Universe Today (Page 235)

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 2608, Surrounded by Many Many Other Galaxies Meet NGC 2608, a barred spiral galaxy about 93 million light years away, in the constellation Cancer. Also called Arp 12, it’s about 62,000 light years across, smaller than the Milky Way by a fair margin. The Hubble Space Telescope captured this image with its Wide-Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Depending on your age, you may … Continue reading “Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 2608, Surrounded by Many Many Other Galaxies” The post Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 2608, Surrounded by Many Many Other Galaxies appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Newborn Exoplanets can be Completely Stripped of Their Atmosphere by Stars Newborn exoplanets can have a tough life. They may form an atmosphere, but that atmosphere can be doomed. Their stars can emit intense X-ray and UV radiation, stripping away those atmospheres and laying their surfaces bare. A team of researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics looked at a family of four newborn sibling planets, … Continue reading “Newborn Exoplanets can be Completely Stripped of Their Atmosphere by Stars” The post Newborn Exoplanets can be Completely Stripped of Their Atmosphere by Stars appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Spacecraft was able to measure how long neutrons last before they decay Using NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft’s close encounters with Venus and Mercury, researchers were able to measure the lifetime of neutrons, an important prediction of the Standard Model of particle physics. Bundled up inside an atomic nucleus, the neutron (a massive, neutrally-charged particle) can live basically forever. But once liberated from those nuclear confines, the neutron doesn’t … Continue reading “Spacecraft was able to measure how long neutrons last before they decay” The post Spacecraft was able to measure how long neutrons last before they decay appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go toRead More →

Tiny Cubesat Detects an Exoplanet A team of MIT researchers have observed a Super-Earth using a CubeSat, making it the smallest satellite to study an exoplanet. The post Tiny Cubesat Detects an Exoplanet appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

New Estimate Calculates There Could be 30 Intelligent Civilizations Communicating Across the Milky Way Over the years, scientific estimates of potential intelligent life in our galaxy have ranged widely. Some estimates say just one (only us Earthlings) to just a handful, to possibly thousands or even millions. A new study attempts to quantify the number of other worlds we could potentially talk to by estimating the number of intelligent … Continue reading “New Estimate Calculates There Could be 30 Intelligent Civilizations Communicating Across the Milky Way” The post New Estimate Calculates There Could be 30 Intelligent Civilizations Communicating Across the Milky Way appeared first onRead More →

New Pictures of Phobos, Seen in the Infrared NASA’s Mars Odyssey Orbiter doesn’t get a lot of headlines lately. It was sent to Mars in 2001, to detect the presence of water and ice on Mars, or the past presence of it. It also looked at Mars’ geology and radiation. It’s been doing its job without a lot of fanfare. Now Odyssey’s infrared … Continue reading “New Pictures of Phobos, Seen in the Infrared” The post New Pictures of Phobos, Seen in the Infrared appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Space Dust Delivered Water to Vesta, Could it Have Done the Same for Earth? One of the most enduring questions about Earth regards the origins of its water. Where did it come from? One widely-held theory gives comets the honor of bringing water to Earth. Another one says that Earth’s water came when a protoplanet crashed into early Earth, not only delivering a vast quantity of water, but creating … Continue reading “Space Dust Delivered Water to Vesta, Could it Have Done the Same for Earth?” The post Space Dust Delivered Water to Vesta, Could it Have Done the Same for Earth? appeared first onRead More →

Hilarious Supercut of Astronauts Falling on the Moon The Apollo astronauts walked on the Moon, yes. But they also hopped, bounded, and shuffled. And sometimes they fell, spectacularly. That caused a lot of consternation back on the Earth, especially for the engineers who designed the Apollo spacesuits. James McBarron was an aerospace technologist who worked on spacesuits for every NASA program, from Mercury … Continue reading “Hilarious Supercut of Astronauts Falling on the Moon” The post Hilarious Supercut of Astronauts Falling on the Moon appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Scientists are much better at predicting when the Sun is going to become more active The sun constantly cycles between periods of activity and periods of inactivity, and a new technique allows scientists to better predict when things will start getting interesting. Humanity has been tracking sunspots for millennia, and over the past two hundred years we’ve noticed a pattern: a strange but regular 11-year cycle that constantly repeats from … Continue reading “Scientists are much better at predicting when the Sun is going to become more active” The post Scientists are much better at predicting when the Sun is going to become more activeRead More →

