SPACE/COSMOS
The electrifying science behind Martian dust
Washington University in St. Louis
By Alison Verbeck
Mars, often depicted as a barren red planet, is far from lifeless. With its thin atmosphere and dusty surface, it is an energetic and electrically charged environment where dust storms and dust devils continually reshape the landscape, creating dynamic processes that have intrigued scientists.
Planetary scientist Alian Wang has been shedding light on Mars' electrifying dust activities through a series of papers. Her latest research, published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, explores the isotopic geochemical consequences of these activities.
Imagine powerful dust storms and swirling dust devils racing across the Martian surface. The frictional electrification of dust grains can build up electrical potentials strong enough to cause electrostatic discharges (ESDs) that break down the planet's thin atmosphere. These ESDs, which are more frequent on Mars due to the low atmospheric pressure, manifest as subtle, eerie glows, much like Earth's auroras, leading to various electrochemical processes.
Wang, a research professor of Earth, environmental, and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and a fellow of the university's McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, investigates the electrifying world of Martian dust activities, illuminating how these electrochemical reactions give birth to various oxidized chemicals. Supported by NASA’s Solar System Working Program, her team built two planetary simulation chambers, PEACh (Planetary Environment and Analysis Chamber) and SCHILGAR (Simulation Chamber with InLine Gas AnalyzeR), to uncover a fascinating array of reaction products, including volatile chlorine species, activated oxides, airborne carbonates, and (per)chlorates. These chemicals are transformative players in Mars’ geochemical dance.
In a previous study, Wang and her team discovered the crucial role of dust-induced electric discharges in Mars' chlorine cycle. The Martian surface is littered with chloride deposits, residues from ancient saline waters. Using a Martian simulation chamber with various traps to achieve mass balance, her team quantified the resulting reaction products. They concluded that Martian dust activities during the planet’s hot and dry Amazonian period could generate carbonates, (per)chlorates, and volatile chlorine matching observations by recent Mars orbiters, rovers, and lander missions.
Wang’s team, comprising members from six universities in the United States, China, and the United Kingdom, analyzed the isotopic compositions of chlorine, oxygen, and carbon in ESD products. They found substantial and coherent depletion of heavy isotopes.
"Because isotopes are minor constituents in materials, the isotopic ratios can only be affected by the MAJOR process in a system. Therefore, the substantial heavy isotope depletion of three mobile elements is a 'smoking-gun’ that nails down the importance of dust-induced electrochemistry in shaping the contemporary Mars surface-atmosphere system," says Wang.
Each isotopic measurement, along with the previous quantifications, acts as a piece of a larger puzzle. This comprehensive view suggests that electrochemistry induced by Martian dust activities has sculpted the planet’s chemical landscape. These findings reinforce the hypothesis that Martian dust activities have played a crucial role in shaping the contemporary geochemistry of both the surface and the atmosphere.
A conceptual model of Mars’ contemporary global chlorine cycle and airborne carbonate minerals emerges from this isotopic study. This model reveals a fascinating interplay between the electrochemical processes and secondary minerals on Mars’ surface and in its atmosphere. It demonstrates how the heavy isotope depletions in three mobile elements are transferred from the dust-driven ESD products to the atmosphere and then re-deposited onto the surface, even percolating into the subsurface to form the next generation of surface minerals. The on-going dust-driven electrochemistry throughout the Amazonian period has contributed to the progressive depletion of 37Cl, leading toward the very negative δ37Cl value (-51‰) observed by NASA’s Curiosity rover.
"Alian’s work is very important. This is the first experimental study to look at how electrostatic discharges can affect isotopes in a Martian environment. Isotopic signatures are like fingerprints, and they can be used to trace the processes that have influenced the chlorine cycle on Mars, which makes this study especially valuable, " notes Kun Wang, an associate professor of Earth, environmental, and planetary sciences at Washington University. " While the experiments did not produce the extremely light Cl isotopic signatures measured by Mars rovers, they clearly show that electrostatic discharges can drive Cl isotopic fractionation in the right direction. This work is therefore an important step toward understanding the origin of these unusually light Cl signatures and the formation of perchlorate minerals on the Martian surface. It also highlights just how different Mars is from Earth, with very different atmospheric and surface processes controlling chemical reactions."
