Universe Today (Page 203)

Astronomers Confirm That Darksat is About Half as Bright as an Unpainted Starlink Space-based internet service is poised to revolutionize the internet and bring high-speed connectivity to countless communities worldwide. Programs like SpaceX’s Starlink paint a picture of a bright future for the citizens of the world. Like many revolutionary technological advances, there is a dark side to Starlink.  The constellation of hundreds (and eventually thousands) of satellites … Continue reading “Astronomers Confirm That Darksat is About Half as Bright as an Unpainted Starlink” The post Astronomers Confirm That Darksat is About Half as Bright as an Unpainted Starlink appeared first on Universe Today. UniverseRead More →

This is a Simulation of the Interstellar Medium Flowing Like Smoke Throughout the Milky Way How do stars form? We know they form from massive structures called molecular clouds, which themselves form from the Interstellar Medium (ISM). But how and why do certain types of stars form? Why, in some situations, does a star like our Sun form, versus a red dwarf or a blue giant? That’s one of the … Continue reading “This is a Simulation of the Interstellar Medium Flowing Like Smoke Throughout the Milky Way” The post This is a Simulation of the Interstellar Medium Flowing Like Smoke Throughout the Milky WayRead More →

What Happens to Their Supermassive Black Holes When Galaxies Collide? What’s better than two gigantic galaxies swirling into one another until they collide?  How about three galaxies swirling into one another until they collide – and they all have supermassive black holes at their core to boot!  Recently, a team led by Dr. Adi Foord of Stanford combed through data from the WISE mission and … Continue reading “What Happens to Their Supermassive Black Holes When Galaxies Collide?” The post What Happens to Their Supermassive Black Holes When Galaxies Collide? appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

The Solar Wind is More Attracted to the Earth’s North Pole Than the South. Why? Likely the most well-known result of the Earth’s magnetic field are the Aurora Borealis and Australis (Northern and Southern Lights).  When chargers particles from the solar wind run into the Earth’s magnetic field, they can occasionally elicit spectacular light displays.  For years now, scientists have thought that the charged particles that cause those displays were … Continue reading “The Solar Wind is More Attracted to the Earth’s North Pole Than the South. Why?” The post The Solar Wind is More Attracted to the Earth’s North Pole Than the South. Why?Read More →

The Magnetic Fields Swirling Within the Whirlpool Galaxy Messier objects are some of the most imaged objects in the universe.  In part that’s because many of them are so visibly appealing.  A good example of that is the Whirlpool galaxy, M51, which recently received an even more dramatic visual representation with a new photo released by NASA.  In it, the magnetic fields that … Continue reading “The Magnetic Fields Swirling Within the Whirlpool Galaxy” The post The Magnetic Fields Swirling Within the Whirlpool Galaxy appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

The First Cubesat With a Hall-Effect Thruster has Gone to Space Student-led teams aren’t the only ones testing out novel electric propulsion techniques recently.  Back in November, a company called Exotrail successfully tested a completely new kind of electric propulsion system in space – a small hall-effect thruster. Hall effect thrusters themselves have been around for awhile.  However, they have been limited in their practicality, primarily … Continue reading “The First Cubesat With a Hall-Effect Thruster has Gone to Space” The post The First Cubesat With a Hall-Effect Thruster has Gone to Space appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Planets are Finally Being Discovered Orbiting Farther From Their Stars We don’t know much about exoplanets with long orbital periods, but we’re starting to learn. The post Planets are Finally Being Discovered Orbiting Farther From Their Stars appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Here’s the Extremely New Website for the Extremely Large Telescope In the vein of “go big or go home,” the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has launched a stunning new website to showcase information about — and match the scale of — its Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the highly anticipated observatory scheduled to have first light in 2025. The new website is well-designed and contains a … Continue reading “Here’s the Extremely New Website for the Extremely Large Telescope” The post Here’s the Extremely New Website for the Extremely Large Telescope appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

A New Satellite Is Going to Try to Maintain low Earth Orbit Without Any Propellant Staying afloat in space can be deceptively hard.  Just ask the characters from Gravity, or any number of the hundreds of small satellites that fall into the atmosphere in a given year.  Any object placed in low Earth orbit (LEO) must constantly fight against the drag caused by the small number of air molecules that … Continue reading “A New Satellite Is Going to Try to Maintain low Earth Orbit Without Any Propellant” The post A New Satellite Is Going to Try to Maintain low Earth Orbit Without Any PropellantRead More →