Well. It Looks Like James Webb is Getting Delayed Again, but it Should Still Launch in 2021 This is probably one of the least surprising announcements to come out of the coronavirus pandemic. During a virtual meeting of the National Academies’ Space Studies Board, NASA’s associate administrator for science, Thomas Zurbuchen, made an announcement. He said there’s no way the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will meet its target launch date of … Continue reading “Well. It Looks Like James Webb is Getting Delayed Again, but it Should Still Launch in 2021” The post Well. It Looks Like James Webb is Getting Delayed Again, butRead More →

Evidence is Building that the Standard Model of the Expansion of the Universe Needs some new Ideas Astronomers have measured the Hubble constant using astrophysical masers, and the result makes our understanding of cosmic expansion even worse. The post Evidence is Building that the Standard Model of the Expansion of the Universe Needs some new Ideas appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

New Horizons is so Far From Earth That the Positions of the Stars Look a Little Different From its Perspective From its current position in the Kuiper Belt, the New Horizons spacecraft recently conducted a parallax experiment that is not only groundbreaking, but historic! The post New Horizons is so Far From Earth That the Positions of the Stars Look a Little Different From its Perspective appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

A 2nd Planet has been Confirmed for Proxima Centauri Our closest stellar neighbour is Proxima Centauri, a small red dwarf star about 4.2 light years away from us. It’s the third member of the Alpha Centauri group, and even though it’s so close, it can’t be seen with the naked eye. In 2016 astronomers discovered a planet orbiting Proxima Centuari, named Proxima Centauri b. … Continue reading “A 2nd Planet has been Confirmed for Proxima Centauri” The post A 2nd Planet has been Confirmed for Proxima Centauri appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

How SpaceX is Changing Starship to be Able to Land on the Moon Elon Musk recently revealed more details about the HLS Starship, which could be taking astronauts back to the Moon. The post How SpaceX is Changing Starship to be Able to Land on the Moon appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

This is a Binary Star in the Process of Formation About 460 light years away lies the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. It’s a molecular cloud—an active star-forming region—and it’s one of the closest ones. R. Ophiuchi is a dark nebula, a region so thick with dust that the visible light from stars is almost completely obscured. But scientists working with ALMA have pin-pointed a pair … Continue reading “This is a Binary Star in the Process of Formation” The post This is a Binary Star in the Process of Formation appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Ideas for Sustainable Cities and Urban Farming… on Mars? The annual Mars City Design Challenge is looking for new and innovative ideas for how humans could live sustainably on Mars. The post Ideas for Sustainable Cities and Urban Farming… on Mars? appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Early Life Was Pumping Out Oxygen, But the Earth’s Mantle Was Absorbing it About 2.4 billion years ago, everything changed for Earth. That was the time of the Great Oxidation Event (GOE), when photosynthetic bacteria flooded the atmosphere with oxygen, banishing early, non-oxygen using lifeforms to the fringes of the Earth. The GOE laid the groundwork for the Earth we see today, dominated by complex, oxygen-breathing lifeforms. But … Continue reading “Early Life Was Pumping Out Oxygen, But the Earth’s Mantle Was Absorbing it” The post Early Life Was Pumping Out Oxygen, But the Earth’s Mantle Was Absorbing it appeared first on Universe Today. UniverseRead More →

Once Starship Prototypes are Done Exploding, we could see an Orbital Launch this Year According to a leaked internal email, SpaceX is all-in on the development of the Starship, which the company’s chief engineer says could make an orbital flight before the end of the year. The post Once Starship Prototypes are Done Exploding, we could see an Orbital Launch this Year appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Titan is Drifting Away from Saturn Surprisingly Quickly Where did Saturn’s bizarro-moon Titan form? Did it form where it is now, or has it migrated? We have decades of data to look back on, so scientists should have some idea. A new study based on all that data says that Titan is drifting away from Saturn more quickly than thought, and that has … Continue reading “Titan is Drifting Away from Saturn Surprisingly Quickly” The post Titan is Drifting Away from Saturn Surprisingly Quickly appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Neutron Stars Could Have a Layer of Exotic Quark Matter Inside Them Deep inside a neutron star, neutrons are packed so tightly that they can break apart into quarks. As a result neutron stars likely have a quark core. The post Neutron Stars Could Have a Layer of Exotic Quark Matter Inside Them appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →