Universe Today (Page 216)

This Martian Lava Tube Skylight is 50 Meters Across. The Biggest Lava Tube on Earth is Only 15 Meters Across NASA’s Mariner 9 was the first spacecraft to orbit another planet when it reached Mars in late 1971. It got there only a few weeks before the Soviet Union’s Mars 2 and Mars 3 spacecraft, despite being launched 11 days later than those missions. Unfortunately, there was a major dust storm when Mariner 9 arrived, … Continue reading “This Martian Lava Tube Skylight is 50 Meters Across. The Biggest Lava Tube on Earth is Only 15 Meters Across” The post This Martian Lava Tube SkylightRead More →

The Most Comprehensive 3D Map of Galaxies Has Been Released Using the largest survey ever conducted, a team of astronomers from the IfA have created the largest 3D catalog of the Universe ever! The post The Most Comprehensive 3D Map of Galaxies Has Been Released appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

BepiColombo Mercury Mission to Make First Venus Flyby Tonight The Mercury-bound BepiColombo spacecraft will observe Venus during tonight’s pass, on the hunt for phosphine and sulfur-dioxide. The post BepiColombo Mercury Mission to Make First Venus Flyby Tonight appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

We’re Made of Starstuff. Especially From Extremely Massive Stars A new study shows how massive young stars create the kind of organic molecules that are necessary for life. A team of researchers used an airborne observatory to examine the inner regions around two massive young stars. Along with water, they found things like ammonia and methane. These molecules are swirling around in a disk … Continue reading “We’re Made of Starstuff. Especially From Extremely Massive Stars” The post We’re Made of Starstuff. Especially From Extremely Massive Stars appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Do ripples on the surface of the Sun tell us that a flare is coming? Flares from the sun are some of the nastiest things in the solar system. When the sun flares, it belches out intense X-ray radiation (and sometimes even worse). Predicting solar flares is a tricky job, and a new research paper sheds light on a possible new technique: looking for telltale ripples in the surface of … Continue reading “Do ripples on the surface of the Sun tell us that a flare is coming?” The post Do ripples on the surface of the Sun tell us that a flare is coming?Read More →

This is a Landslide… on the Moon Landslides bringing you down? Landslides can be found all across our own planet Earth, on all seven continents plus the ocean floors. Similar large mass movements have been spotted around the Solar System on rocky worlds, including our companion, the Moon. This image from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) shows an example of lunar landslides, … Continue reading “This is a Landslide… on the Moon” The post This is a Landslide… on the Moon appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Astronomers Watch a Star Get Spaghettified by a Black Hole When a black hole consumes a star, it does so by turning it into spaghetti first. Astronomers have seen it happen. The post Astronomers Watch a Star Get Spaghettified by a Black Hole appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

An Exoplanet So Hot There Are 7 Different Kinds of Gaseous Metals in its Atmosphere The search for exoplanets has revealed types of planets that are nothing like the worlds in our own Solar System. One such type is the hot-Jupiter. They’re gas giants like Jupiter that orbit their host star very closely. That proximity raises their temperatures to extreme heights. Hot-Jupiters can be hot enough to vaporize metals, making … Continue reading “An Exoplanet So Hot There Are 7 Different Kinds of Gaseous Metals in its Atmosphere” The post An Exoplanet So Hot There Are 7 Different Kinds of Gaseous Metals in its AtmosphereRead More →

Comet P1 NEOWISE Makes a Brief Late October Appearance The Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) caught another intriguing object on August 2, 2020 as part of its extended sky survey mission, as Comet C/2020 P1 NEOWISE is set to become a fine binocular object in late October and early November. The post Comet P1 NEOWISE Makes a Brief Late October Appearance appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