Wang's latest study coincides with new findings from NASA’s Perseverance rover that recorded 55 electric discharges on Mars during two dust devils and the convective front of two dust storms, published in Nature, in which her previous studies were cited as the chemical consequences of electrical discharges, affirming her role as a leading expert in understanding Mars’ electrified environment. Her discoveries about the identification, quantification and isotopic signature of (per)chlorates, amorphous salts, airborne carbonates, and volatile chlorine species all align with observations made from Mars missions, providing compelling evidence of dust-induced electrochemistry on Amazonian Mars.
Wang's research opens doors to new possibilities beyond Mars. Similar electrochemical phenomena might exist on other planets and moons such as Venus, the Moon, and the outer planetary systems. This expands the significance of her work, suggesting that electrochemistry induced by Martian dust, Venusian lightning, and energetic electrons on the Moon and outer planets are essential factors in planetary processes throughout the solar system.
"This research sheds light on an important facet of modern Mars: the interaction of the atmosphere and the surface. But it also tells us about how the chemistry of the surface has, in part, come to be—with valuable lessons for other worlds where triboelectric charging may take place, including Venus and Titan," shares Paul Byrne, an associate professor of Earth, environmental, and planetary sciences at Washington University.
This innovative research direction electrifies our understanding of Mars, uncovering the potent role of dust activities in shaping its chemical landscape. Wang's contributions propel planetary science forward, offering deeper insights into the dynamic forces at play on Mars and beyond. As we continue to explore, her discoveries provide the foundation for a richer understanding of our celestial neighbors, sparking curiosity and inspiring future missions to uncover the secrets held by other worlds in our solar system.
As Mars continues to reveal its secrets, groundbreaking research brings us closer to understanding our planetary neighbor, its history, and its potential to support life. The mysteries of Mars remind us that the Red Planet still holds many wonders, waiting to be fully explored.
Journal
Earth and Planetary Science Letters
Pitt student finds familiar structure just 2 billion years after the Big Bang
The barred spiral galaxy may be the earliest astronomers have seen yet
University of Pittsburgh
image:
An unsharp mask overlaid onto the F200W, F277W, and F356W filter composition. The white lines are logarithmic spirals fitted to points along the arm structures and a line segmen fitted to the approximately North to South aligned bar structure.
view moreCredit: Courtesy image: Daniel Ivanov, et. al.
Research led by Daniel Ivanov, a physics and astronomy graduate student in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at Pitt, uncovered a contender for one of the earliest observed spiral galaxies containing a stellar bar, a sometimes-striking visual feature that can play an important role in the evolution of a galaxy. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, also has a stellar bar.
This finding helps constrain the timeframe in which bars could have first emerged in the universe. Analysis of light from the galaxy, called COSMOS-74706, places it on the cosmic timeline at about 11.5 billion years ago.
Daniel Ivanov can be reached at DAI34@pitt.edu.
“This galaxy was developing bars 2 billion years after the birth of the universe," Ivanov said. “Two billion years after the big bang.”
The findings are scheduled to be presented at the 247th meeting of the American Astronomical Society on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026.
The defining feature of these galaxies is right in the name: “A stellar bar is a linear feature at the center of the galaxy,” Ivanov said. The bar isn’t an object itself, but a dense collection of stars and gas that is aligned in such a way that in images taken perpendicular to a galactic plane, there appears to be a bright line bisecting the galaxy.
Stellar bars can play a role shaping their galaxy’s evolution by funneling gas inward from the outer reaches of a galaxy, feeding the supermassive black hole in the center and dampening star formation throughout the stellar disk.
