NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has discovered a 90-mile-wide Kuiper Belt object (KBO) orbiting beyond Pluto, more than 3 billion miles away from the sun. According to NASA, the object is a distant remnant of the early solar system. Scientists hope to further explore this strange new world and others like it in future extended missions.

1994 JR1 has been observed twice now, first in November 2015 and, more recently, on April 7 and 8. The first sighting was from 170 million miles away. The April viewing was from only 69 million miles. Images were taken with New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI).

New Horizons science team member Simon Porter said the observations include valuable findings. “Combining the November 2015 and April 2016 observations allows us to pinpoint the location of JR1 to within 1,000 kilometers (about 600 miles), far better than any small KBO.” Determining a more accurate location of JR1’s orbit also allows the team to dispel a theory from several years ago that the KBO is a quasi-satellite of Pluto.

The closer vantage point allowed the science team to determine that JR1 rotates once every 5.4 hours, which is a JR1 day. According to team member John Spencer, “That’s relatively fast for a KBO.” Spencer also said that the JR1 observations are good practice for close-up viewing of 20 more ancient KBOs. That mission will come in the next few years if NASA approves it.

The Kuiper Belt is a ring of ice debris and rock encircling our solar system. Porter says that the cold classical objects found in the Kuiper Belt are “the most primordial objects.” “They were never pushed around by the giant planets; they’re pretty much where they formed and haven’t been disturbed except for occasionally bumping into each other.” “Cold classical” does not refer to temperature, but rather to orbits, which are not close to anything else.

Cold classical objects have never been visited before, so the new mission, if NASA funds it, could provide valuable information about how our solar system formed 4.6 billion years ago. No one knows what the Kuiper Belt objects are made of, or the surface geology or topography. “We’ve never been to one of these objects before, so we really have no idea what it’s like,” says Porter.

The first close-up observations of Pluto and its five moons occurred when New Horizons flew through the system on July 14, 2015. The spacecraft should closely pass by 2014 MU69, another Kuiper Belt object , on Jan. 1, 2019. MU69 is too far away and too small to reveal its details through ground observation, even with the Hubble telescope.

Although New Horizons has already pointed its trajectory toward MU69, approval of the mission extension needs to come from NASA. If the mission is not approved, Porter says NASA will “literally turn off the spacecraft” this year.

The most recent SpaceX rocket booster touched down gently on the deck of a ship in the Atlantic Ocean on May 6, but was already damaged too much by what CEO Elon Musk called “high entry velocity” to meet the goal of reusability. Although probably not in shape to launch again, Falcon 9’s landing proved that SpaceX can recover boosters that are intact. Musk said that the rocket will help SpaceX assess the flight-worthiness of other boosters they recover in the future.

The 14-story Falcon 9 booster was moved to a hangar at Kennedy Space Center on Saturday, joining two other landed stages from previous missions. This third Falcon 9 mission delivered a Japanese communications satellite, JCSAT-14, into orbit 22,000 miles above the equator.

When the booster separated from the rocket’s upper stage it was traveling more than 5,200 mph. The first two missions were flown into low orbits that allowed for slower speeds of only 4,000 mph. The increased speed caused the most recent rocket to experience five times as much heat during its reentry through Earth’s atmosphere. SpaceX had warned that the speed and heat made a successful landing unlikely. However, the booster landed within 6 feet of its target.

SpaceX hopes that modifications to heat shielding and other systems can protect future rockets so that they can return to Earth in good enough condition to fly again without extensive rebuilding, which would dramatically lower future launch costs.

The next mission for SpaceX is set for May 26. A Falcon 9 will launch the Thaicom 8 communications satellite from Cape Canaveral and attempt to land the booster at sea. Two more launches in June may deliver cargo to the International Space Station and launch a communications satellite.

Scientists from the University of Queensland have discovered some Cretaceous-era fossils that are at least 71 million years old, and may provide clues to the extinction of the dinosaurs. The fossils were found on James Ross Island, and included a mix of dinosaur and marine life fossils.

In a press release, Dr. Steve Salisbury of the University of Queensland said that the remains included a lot of marine reptiles, such as plesiosaurs and mosasaurs, which Salisbury said is a type of lizard made famous by the film Jurassic World. “The rocks that we were focusing on come from the end of the Age of Dinosaurs, so most of them are between 71 million and 67 millions years old.”

The expedition involved 12 scientists and took place in February and March. The fossils were all shallow marine rocks, so the majority of what they found lived in the oceans. They also found dinosaur remains and did geological mapping of the area, recording the thickness of rocks and information on the environment which help create a picture of what the area was like at the time the fossilized animals existed.

It may take a couple years before results of further studies are complete, as many of the larger bones need extensive preparation before the team can do much research on them. The fossils are being kept in Chile at this time, but will eventually be sent to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, where they will be studied further.

Salisbury said that the really important part of the expedition was the fact that they were there, as travel to the Antarctic Peninsula is difficult. Helicopters and inflatable boats were used to cross the rough seas of the Drake Passage. The team camped out for nearly five weeks on Vega Island, and hiked through mountainous terrain to reach the main field site, located on Sandwich Bluff.