This is What the Sun Looked Like for Every Day in 2020 Have you ever seen the videos of people taking daily selfies of themselves over the course of years or even decades?  Now the sun has started it’s own series of pictures – with 366 complete pictures from the year 2020, captured by the European Space Agency’s Proba-2 satellite. There are a couple of interesting things … Continue reading “This is What the Sun Looked Like for Every Day in 2020” The post This is What the Sun Looked Like for Every Day in 2020 appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go toRead More →

According to the Math, it’s Highly Unlikely That an Intelligent Civilization is Located at Alpha Centauri In a new study, a pair of Harvard astrophysicists did the math on whether or not BLC1 is an extraterrestrial signal – and the results are not good! The post According to the Math, it’s Highly Unlikely That an Intelligent Civilization is Located at Alpha Centauri appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Space Launch System Performs a Dramatic Hot Fire Test, Blasting With all 4 Engines at Once NASA accomplished a major milestone today when it conducted a Hot Fire Test of the SLS Core Stage, firing all four of its engines at once. The post Space Launch System Performs a Dramatic Hot Fire Test, Blasting With all 4 Engines at Once appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

The UK is Considering Nuclear Propulsion in Space The UK Space Agency recently contracted with the British Rolls Royce company to research nuclear propulsion, which could allow for all kinds of deep-space missions! The post The UK is Considering Nuclear Propulsion in Space appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

James Webb Unfolds Sunshield It’s almost time. Soon the James Webb Space Telescope will be on its way to the Sun/Earth L2 Lagrange point and will begin its at least 5-year science mission. Really, it’s going to happen. Despite several delays since the program began in 1996 and a budget that has exceeded the original by several billion dollars, … Continue reading “James Webb Unfolds Sunshield” The post James Webb Unfolds Sunshield appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Thanks to Perseverance, We’re Finally Going to Hear What Mars Sounds Like Many consider the various rovers we’ve sent to Mars as the next best thing to sending a geologist to the Red Planet. Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity have carried all the necessary equipment similar to what human geologists use on Earth, and are able to navigate the terrain, “see” the landscape with the various cameras, pick … Continue reading “Thanks to Perseverance, We’re Finally Going to Hear What Mars Sounds Like” The post Thanks to Perseverance, We’re Finally Going to Hear What Mars Sounds Like appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go toRead More →

NASA Has Given Up on Trying to Deploy InSight’s Mole It’s always a sad day when a mission comes to an end. And it’s even sadder when the mission never really got going in the first place. That’s where we’re at with NASA’s InSight lander. The entire mission isn’t over, but the so-called Mole, the instrument designed and built by Germany’s DLR, has been pronounced … Continue reading “NASA Has Given Up on Trying to Deploy InSight’s Mole” The post NASA Has Given Up on Trying to Deploy InSight’s Mole appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Mars is Still an Active World. Here’s a Landslide in Nili Fossae A image released by the MRO mission shows a landslide near the location where the Perseverance rover will land, illustrating how Mars is still a active world. The post Mars is Still an Active World. Here’s a Landslide in Nili Fossae appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Astronomers see a Hint of the Gravitational Wave Background to the Universe Astronomers have found evidence of faint gravitational waves using an array of pulsars in our galaxy. The post Astronomers see a Hint of the Gravitational Wave Background to the Universe appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

The Roman Space Telescope’s Version of the Hubble Deep Field Will Cover a 100x Larger Area of the Sky Remember the Hubble Deep Field? And its successor the Hubble Ultra Deep Field? We sure do here at Universe Today. How could we forget them? Well, just as the Hubble Space Telescope has successors, so do two of its most famous images. And those successors will come from one of Hubble’s successors, NASA’s Roman Space … Continue reading “The Roman Space Telescope’s Version of the Hubble Deep Field Will Cover a 100x Larger Area of the Sky” The post The Roman Space Telescope’s Version of theRead More →

With Funding From Jeff Bezos, MethaneSAT Picks Elon Musk’s SpaceX for 2022 Launch Billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are usually rivals on the final frontier, but they both have a role to play in MethaneSAT, a privately backed satellite mission aimed at monitoring methane emissions. Last November, the Bezos Earth Fund made a $100 million grant to the Environmental Defense Fund to support the satellite’s completion and … Continue reading “With Funding From Jeff Bezos, MethaneSAT Picks Elon Musk’s SpaceX for 2022 Launch” The post With Funding From Jeff Bezos, MethaneSAT Picks Elon Musk’s SpaceX for 2022 Launch appeared first on Universe Today. UniverseRead More →