Other researchers have reported earlier barred spiral galaxies, but the analyses of those are less conclusive because the methods used to analyze the lights’ redshifts are not as definitive as spectroscopy, which was used to validate COSMOS-74706. In other cases, the galaxy’s light was distorted as it passed by a massive object, a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing.
In essence, Ivanov said, “It's the highest redshift, spectroscopically confirmed, unlensed barred spiral galaxy.”
He wasn’t necessarily surprised to find a barred spiral galaxy so early in the universe’s evolution. In fact, some simulations suggest bars forming at redshift 5, or about 12.5 billion years ago. But, Ivanov said, “In principle, I think that this is not an epoch in which you expect to find many of these objects. It helps to constrain the timescales of bar formation. And it’s just really interesting.”
This work is based in part on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope with data from Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-03127, which is supported by NASA. Work was also supported by the Brinson Foundation.
Method of Research
Data/statistical analysis
Researchers observe gas outflow driven by a jet from an active galactic nucleus
Summary author: Becky Ham
image:
Morphological structure of the galactic outflow in VV 340a. This artistic rendering illustrates a multi-phase galactic outflow driven by a central active galactic nucleus. The white helix represents a precessing radio jet, a rotating beam of high energy plasma launched from the magnetosphere of the central supermassive black hole. The red filaments represent highly ionized coronal gas which results from the collision of the jet with the ambient gas of the host galaxy. The blue filaments represent ionized gas being ejected from the galaxy at high speeds and extending up to 15 kiloparsecs. As the jet propagates outward, it energizes and propels the galaxy’s gas into a high velocity outflow, altering the galaxy’s future evolution.
view moreCredit: W. M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko
Active galactic nuclei, energetic and luminous regions powered by an accreting supermassive black hole at the center of some galaxies, can launch a jet that drives a gas outflow, shaping star formation in their host galaxy. Justin Kader and colleagues have observed this phenomenon in the nearby active galaxy VV 340a. Kader et al. observed the jet and galaxy across infrared, optical, radio, and sub-millimeter wavelengths, using the James Webb Space Telescope, Keck-II telescope, the Jansky Very Large Array and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. The researchers combined these observations with modeling, to show that the low-power radio jet emitted by VV 340a undergoes a conical wobble, known as precession, as it moves outward. The jet ionizes and ejects gas as it propagates away from the supermassive black hole, driving a gas outflow at a rate of 19.4 ± 7.9 solar masses per year. This outflow rate is large enough to affect the star formation rate of the host galaxy, Kader et al. conclude.
Journal
Science
Article Title
A precessing jet from an active galactic nucleus drives gas outflow from a disk galaxy
Article Publication Date
8-Jan-2026
UC Irvine astronomers spot largest known stream of super-heated gas in the universe
Discovery was made using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and other resources
- UC Irvine astronomers found an unexpectedly large stream of super-heated gas at nearby galaxy.
- The team used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and other observatories.
- Project funding was provided by NASA and the National Science Foundation.
Irvine, Calif., Jan. 8, 2026 —University of California, Irvine astronomers have announced the discovery of the largest-known stream of super-heated gas in the universe ejecting from a nearby galaxy called VV 340a. They describe the discovery in Science.
The super-heated gas, detected by the researchers in data provided by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, is erupting from either side of the host galaxy in the form of two elongated nebulae as a result of an active supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. Each nebula is at least three kiloparsecs long (one parsec equates to roughly 19 trillion miles).
By comparison, the entire disk of the VV 340a galaxy is about three kiloparsecs thick.
“In other galaxies, this type of highly energized gas is almost always confined to several tens of parsecs from a galaxy’s black hole, and our discovery exceeds what is typically seen by a factor of 30 or more,” said lead author Justin Kader, a UC Irvine postdoctoral researcher in physics and astronomy.
The team used radio wave images from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array radio astronomy observatory near San Agustin, New Mexico, to reveal a pair of large-scale plasma jets emerging from either side of the galaxy. Astronomers know that such jets, which energize super-heated gas and eject it from the galaxy, form as the extreme temperatures and magnetic fields produced in the gas fall into the active supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s center.
