Universe Today (Page 2)

Neutron Stars Could be Heating Up From Dark Matter Annihilation One of the big mysteries about dark matter particles is whether they interact with each other. We still don’t know the exact nature of what dark matter is. Some models argue that dark matter only interacts gravitationally, but many more posit that dark matter particles can collide with each other, clump together, and even decay into particles we can see. If that’s the case, then objects with particularly strong gravitational fields such as black holes, neutron stars, and white dwarfs might capture and concentrate dark matter. This could in turn affect how these objects appear.Read More →

The Brightest Gamma Ray Burst Ever Seen Came from a Collapsing Star After a journey lasting about two billion years, photons from an extremely energetic gamma-ray burst (GRB) struck the sensors on the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope on October 9th, 2022. The GRB lasted seven minutes but was visible for much longer. Even amateur astronomers spotted the powerful burst in visible frequencies. It was so powerful that it affected Earth’s atmosphere, a remarkable feat for something more than two billion light-years away. It’s the brightest GRB ever observed, and since then, astrophysicists have searched for its source. NASA saysRead More →

Formation-Flying Spacecraft Could Probe the Solar System for New Physics It’s an exciting time for the fields of astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology. Thanks to cutting-edge observatories, instruments, and new techniques, scientists are getting closer to experimentally verifying theories that remain largely untested. These theories address some of the most pressing questions scientists have about the Universe and the physical laws governing it – like the nature of gravity, Dark Matter, and Dark Energy. For decades, scientists have postulated that either there is additional physics at work or that our predominant cosmological model needs to be revised. While the investigation into the existence and nature ofRead More →

Watch a Satellite Reaction Wheel Melt in a Simulated Orbital Re-Entry Most satellites share the same fate at the end of their lives. Their orbits decay, and eventually, they plunge through the atmosphere toward Earth. Most satellites are destroyed during their rapid descent, but not always Heavy pieces of the satellite, like reaction wheels, can survive and strike the Earth. Engineers are trying to change that. Satellite debris can strike Earth and is a potential hazard, though the chances of debris striking anything other than ocean or barren land are low. Expired satellites usually just re-enter the atmosphere and burn up. But there are aRead More →

NASA is Building an Electrodynamic Shield to Deal with all that Dust on the Moon and Mars Exploration of the Moon or other dusty environments comes with challenges. The lunar surface is covered in material known as regolith and its a jaggy, glassy material. It can cause wear and tear on equipment and can pose a health risk to astronauts too. Astronauts travelling to Mars would experience dust saucing to everything, including solar panels leading to decrease in power. To combat the problems created by dust, NASA is working on an innovative electrodynamic dust shield to remove dust and protect surfaces from solar panels toRead More →

Did An Ancient Icy Impactor Create the Martian Moons? The Martian moons Phobos and Deimos are oddballs. While other Solar System moons are round, Mars’ moons are misshapen and lumpy like potatoes. They’re more like asteroids or other small bodies than moons. Because of their odd shapes and unusual compositions, scientists are still puzzling over their origins. Two main hypotheses attempt to explain Phobos and Deimos. One says they’re captured asteroids, and the other says they are debris from an ancient impactor that collided with Mars. Earth’s moon was likely formed by an ancient collision when a planetesimal slammed into Earth, so there’s precedent forRead More →

NASA’s Next Solar Sail is About to Go to Space Everyone knows that solar energy is free and almost limitless here on Earth. The same is true for spacecraft operating in the inner Solar System. But in space, the Sun can do more than provide electrical energy; it also emits an unending stream of solar wind. Solar sails can harness that wind and provide propulsion for spacecraft. NASA is about to test a new solar sail design that can make solar sails even more effective. Solar pressure pervades the entire Solar System. It weakens with distance, but it’s present. It affects all spacecraft, including satellites.Read More →

Wireless Power Transmission Could Enable Exploration of the Far Side of the Moon How can future lunar exploration communicate from the far side of the Moon despite never being inline with the Earth? This is what a recent study submitted to Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics hopes to address as a pair of researchers from the IEEE Polytechnique Montréal investigated the potential for a wireless power transmission method (WPT) comprised of anywhere from one to three satellites located at Earth-Moon Lagrange Point 2 (EMLP-2) and a solar-powered receiver on the far side of the Moon. This study holds the potential to help scientists and futureRead More →

Could Life Exist in Water Droplet Worlds in Venus’ Atmosphere? It’s a measure of human ingenuity and curiosity that scientists debate the possibility of life on Venus. They established long ago that Venus’ surface is absolutely hostile to life. But didn’t scientists find a biomarker in the planet’s clouds? Could life exist there, never touching the planet’s sweltering surface? It seems to depend on who you ask. We’ll start with phosphine. Phosphine is a biomarker, and in 2020, researchers reported the detection of phosphine in Venus’ atmosphere. There should be no phosphine because phosphorous should be oxidized in the planet’s atmosphere. According to the paper,Read More →

Here are the Next Three Total Solar Eclipses Coming Up Millions of people took a trip over to the US or Mexico to try and catch a glimpse of the 2024 total solar eclipse. Whether you took the trip or not, if you have since been bitten by the eclipse bug then there are three upcoming eclipses over the next couple of years. August 2026 sees an eclipse passing from Greenland, Iceland and Spain, 2027 sees an eclipse over North Africa and in 2028 Australia all be the place to be. With loads of possibilities for all locations, it’s time to get planning.  Many peopleRead More →

