Universe Today (Page 335)

Dust off Your Lunar Colony Plans. There’s Definitely Ice at the Moon’s Poles. When it comes right down to it, the Moon is a pretty hostile environment. It’s extremely cold, covered in electrostatically-charged dust that clings to everything (and could cause respiratory problems if inhaled), and its surface is constantly bombarded by radiation and the occasional meteor. And yet, the Moon also has a lot going for it as far as establishing a human presence there is concerned. In addition to offering astronauts with extensive research opportunities, scientists have theorized for decades that water ice exists on the lunar surface. But thanks to a newRead More →

Cosmic Watch Review: A Unique Perspective on the Night Sky A view along the Solar System, using Cosmic Watch. Watching the heavens on a nightly, or even casual basis? The web and modern technology has certainly altered the landscape of modern astronomy, (mostly) for the better. Once, we all huddled around cardboard planispheres, illuminated by red flashlights; now, it’s now a common sight to see illuminated smartphone apps accompanying telescopes at star parties, all waving skyward with virtual planetarium programs guiding users around the night sky. We’ve used a few different planetarium apps over the past few years, mostly as curiosities and teaching tools. OneRead More →

Building Bricks on the Moon From Lunar Dust In the coming decades, many space agencies hope to conduct crewed missions to the Moon and even establish outposts there. In fact, between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), Roscosmos, and the Indian and Chinese space agencies, there are no shortages of plans to construct lunar bases and settlements. These will not only establish a human presence on the Moon, but facilitate missions to Mars and deeper into space. For instance, the ESA is planning on building an “international lunar village” on the Moon by the 2030s. As the spiritual successor to the International Space Station (ISS),Read More →

That New Kind of Aurora Called “Steve”? Turns Out, it Isn’t an Aurora at All Since time immemorial, people living in the Arctic Circle or the southern tip of Chile have looked up at the night sky and been dazzled by the sight of the auroras. Known as the Aurora Borealis in the north and Aurora Australis in the south (the “Northern Lights” and “Southern Lights”, respectively) these dazzling displays are the result of interactions in the ionosphere between charged solar particles and the Earth’s magnetic field. However, in recent decades, amateur photographers began capturing photos of what appeared to be a new type ofRead More →

Earth’s Mini-Moons are the Perfect Targets to Test Out Asteroid Mining Roughly 4.5 billion years ago, scientists theorize that Earth experienced a massive impact with a Mars-sized object (named Theia). In accordance with the Giant Impact Hypothesis, this collision placed a considerable amount of debris in orbit, which eventually coalesced to form the Moon. And while the Moon has remained Earth’s only natural satellite since then, astronomers believe that Earth occasionally shares its orbit with “mini-moons”. These are essentially small and fast-moving asteroids that largely avoid detection, with only one having been observed to date. But according to a new study by an international teamRead More →

Lockheed Martin Shows off its new Space Habitat In their pursuit of returning astronauts to the Moon, and sending crewed missions to Mars, NASA has contracted with a number of aerospace companies to develop all the infrastructure it will need. In addition to the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion spacecraft – which will fly the astronauts into space and see them safety to their destinations – they have teamed up with Lockheed Martin and other contractors to develop the Deep Space Gateway. This orbiting lunar habitat will not only facilitate missions to and from the Moon and Mars, it will also allow humanRead More →

Another Way to Search for Biosignatures of Alien Life. The Material Blasted out of Asteroid Impacts In recent years, the number of confirmed extra-solar planets has risen exponentially. As of the penning of the article, a total of 3,777 exoplanets have been confirmed in 2,817 star systems, with an additional 2,737 candidates awaiting confirmation. What’s more, the number of terrestrial (i.e. rocky) planets has increased steadily, increasing the likelihood that astronomers will find evidence of life beyond our Solar System. Unfortunately, the technology does not yet exist to explore these planets directly. As a result, scientists are forced to look for what are known asRead More →

Cosmic Void Contains Fewer Galaxies than Expected, which, Ironically, Makes it Harder for Light to get Through According to the Big Bang Theory of cosmology, the Universe began roughly 13.8 billion years ago as all matter in the Universe began to expand from a single point of infinite density. Over the next few billion years, the fundamental forces of the Universe began to separate from each other and subatomic particles and atoms formed. In time, this first stars and galaxies formed, giving rise to the large-scale structure of the Universe. However, it was only by roughly 1 billion years after the Big Bang that theRead More →