At larger scales, these ejecting jets form a helical pattern, indicating something called “jet precession” which describes the change in orientation of the jet over time, similar to the periodic wobble of a spinning top.
“This is the first observation of a precessing kiloparsec-scale radio jet in a disk galaxy,” said Kader. “To our knowledge, this is the first time we have seen a kiloparsec, or galactic-scale, precessing radio jet driving a massive coronal gas outflow.”
The team suggests that as the jets flow outward, they couple with material in the host galaxy, pushing it outward and exciting it to a highly energized state. This forms coronal line gas, a term borrowed from the sun’s outer atmosphere to describe the hot, highly ionized plasma. Crucially, this super-heated coronal gas is almost exclusively associated with the compact inner structure of the active supermassive black hole and rarely extends far into the host galaxy. It is usually not observed outside the galaxy, according to Kader.
The kinetic power of the outflowing coronal gas, Kader said, is equivalent to 10 quintillion hydrogen bombs going off every second.
“We found the most extended and coherent coronal gas structure to date,” said senior co-author Vivian U, a former UC Irvine research astronomer who is now an associate scientist at Caltech’s Infrared Processing and Analysis Center. “We expected JWST to open up the wavelength window where these tools for probing active supermassive black holes would be available to us, but we had not expected to see such highly collimated and extended emission in the first object we looked at. It was a nice surprise.”
The picture of the jets and the coronal line emission they create became clear after Kader and his team combined observations of VV 340a obtained with several different telescopes.
Observations from the University of California-administered Keck II Telescope in Hawaii revealed more gas extending even farther from the galaxy, all the way out to 15 kiloparsecs from the active black hole. The authors believe this cooler gas is a “fossil record” of the jet’s interaction history with the galaxy, debris from previous episodes of the jet ejecting material from the heart of the galaxy.
Observations of the coronal gas came from the Webb telescope, which, as the largest space telescope ever built, orbits the sun one million miles away from the Earth. Its instruments see the universe in the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, which means the telescope can detect things that would otherwise be invisible to visible light telescopes.
The Webb telescope’s infrared capabilities were key in helping Kader and his team spot the coronal line emission, he said. VV 340a has a lot of dust, which prevents a visible light telescope like Keck from seeing much of what’s happening in the galaxy’s interior.
However, the dust doesn’t block infrared light, so when the Webb telescope retrieved images of VV 340a, the existence of the coronal line gas erupting out of it became clear. The effects of such a gas jet on a galaxy can be massive. According to the study, the jet is stripping VV 340a of enough gas every year to make 19 of our own suns.
“What it really is doing is significantly limiting the process of star formation in the galaxy by heating and removing star-forming gas,” said Kader.
A jet like this doesn’t seem to exist in our own Milky Way galaxy. Kader explained that there appears to be evidence that suggests the Milky Way’s own supermassive black hole had an active feeding event two million years ago – something Kader said our Homo erectus ancestors may have been able to see in the night sky here on Earth.
Now that the team has found the precessing jet and the associated outflowing gas, Kader and U agree that the next thing to do is to investigate other galaxies to see if they can spot the same phenomenon in order to understand how galaxies like our own Milky Way may turn out in the future.
“We are excited to continue exploring such never-before-seen phenomena at different physical scales of galaxies using observations from these state-of-the-art tools, and we can’t wait to see what else we will find,” U said.
Funding for this project was provided by NASA and the National Science Foundation.
About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UC Irvine is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UC Irvine has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UC Irvine, visit www.uci.edu.
Journal
Science
Article Title
UC Irvine astronomers spot largest known stream of super-heated gas in the universe
Article Publication Date
8-Jan-2026
Groundbreaking mapping: how many
ghost particles all the Milky Way’s stars
send towards Earth
University of Copenhagen
They’re called ghost particles for a reason. They’re everywhere – trillions of them constantly stream through everything: our bodies, our planet, even the entire cosmos – without us noticing. These so-called neutrinos are elementary particles that are invisible, incredibly light, and interact only rarely with other matter. The weakness of their interactions makes neutrinos extremely difficult to detect. But when scientists do manage to capture them, they can offer extraordinary insights into the universe.