Salisbury says he has tried to reach Antarctica before to do this type of research, but was prevented from making land by sea ice. “It’s a very hard place to work, but an even harder place to get to,” he said, noting that they would be snowed in at times, stuck in the communal tent while they waited out the weather.

Image credit: Dr. Steve Salisbury/The University of Queensland

Scientists have long puzzled over the source of dark streaks that show on the slopes of Mars. New research from France now suggests that those streaks may have been carved by boiling water.

Low atmospheric pressure is the key behind the boiling water. Mars pressure is about 1/100th of the atmospheric pressure on Earth. Under such low pressure water boils very easily, similar to boiling water at high elevations on Earth. For example, at the top of Mt. Everest, water boils at 161 degrees Fahrenheit rather than 212 degrees. According to study co-author Susan Conway, with the Martian atmosphere only 5 to 10 millibars, liquid water boils no matter what the temperature is.

The scientists did lab experiments in which they allowed a block of ice to melt and seep into the underlying sediment, then examined the patterns that emerged as the water ran downhill. When they tested how flowing water reacted on a slope made of loose, fine-grained sand that resembles Martian soil, they found that under low-pressure conditions, such as are found on Mars, the water boiled so vigorously that it tossed grains of sand into the air. The sand piled up until it collapsed and started avalanches. The lab’s test slope developed channels that looked very much like those seen on Mars.

The streaks, known as RSL, or recurring slope lineae, were previously thought to be caused by dust avalanches, or the venting of carbon dioxide gas. Now the researchers feel fairly certain that the source of the streaks is water. Conway says that the study results show that, under conditions such as found on Mars, a fairly small amount of water can move “a disproportionately large amount of sediment,” much more than is possible under conditions found on Earth.

Conway says that the discovery that less water is needed for creating such planetary features as RSL is both good news and bad news for the idea of life on Mars. While the results show that there is the possibility of liquid water on Mars, it also shows that there is likely very little and that it does not last long enough to be a good environment for microorganisms.

The findings from the research, which took place at the University of Nantes in France, and the National Center for Scientific Research, also in France, were published in the journal Nature Geoscience on May 2.

A new study published May 2 in the journal Nature reveals the genetic history of ice age Europe, and how those early humans contributed to the genetic composition of modern Europeans. Researchers from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute analyzed DNA found in ancient bones in a study that reveals the migration patterns of ancient Europeans, as well as offering a picture of the dramatic population change that occurred in Europe between 45,000 and 7,000 years ago.

The team used genomes of 51 different individuals, which represent most of the known human skeletons from the period between 45,000 and 7,000 years ago. Before this study there were only four available samples of prehistoric Europeans that offered genomic data that could be studied. The new study provides a much clearer picture of European history.

Study leader David Reich said in a statement that 51 samples changed everything for the purposes of study, offering a sense of dynamic changes over time. The study was made possible only because of recent technological advancements that allowed the degraded DNA from ancient remains to be analyzed.

The data has revealed details about ice age Europeans such as eye color, skin color, and how different groups were related. For example, ancient Europeans tended to have brown eyes and dark complexions. Blue eyes appeared about 14,000 years ago and pale skin emerged 7,000 years ago.

The analysis revealed that later populations saw very little effect from the migration of other groups onto the continent. Instead, the distinct groups of Europeans that branched out beginning around 37,000 years ago were descended from a single founding population from southwestern Europe. Only later, about 14,000 years ago, did new migrations from eastern Europe cause significant population turnovers.

Reich says, “We see very different genetics spreading across Europe that displaces the people from the southwest who were there before. These people persisted for many thousands of years until the arrival of farming.”

The researchers also found some mixture with Neanderthals around 45,000 years ago, that occurred with the spread of modern humans across Europe. Although humans today have only about 2 percent Neanderthal DNA, prehistoric humans had 3 to 6 percent. “Neanderthal DNA is slightly toxic to modern humans,” explained Reich. According to this study, natural selection appears to be removing Neanderthal ancestry.

A fisherman on the Naples Pier had the surprise of his life when he accidentally hooked a huge carpenter shark. The endangered sawfish was too large for the fisherman to get to shore where he could remove the hook. Several men were needed to assist after he towed the line from the pier to the shore. Alex Pino recorded the entire incident, which has become a viral sensation on YouTube.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, sawfish can grow up to 18 feet long and 700 pounds. Although not that large, this fish was huge. It came completely out of the water at one point as the men tried to avoid the razor sharp teeth in its long snout while they attempted to remove the hook. “That’s when we all got to see how huge this sawfish is! I’ve never seen anything like it in person,” said Pino.

Once freed, the fish pushed back into the water and swam away. The crowd’s response was heartening after a highly publicized incident in February in which a rare baby dolphin that was beached in Australia was mobbed for selfies and then left to die.

The smalltooth sawfish is found only in the shallow coastal waters around Florida. It is a year-round resident and larger specimens are commonly found closer to shore in the spring.