New year, same universe

Curveball: Enceladus’ plumes might not come from a subsurface ocean. New research suggests the Saturnian moon’s famous plumes (pictured) might instead come from pockets of meltwater hidden in Enceladus’ icy shell. One of the scientists on this study, physicist Colin Meyer of Dartmouth University, said this research doesn’t oppose the idea that Enceladus has an underground ocean. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Kevin M. Gill.

Things are looking bright for JWST’s sunshield, which is now fully deployed. The telescope’s sunshield — about 21 meters (70 feet) long — was previously tucked away for launch on an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket. NASA plans to unfold the telescope's final mirror segments today and this weekend, marking the end of major deployments for the observatory.

The Biden-Harris administration announced its intention to keep the International Space Station (ISS) operational through 2030. It seems the ISS will be functional for much longer than originally planned; at one point, the space lab was supposed to de-orbit in 2016.

An exploding meteor started the New Year off with a bang. NASA’s Meteor Watch confirmed that on New Year’s Day, an “earthshaking boom” over Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, erupted when a meteor about a meter across moving at about 72,500 kilometers per hour (45,000 miles per hour) exploded high in the atmosphere. Even though the explosion had the force of about 30 tons of TNT, nobody was injured.

Sending humans to the Moon involves a lot of very different kinds of work. Among the myriad jobs required are spacesuit (specifically, moonsuit) designer and ship’s captain. Learn more about both on this week’s Planetary Radio. Pictured: NASA’s Orion test capsule aboard the USS John P. Murtha, the ship that’s set to recover the uncrewed capsule when it returns from the Moon this year. Image credit: Mat Kaplan / The Planetary Society.