The Search for Superhabitable Planets. Worlds Even More Habitable Than Earth REMINDER: – Universe Today will be hosting an interview with Dr. Dirk Schulze-Makuch, co-author of the research featured in this article, on Wednesday October 15th, 2020 at 8:30am PT. Click the video below to watch live or to see the recorded stream afterward Out Earthing Earth What planet is this? If you said Hoth, that’s … Continue reading “The Search for Superhabitable Planets. Worlds Even More Habitable Than Earth” The post The Search for Superhabitable Planets. Worlds Even More Habitable Than Earth appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

How to see what’s on the other side of a wormhole without actually traveling through it Wormholes are incredibly fascinating objects, but also completely hypothetical. We simply don’t know if they can truly exist in our universe. But new theoretical insights are showing how we may be able to detect a wormhole – from a spray of high-energy particles emitted at the moment of its formation. It’s easy to describe a … Continue reading “How to see what’s on the other side of a wormhole without actually traveling through it” The post How to see what’s on the other side of a wormhole without actuallyRead More →

Black Holes Make Complex Gravitational-Wave Chirps as They Merge When black holes collide, they emit chirps of gravitational waves even after they have merged. The post Black Holes Make Complex Gravitational-Wave Chirps as They Merge appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

The Moon is the Perfect Spot for SETI A recent white paper submitted to the PSA Decadal Survey 2023-2032 recommends that a lunar observatory be built that can search the Universe for signs of intelligent life! The post The Moon is the Perfect Spot for SETI appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Want the Fastest Solar Sail? Drop it Into the Sun First A new study from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy shows how a “Sun Diver,” a light sail that dives closer to the Sun, could make these promising spacecraft much faster! The post Want the Fastest Solar Sail? Drop it Into the Sun First appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Radio Astronomers are Worried About Mega-Constellations and the Square Kilometer Array With all the satellite constellations heading to space in the near future, there are concerns they will interfere with radio telescopes like the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) The post Radio Astronomers are Worried About Mega-Constellations and the Square Kilometer Array appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Just How Bad are Superflares to a Planet’s Habitability? Star’s can be full of surprises; some of them nasty. While our own Sun appears pretty placid, science has shown us that’s not the case. Coronal mass ejections and solar flares are the Sun’s angry side. And the Sun has only a mild case of the flares, compared to some other stars. Some stars experience … Continue reading “Just How Bad are Superflares to a Planet’s Habitability?” The post Just How Bad are Superflares to a Planet’s Habitability? appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Matter makes up exactly 31.5±1.3% of the Universe Weighing the universe is a tricky task, but a team of astronomers have used a clever technique to measure how many galaxy clusters are in the cosmos, and from there come up with a total amount of matter. The answer: 31.5±1.3% of all the energy in the universe. Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally-bound objects … Continue reading “Matter makes up exactly 31.5±1.3% of the Universe” The post Matter makes up exactly 31.5±1.3% of the Universe appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Simulation Helps Explain Saturn’s Mysterious Hexagon A new study of the mysterious hexagon-shaped storm at Saturn’s north pole suggests this phenomenon is actually the result of activity occurring across the entire planet. In a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists say that the unnatural-looking hurricane occurs when atmospheric flows across Saturn create large and … Continue reading “Simulation Helps Explain Saturn’s Mysterious Hexagon” The post Simulation Helps Explain Saturn’s Mysterious Hexagon appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

An Amazing Sky Mosaic Courtesy of Stellina…and a New Telescope from Vaonis Check out this stunning new deep-sky panoramic and new light-weight ‘smartscope,’ courtesy of Vaonis. The post An Amazing Sky Mosaic Courtesy of Stellina…and a New Telescope from Vaonis appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Planets Don’t Wait for Their Star to Form First It looks like we may have to update our theories on how stars and planets form in new solar systems. A team of astronomers has discovered young planets forming in a solar system that’s only about 500,000 years old. Prior to this discovery, astronomers thought that stars are well into their adult life of fusion … Continue reading “Planets Don’t Wait for Their Star to Form First” The post Planets Don’t Wait for Their Star to Form First appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →