Eric Hand

NEW: NASA is about to send an audacious spacecraft to paint a portrait of an icy moon hiding an ancient ocean. It’s called Europa Clipper. And it’s going to change the way we understand not just our world, but every world, everywhere. Me @NewsfromScience science.org/content/articl…

Disaster avoided? There's a good chance the Milky Way may avoid a galactic crash with its neighbor Andromeda. @NewsfromScience science.org/content/articl…

Astronomers once thought there might be a "missing satellites problem" – our Milky Way didn't have enough dwarf galaxies in its grip. Now we might have oversolved the problem, finding too many satellites. What's going on? Story by me @NewsfromScience science.org/content/articl…

Scientists exhumed some 6 million year old (!!!!) ice from Antarctica. That's truly wild. The continuous ice core record goes back 800,000 years. And the oldest ice ever found until now was 2.7 million years old. Reported from #egu2024 science.org/content/articl…

“You could probably just roll Perseverance into Starship and fly back to Earth."

Quick look at NASA's FY2024 approps: Total: $24.875 billion (request was $27.2 B, FY2023 was $25.384B). Mars Sample Return: "The Senate language ... is not adopted," no further workforce reductions for now, "no less than" $300 M and "up to" the requested level for FY2024.

NSF board approves funding for just one of two proposed giant telescopes | Science | AAAS science.org/content/articl…

3/ My feature story from a year ago about natural hydrogen. A good primer if you're looking to understand what it is and where the field is going: science.org/content/articl…

2/ Coincidentally, @ARPAE today announced the 16 winners of $20m in grant funding, the first major government support for natural hydrogen. I wrote about the money in September: arpa-e.energy.gov/news-and-media… science.org/content/articl…

1/ The latest in the intriguing field of natural hydrogen, the overlooked idea that Earth can produce the clean fuel. Researchers have discovered a surprisingly significant spring, bubbling away deep in an Albanian mine: science.org/content/articl…

Enjoyable and informative article by @voooos in @ScienceMagazine about the global impacts of #ElNino. On behalf of the whole team, thank you for coming all the way out to Vanuatu to cover our story! It was great having you out. 🧵 science.org/content/articl…

i spent several months investigating physicists attempting to build a computer out of an object they aren’t sure exists this Majorana quasiparticle is proving almost as elusive as its namesake, the Italian physicist who mysteriously vanished in 1938 science.org/content/articl…

My latest for @NewsfromScience! @MissionToPsyche has launched, embarking on a 3.6-billion-km journey to one of the weirdest asteroids we've got: a metal-rich asteroid 220 km wide. What the heck is this thing? Huge thanks to @erichand for editing! science.org/content/articl…

Ranga Dias is headed for a 3rd retraction—this time, it's the blockbuster Nature paper on LuNH from March. I obtained documents that detail what went wrong, and why his co-authors are asking for a retraction. science.org/content/articl…

What's quantum computing good for? For 30 years, Shor's algorithm, a way to hack internet security, was the selling point. A more efficient successor now may be on the way: science.org/content/articl…

little surprising scoop from me: a new quantum algorithm might bring the end of RSA encryption a little closer. truly new ideas in quantum computing are very rare! science.org/content/articl…

My latest, for @NewsfromScience: A major new @theNASEM study calls for a tenfold increase in funding for biological and physical research in space, amid huge changes in access and space exploration goals. science.org/content/articl…

If the idea of natural H2 is new to you, you're not alone -- it's still new for most geoscientists. My feature from earlier this year offers a good primer: science.org/content/articl…

Whether natural or geologic hydrogen could be economically important is still hugely uncertain. But new research programs from @ARPAE and @USGS are signs that it is gaining legitimacy: science.org/content/articl…