This Planet is so Metal. Iron and Titanium Vapour Found in the Atmosphere of an “Ultra-Hot Jupiter” In the course of discovering planets beyond our Solar System, astronomers have found some truly interesting customers! In addition to “Super-Jupiters” (exoplanets that are many times Jupiter’s mass) a number of “Hot Jupiters” have also been observed. These are gas giants that orbit closely to their stars, and in some cases, these planets have been found to be so hot that they could melt stone or metal. This has led to the designation “ultra-hot Jupiter”, the hottest of which was discovered last year. But now, according to aRead More →

Catch Comet 21/P Giacobini-Zinner at Its Best Comet 21/P Giacobini-Zinner from August 14th. Image credit and copyright: Rolando Ligustri. A periodic comet may put on a fine show for northern hemisphere viewers over the next few months. Comet 21/P Giacobini-Zinner is currently a fine binocular comet, shining at +8th magnitude as it cruises across the constellation Cassiopeia. This places it above the horizon for the entire night for observers north of the equator in August, transiting the local meridian at dawn. And unlike most comets that get lost in the Sun’s glare (like the current situation with C/2017 S3 PanSTARRS), we’ll be able to track CometRead More →

Oort Clouds Around Other Stars Should be Visible in the Cosmic Microwave Background For decades, scientists have theorized that beyond the edge of the Solar System, at a distance of up to 50,000 AU (0.79 ly) from the Sun, there lies a massive cloud of icy planetesimals known as the Oort Cloud. Named in honor of Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, this cloud is believed to be where long-term comets originate from. However, to date, no direct evidence has been provided to confirm the Oort Cloud’s existence. This is due to the fact that the Oort Cloud is very difficult to observe, being rather far fromRead More →

Spinning Heat Shield Concept Could Provide a Lightweight Way to Survive Atmospheric Re-entry One of the more challenging aspects of space exploration and spacecraft design is planning for re-entry. Even in the case of thinly-atmosphered planets like Mars, entering a planet’s atmosphere is known to cause a great deal of heat and friction. For this reason, spacecraft have always been equipped with heat shields to absorb this energy and ensure that the spacecraft do not crash or burn up during re-entry. Unfortunately, current spacecraft must rely on huge inflatable or mechanically deployed shields, which are often heavy and complicated to use. To address this, aRead More →

The Sun is Actually One of the Most Difficult Places to Reach in the Solar System. Here’s how the Parker Solar Probe Will Do It When it comes to exploring our Solar System, there are few missions more ambitious than those that seek to study the Sun. While NASA and other space agencies have been observing the Sun for decades, the majority of these missions were conducted in orbit around Earth. To date, the closest any probes have got to the Sun were the Helios 1 and 2 probes, which studied the Sun during the 1970s from inside Mercury’s orbit at perihelion. NASA intends toRead More →

As the Martian Dust Storm Subsides, There’s Still No Word From Opportunity Martian dust storms are a pretty common occurrence, and generally happen whenever the southern hemisphere is experiencing summer. Though they can begin quite suddenly, these storms typically stay contained to a local area and last only about a few weeks. However, on occasion, Martian dust storms can grow to become global phenomena, covering the entire planet. One such storm began back in May, starting in the Arabia Terra region and then spreading to become a planet-wide dust storm within a matter of weeks. This storm caused the skies over the Perseverance Valley, whereRead More →

170 Years Ago, Eta Carinae Erupted Dramatically. Astronomers Now Think They Know Why Eta Carinae, a double star system located 7,500 light years away in the constellation Carina, has a combined luminosity of more than 5 million Suns – making it one of the brightest stars in the Milky Way galaxy. But 170 years ago, between 1837 and 1858, this star erupted in what appeared to be a massive supernova, temporarily making it the second brightest star in the sky. Strangely, this blast was not enough to obliterate the star system, which left astronomers wondering what could account for the massive eruption. Thanks to newRead More →

Is it a Massive Planet or a Tiny Brown Dwarf. This Object is Right at the Border Between Planet and Star Rogue planets are a not-too-uncommon occurrence in our Universe. In fact, within our galaxy alone, it is estimated that there are billions of rogue planets, perhaps even more than there are stars. These objects are basically planet-mass objects that have been ejected from their respective star systems (where they formed), and now orbit the center of the Milky Way. But it is especially surprising to find one orbiting so close to our own Solar System! In 2016, scientists detected what appeared to be eitherRead More →

New Canadian Radio Telescope is Detecting Fast Radio Bursts Since they were first detected in 2007, Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) have been a source of mystery to astronomers. In radio astronomy, this phenomenon refers to transient radio pulses coming from distant sources that typically last a few milliseconds on average. Despite the detection of dozens of events since 2007, scientists are still not sure what causes them – though theories range from exploding stars, black holes, and magnetars to alien civilizations! To shed light on this mysterious phenomena, astronomers are looking to new instruments to help search for and study FRBs. One of these isRead More →