Finally, an Explanation for the Moon’s Radically Different Hemispheres Pink Floyd was wrong, there is no dark side to the Moon. There is however, a far side. The tidal effects between the Earth and Moon have caused this captured or synchronous rotation. The two sides display very different geographical features; the near side with mare and ancient volcanic flows while the far side displaying craters within craters. New research suggests the Moon has turned itself inside out with heavy elements like titanium returning to the surface. It’s now thought that a giant impact on the far side pushed titanium to the surface, creating a thinnerRead More →

How Much of Venus’s Atmosphere is Coming from Volcanoes? There’s a lot we don’t know about the planet nearest to us. Venus is shrouded in clouds, making speculation about what’s happening on its surface a parlor game for many planetary scientists for decades. But one idea that always seems to come up in those conversations – volcanoes. It’s clear that Venus has plenty of volcanoes – estimates center around about 85,000 of them in total. However, science is still unclear as to whether there is any active volcanism on Venus or not. A new set of missions to the planet will hopefully shed some lightRead More →

US Satellite Photographs a South Korean Satellite from Lunar Orbit In 2009, NASA launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO.) Its ongoing mission is to map the lunar surface in detail, locating potential landing sites, resources, and interesting features like lava tubes. The mission is an ongoing success, another showcase of NASA’s skill. It’s mapped about 98.2% of the lunar surface, excluding the deeply shadowed regions in the polar areas. But recently, the LRO team’s skill was on display for another reason: it captured images of another satellite speeding over the lunar surface. The Republic of Korea, or what most of us call South Korea, launchedRead More →

Here’s the Total Solar Eclipse, Seen From Space On Monday, April 8th, people across North America witnessed a rare celestial event known as a total solar eclipse. This phenomenon occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth and blocks the face of the Sun for a short period. The eclipse plunged the sky into darkness for people living in the Canadian Maritimes, the American Eastern Seaboard, parts of the Midwest, and northern Mexico. Fortunately for all, geostationary satellites orbiting Earth captured images of the Moon’s shadow as it moved across North America. One such satellite was the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16 (GOES-16), partRead More →

If Europa has Geysers, They’re Very Faint In 2013, the Hubble Space Telescope spotted water vapour on Jupiter’s moon Europa. The vapour was evidence of plumes similar to the ones on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. That, and other compelling evidence, showed that the moon has an ocean. That led to speculation that the ocean could harbour life. But the ocean is obscured under a thick, global layer of ice, making the plumes our only way of examining the ocean. The plumes are so difficult to detect they haven’t been confirmed. The lead author of the paper presenting Hubble’s 2013 evidence is Lorenz Roth of Southwest ResearchRead More →

WISPR Team Images Turbulence within Solar Transients for the First Time NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has been in studying the Sun for the last six years. In 2021 it was hit directly by a coronal mass ejection when it was a mere 10 million kilometres from the solar surface. Luckily it was gathering data and images enabling scientists to piece together an amazing video. The interactions between the solar wind and the coronal mass ejection were measured giving an unprecedented view of the solar corona.  The Sun is a fascinating object and as our local star, has been the subject of many studies. There areRead More →

What Happens to Solar Systems When Stars Become White Dwarfs? In a couple billion years, our Sun will be unrecognizable. It will swell up and become a red giant, then shrink again and become a white dwarf. The inner planets aren’t expected to survive all the mayhem these transitions unleash, but what will happen to them? What will happen to the outer planets? Right now, our Sun is about 4.6 billion years old. It’s firmly in the main sequence now, meaning it’s going about its business fusing hydrogen into helium and releasing energy. But even though it’s about 330,000 times more massive than the Earth,Read More →

A Neutron Star Merged with a Surprisingly Light Black Hole Galactic collisions, meteor impacts and even stellar mergers are not uncommon events. neutron stars colliding with black holes however are a little more rare, in fact, until now, we have never observed one. The fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing detected gravitational waves from a collision between a black hole and neutron star 650 million light years away. The black hole was tiny though with a mass between 2.5 to 4.5 times that of the Sun.  Neutron stars and black holes have something in common; they are both the remains of a massive star that has reached theRead More →

The Seven Most Intriguing Worlds to Search for Advanced Civilizations (So Far) Sometimes, the easy calculations are the most interesting. A recent paper from Balázs Bradák of Kobe University in Japan is a case in point. In it, he takes an admittedly simplistic approach but comes up with seven known exoplanets that could hold the key to the biggest question of them all – are we alone? Dr. Bradák starts with a simple premise – there is a chance that life on Earth might have started via panspermia. There is also a case that panspermia was intention – an advanced civilization could theoretically have purposefullyRead More →

What a Swarm of Probes Can Teach Us About Proxima Centauri B You’ve likely heard of the Breakthrough Starshot (BTS) initiative. BTS aims to send tiny gram-scale, light sail picospacecraft to our neighbour, Proxima Centauri B. In BTS’s scheme, lasers would propel a whole fleet of tiny probes to the potentially water-rich exoplanet. Now, another company, Space Initiatives Inc., is tackling the idea. NASA has funded them so they can study the idea. What can we expect to learn from the effort? Proxima b may be a close neighbour in planetary terms. But it’s in a completely different solar system, about four light-years away. ThatRead More →