Few articles to start
ARTICLE 1. Cosmonaut brains show space travel causes lasting changes
Our fleshy forms evolved to work within the tug of gravity. Take that pull away, and the clockwork operation of bodily functions just doesn't keep ticking at the same steady beat. From fluids floating the wrong way to DNA expressing differently , space travel is tough on even the healthiest human body.
Now, a study of recently active cosmonauts adds to the concern for one particularly vital organ: the brain. The results suggest that deformations to brain tissue caused by weightless conditions can linger even after space travelers have had their boots back on Earth for seven months.
The research, published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, documents the impacts of space travel on cosmonauts who each spent roughly 189 days on the International Space Station.
Led by scientists at the University of Antwerp, the team captured images of 10 male cosmonauts' brains using magnetic resonance imaging before and after each mission. They repeated the scans seven months later for seven of these space adventurers. As previous studies have demonstrated, spaceflight seemed to increase the noggin's cerebrospinal fluid, a clear liquid that acts as a cushion for your brain during motion or impacts and helps maintain the correct pressure.
ARTICLE 2. How 879 Days of Spaceflight Changed This Cosmonaut
It’s not something I was expecting from the former military pilot, who is also among Russia’s most decorated cosmonauts. I pass the minutes by translating the names written in Cyrillic on the posters surrounding me in the Russian Academy of Science’s Space Research Institute: Venera, Lunokhod, RadioAstron—all programs the Russians engineered during their long and storied history of space exploration.
In the early days of the space race, the Soviets were clearly winning. They launched Sputnik, the first satellite, in 1957. And on April 12, 1961, they put the first human in orbit, when 27-year-old cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin climbed into his spherical spacecraft and took to the skies.
Though it only lasted 108 minutes, Gagarin’s mission proved that humans could visit space and safely return—and it fueled the ongoing competition between the world’s dueling superpowers.
ARTICLE 3. What do we get from the cosmos?
There’s something reassuring about looking up at a clear night sky and seeing a familiar figure shining over you. For me—and probably for a lot of people in the Northern Hemisphere—the first constellation I could easily pick out was Orion. The mythical hunter followed my military family around multiple duty stations as I was growing up, and he now sparkles above my backyard in D.C. each winter. He’s a comforting sight, in part because I know this stellar pattern has been a celestial constant for humans for thousands of years.
"But it’s an even more awe-inspiring moment when the universe reminds us that nothing lasts forever."
In the fall of 2019, the normally bright red giant star that makes up Orion’s “shoulder” started to fade, and astronomers started to freak out. Seen with the naked eye, this star, dubbed Betelgeuse, usually looks like the same ruddy dot of light, but astronomers know it’s actually a being in flux, fading and brightening in regular cycles. The difference was that this dimming was unusually extreme, and a few experts told our Nadia Drake in December that the aging star might be gearing up for an explosive demise—a supernova that would be so bright in our skies it would shine even during the day.
I have to admit, I was filled with a mix of relief and disappointment when Betelgeuse did ultimately brighten back up last week, ending the supernova speculation. Still, as Nadia points out in an update to the case, the event presents some fascinating mysteries yet to be solved, and it speaks to how dynamic our seemingly predictable night sky actually is. For me, the biggest comfort astronomy can offer is when, at the end of a tough day full of troubling world events, I can look up at the stars and be reminded that there is still so much wonder in the cosmos waiting to delight and inspire us.