News (Page 889)

Construction Begins on the Next Super Telescope The construction of the world’s largest telescope has begun. At a ceremony at the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Paranal Observatory in Chile, officials gathered to celebrate the first stone of the European Extremely Large Telescope’s (E-ELT) long-awaited construction. Sophisticated telescope projects like the E-ELT take many years, so we can expect another similar ceremony sometime in 2021, when the E-ELT will see first light. The E-ELT is the ESO’s flagship observatory. It’s primary mirror will be a 39.3 meter (129 ft.) monstrosity that will observe in the visible, near-infrared, and mid-infrared spectra. The construction of the site beganRead More →

What Was Cosmic Inflation? The Quest to Understand the Earliest Universe The Big Bang. The discovery that the Universe has been expanding for billions of years is one of the biggest revelations in the history of science. In a single moment, the entire Universe popped into existence, and has been expanding ever since. We know this because of multiple lines of evidence: the cosmic microwave background radiation, the ratio of elements in the Universe, etc. But the most compelling one is just the simple fact that everything is expanding away from everything else. Which means, that if you run the clock backwards, the Universe wasRead More →

Super-Earth Planet Found in the Habitable Zone of a Nearby Star M-type stars, also known as “red dwarfs”, have become a popular target for exoplanet hunters of late. This is understandable given the sheer number of terrestrial (i.e. rocky) planets that have been discovered orbiting around red dwarf stars in recent years. These discoveries include the closest exoplanet to our Solar System (Proxima b) and the seven planets discovered around TRAPPIST-1, three of which orbit within the star’s habitable zone. The latest find comes from a team of international astronomers who discovered a planet around GJ 625, a red dwarf star located just 21 lightRead More →

Lunar Orbiter Takes a Meteorite Strike Right in the Camera On October 13th, 2014, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) experienced something rare and unexpected. While monitoring the surface of the Moon, the LRO’s main instrument – the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) – produced an image that was rather unusual. Whereas most of the images it has produced were detailed and exact, this one was subject to all kinds of distortion. From the way this image was disturbed, the LRO science team theorized that the camera must have experienced a sudden and violent movement. In short, they concluded that it had been struck by aRead More →

Juno is Ready to Tell Us What it Found at Jupiter Even a casual observer can see how complex Jupiter might be. Its Great Red Spot is one of the most iconic objects in our Solar System. The Great Red Spot, which is a continuous storm 2 or 3 times as large as Earth, along with Jupiter’s easily-seen storm cloud belts, are visual clues that Jupiter is a complex place. We’ve been observing the Great Red Spot for almost 200 years, so we’ve known for a long time that something special is happening at Jupiter. Now that the Juno probe is there, we’re finding thatRead More →

There’s a Hard Rock Rain on the Moon, We Can See it From Earth In February of 2015, the National Observatory of Athens and the European Space Agency launched the Near-Earth object Lunar Impacts and Optical TrAnsients (NELIOTA) project. Using the 1.2 meter telescope at the Kryoneri Observatory, the purpose of this project is to the determine the frequency and distribution of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) by monitoring how often they impact the Moon. Last week, on May 24th, 2017, the ESA announced that the project had begun to detect impacts, which were made possible thanks to the flashes of light detected on the lunar surface.Read More →

Messier 44 – The Beehive Cluster (Praesepe) Welcome back to Messier Monday! In our ongoing tribute to the great Tammy Plotner, we take a look at that buzzing nest of stars – the Beehive Cluster! During the 18th century, famed French astronomer Charles Messier noted the presence of several “nebulous objects” in the night sky. Having originally mistaken them for comets, he began compiling a list of them so that others would not make the same mistake he did. In time, this list (known as the Messier Catalog) would come to include 100 of the most fabulous objects in the night sky. One of theseRead More →

SpaceX Targets June 1 Launch of Space Station Cargo Delivery Mission for NASA SpaceX conducted a successful static fire test of the Falcon 9 rocket on May 28, 2017 at Launch Complex 39A on NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fl. Liftoff of the uncrewed Dragon resupply mission to the ISS is scheduled for June 1, 2017. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX is targeting a June 1 blastoff for the firms next cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA following today’s (May 28) successful test firing of the Falcon 9 booster’s main engines. Liftoff of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the unmanned Dragon cargoRead More →

How Far Away is Fusion? Unlocking the Power of the Sun I’d like to think we’re smarter than the Sun. Let’s compare and contrast. Humans, on the one hand, have made enormous advances in science and technology, built cities, cars, computers, and phones. We have split the atom for war and for energy. What has the Sun done? It’s a massive ball of plasma, made up of mostly hydrogen and helium. It just, kind of, sits there. Every now and then it burps up hydrogen gas into a coronal mass ejection. It’s not a stretch to say that the Sun, and all inanimate material inRead More →