Neutrinos are born in violent cosmic events – including nuclear reactions inside stars. Now, researchers at the University of Copenhagen have produced the most comprehensive model to date, mapping how many neutrinos all the stars in our own Milky Way generate and how many reach Earth – a complete picture that until now existed only in rough outline. The study has just been published in the scientific journal Physical Review D.
“For the first time, we have a concrete estimate of how many of these particles reach Earth, where in the galaxy they come from, and how their energy is distributed. Because ghost particles come straight from the core of stars, they can tell us things that light and other radiation cannot,” says lead author of the new study, postdoc Pablo Martínez-Miravé from the Niels Bohr Institute.
A ‘Roadmap’ for Observatories
The researchers combined advanced stellar models with data from ESA’s Gaia telescope to map where in the Milky Way neutrinos mainly originate.
The study shows that the vast majority come from the region around the galactic centre, where most stars are concentrated – particularly in areas a few thousand light-years from Earth.
This knowledge is a practical tool for scientists attempting to capture neutrinos with enormous detectors, often located deep underground. With this new map, they can increase their chances of “hitting the target.”
“Now we know more precisely where to look for Galactic neutrinos. Our results show that most neutrinos are produced in stars that are as massive or more massive than the Sun. This means that the best chance of detecting neutrino signals is when looking towards the galactic centre, where the signal is the strongest,” explains Pablo Martínez-Miravé.
A Window into Stellar Interiors – and Possibly New Physics
While traditional astronomy relies on light, X-rays, and gamma rays, neutrinos offer an entirely different way to explore the Universe. Their special advantage is that they can travel enormous distances without being affected, so when we measure them here on Earth, we get a very direct insight into what is happening out there.
Just as neutrinos have told us for decades what goes on inside the Sun’s core, researchers hope the same will become possible for all the other stars much farther away.
“Neutrinos carry information straight from the interior of stars. If we learn to harness them, they can give us new insights into stellar life cycles and the structure of our galaxy in a way no other source can,” says senior author of the study, Professor Irene Tamborra from the Niels Bohr Institute.
Beyond expanding our understanding of stars and our own Galaxy, this knowledge could eventually touch on fundamental questions in physics. Neutrinos interact so weakly with their surroundings that they might reveal new physical laws that traditional experimental techniques could never be sensitive to.
“Because neutrinos are barely affected, we have clear expectations of how they should behave on their long journey to Earth. So even tiny deviations in their behaviour would be a strong clue to new, unknown physics,” says Irene Tamborra, concluding:
“With neutrinos, it’s like dimming the lights in a room and suddenly seeing what was hidden in the dark – and with this new model, we now have both a map and a compass to start navigating it.”
[FACT BOX] WHAT DOES THE MAPPING SHOW
- The model is the first complete map of neutrinos from all the stars in the Milky Way.
- The new mapping reveals that the neutrino flux spans a wide energy spectrum and includes contributions from light, intermediate and very massive stars.
- Stars closer to the galactic center contribute most to the overall neutrino flow towards Earth.
- Neutrino production varies with stellar age and mass: younger stars, heavier than the Sun, produce the most neutrinos.
- Most neutrinos originate in nuclear reactions, while some are created in thermal processes inside stars.
[FACT BOX] WHAT IS A NEUTRINO
- A neutrino is an elementary particle – one of the smallest building blocks of matter.
- Neutrinos are invisible, extremely light, electrically neutral and rarely interact with matter.
- They are formed in nuclear reactions in stars, in supernova explosions and other high-energy cosmic events.
- Billions of neutrinos pass through your body every second without you noticing.
- Because they are almost unaffected by other forces, neutrinos can provide direct information about processes deep inside stars and about the origin of the universe.
Journal
Physical Review D
Article Title
Neutrinos from stars in the Milky Way
Article Publication Date
7-Jan-2026
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