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist is participating in  a U.S. government effort to design a satellite and instruments capable of detecting space debris as small as 1 centimeter, less than one-half inch. Debris that small, which cannot currently be detected from the ground, can damage satellites and other spacecraft in low-Earth orbit.

Astronauts often experience immune dysfunction, skin rashes, and other inflammatory conditions while traveling in space. A new study publishing February 27 in the Cell Press journal Cell suggests that these issues could be due to the excessively sterile nature of spacecraft. The study showed that the International Space Station (ISS) has a much lower diversity of microbes compared to human-built environments on Earth, and the microbes that are present are mostly species carried by humans onto the ISS, suggesting that the presence of more microbes from nature could help improve human health in the space station. 

How do rogue planetary-mass objects – celestial bodies with masses between stars and planets – form? An international team of astronomers, including the University of Zurich, has used advanced simulations to show that these enigmatic objects are linked to the chaotic dynamics of young star clusters.