Star Should Have Gone Supernova, But it Imploded Into a Black Hole Instead Collapsing stars are a rare thing to witness. And when astronomers are able to catch a star in the final phase of its evolution, it is a veritable feast for the senses. Ordinarily, this process consists of a star undergoing gravitational collapse after it has exhausted all of its fuel, and shedding its outer layers in a massive explosion (aka. a supernova). However, sometimes, stars can form black holes without the preceding massive explosion. This process, what might be described as “going out not with a bang, but with a whimper”, isRead More →

New Zealand’s First Rocket Launch to Space! Earlier this week, the island nation of New Zealand accomplished a historic first. On Wednesday, May 24th at 16:20 p.m. NZST – 00:20 a.m. EDT; May 23rd, 21:20 p.m. PDT – the country joined the small club of nations that have space launch capability. Taking off from a launch pad located on the Mahia Peninsula (on the North Island), the test flight was also a first for the US/NZ-based company Rocket Lab. With the successful launch of their test rocket, Rocket Lab has become the latest aerospace firm to join a burgeoning market, where private companies are ableRead More →

Trump Proposes $19.1 Billion 2018 NASA Budget, Cuts Earth Science and Education NASA acting administrator Robert Lightfoot outlines NASA’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget proposal during a ‘State of NASA’ speech to agency employees held at NASA HQ on May 23, 2017. Credit: NASA TV/Ken Kremer The Trump Administration has proposed a $19.1 Billion NASA budget request for Fiscal Year 2018, which amounts to a $0.5 Billion reduction compared to the recently enacted FY 2017 NASA Budget. Although it maintains many programs, the budget also specifies significant cuts and terminations to NASA’s Earth Science and manned Asteroid redirect mission as well as the complete elimination ofRead More →

Weekly Space Hangout – May 26, 2017: Stephen Petranek and How We’ll Live On Mars Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain) Special Guest: NAT GEO’s Stephen Petranek is the author of How We’ll Live on Mars (TED Books.) Stephen became a reluctant doomsayer when his earliest TED Talk (10 Ways the World Could End) racked up 1.5 million views. But Petranek is, in fact, an optimist who believes that humanity will escape its predicaments — literally. Within a century, he predicts that humans will have established a city of 80,000 on Mars: and that not only is that plausible, but it’s also inevitable. Having worked in publishingRead More →

The Columba Constellation Welcome back to Constellation Friday! Today, in honor of the late and great Tammy Plotner, we will be dealing with the dove – the Columba constellation! In the 2nd century CE, Greek-Egyptian astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus (aka. Ptolemy) compiled a list of all the then-known 48 constellations. This treatise, known as the Almagest, would used by medieval European and Islamic scholars for over a thousand years to come, effectively becoming astrological and astronomical canon until the early Modern Age. Since then, thanks to the efforts of astronomer and explorers, many more constellations have come to be recognized. One of these is the constellationRead More →

Mouse Sperm Went to Space and Produced Healthy Mice With proposed missions to Mars and plans to establish outposts on the Moon in the coming decades, there are several questions about what effects time spent in space or on other planets could have on the human body. Beyond the normal range of questions concerning the effects of radiation and lower-g on our muscles, bones, and organs, there is also the question of how space travel could impact our ability to reproduce. Earlier this week – on Monday, May 22nd – a team of Japanese researchers announced findings that could shed light on this question. UsingRead More →

New Ideas for the Mysterious Tabby’s Star: a Gigantic Planet or a Planet With Rings KIC 8462852 (aka. Tabby’s Star) captured the world’s attention back in September of 2015 when it was found to be experiencing a mysterious drop in brightness. A week ago (on May 18th), it was announced that the star was at it again, which prompted observatories from all around the world to train their telescopes on the star so they could observe the dimming as it happened. And just like before, this mysterious behavior has fueled speculation as to what could be causing it. Previously, ideas ranged from transiting comets andRead More →

NASA Moves Up Mission to Metal Asteroid Psyche This illustration depicts the spacecraft of NASA’s Psyche mission orbiting the metal asteroid Psyche (pronounced SY-kee). Solar power with electric propulsion will be used to propel the spacecraft to Psyche. The asteroid’s average distance from the sun is about three times the Earth’s distance or 280 million miles. Credit: SSL/ASU/P. Rubin/NASA/JPL-Caltech I’m getting psyched for Psyche, which is both the name of an asteroid orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter and NASA’s mission to the asteroid. Part of the reason for this excitement comes from learning today that NASA has moved up the launch one year toRead More →

New Way to Make Plasma Propulsion Lighter and More Efficient Plasma propulsion is a subject of keen interest to astronomers and space agencies. As a highly-advanced technology that offers considerable fuel-efficiency over conventional chemical rockets, it is currently being used in everything from spacecraft and satellites to exploratory missions. And looking to the future, flowing plasma is also being investigated for more advanced propulsion concepts, as well as magnetic-confined fusion. However, a common problem with plasma propulsion is the fact that it relies on what is known as a “neutralizer”. This instrument, which allows spacecraft to remain charge-neutral, is an additional drain on power. Luckily,Read More →