Universe Today (Page 362)

Messier 56 – the NGC 6779 Welcome back to Messier Monday! We continue our tribute to our dear friend, Tammy Plotner, by looking at the the globular star cluster known as Messier 56. Enjoy! In the 18th century, while searching the night sky for comets, French astronomer Charles Messier kept noting the presence of fixed, diffuse objects in the night sky. In time, he would come to compile a list of approximately 100 of these objects, with the purpose of making sure that astronomers did not mistake them for comets. However, this list – known as the Messier Catalog – would go on to serveRead More →

Juno Missions Make Mysterious Finds about Auroras on Jupiter Even after decades of study, Jupiter’s atmosphere continues to be something of a mystery to scientists. Consistent with the planet’s size, its atmosphere is the largest in the Solar System, spanning over 5,000 km (3,000 mi) in altitude and boasting extremes in temperature and pressure. On top of that, the planet’s atmosphere experiences the most powerful auroras in the Solar System. Studying this phenomena has been one of the main goals of the Juno probe, which reached Jupiter on July 5th, 2016. However, after analyzing data collected by the probe’s instruments, scientists at Johns Hopkins UniversityRead More →

NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Closes as Deadly Hurricane Irma Targets Direct Hit on Florida Forcing Millions to Evacuate Storm clouds from looming Cat 4 Hurricane Irma obscure the view of the iconic Vehicle Assembly Building and Launch Complex 39A as seen from Titusville, forcing NASA to close the Kennedy Space Center until the storm passes. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com TITUSVILLE/CAPE CANAVERAL – NASA and Air Force officials have ordered the closure of the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as deadly Cat 4 Hurricane Irma relentlessly targets a direct hit on Florida and forces millions of residents and tourists to evacuate catastrophic consequencesRead More →

Exoplanet-Hunting Aliens Could Be Looking at Earth Right Now! In the past few decades, the search for extra-solar planets has turned up a wealth of discoveries. Between the many direct and indirect methods used by exoplanet-hunters, thousands of gas giants, rocky planets and other bodies have been found orbiting distant stars. Aside from learning more about the Universe we inhabit, one of the main driving forces behind these efforts has been the desire to find evidence of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (ETI). But suppose there are ETIs out there that are are also looking for signs of intelligence other than their own? How likely would they beRead More →

X-ray Study Shows Older Stars May be More Supportive to Life Astronomers have long understood that there is a link between a star’s magnetic activity and the amount of X-rays it emits. When stars are young, they are magnetically active, due to the fact that they undergo rapid rotation. But over time, the stars lose rotational energy and their magnetic fields weaken. Concurrently, their associated X-ray emissions also begin to drop. Interestingly, this relationship between a star’s magnetic activity and X-ray emissions could be a means for finding potentially-habitable star systems. Hence why an international team led by researchers from Queen’s University Belfast conducted aRead More →

New Study Claims that TRAPPIST-1 Could Also Have Gas Giants In February of 2017, NASA scientists announced the existence of seven terrestrial (i.e. rocky) planets within the TRAPPIST-1 star system. Since that time, the system has been the focal point of intense research to determine whether or not any of these planets could be habitable. At the same time, astronomers have been wondering if all of the system’s planets are actually accounted for. For instance, could this system have gas giants lurking in its outer reaches, as many other systems with rocky planets (for instance, ours) do? That was the question that a team ofRead More →

Detection of Mineral on Mars Bolstered Argument that Mars was Once Habitability It has become a well-known scientific fact that billions of years ago, Mars once had a thicker atmosphere and liquid water on its surface. Scientists have also discovered that it was the gradual loss of this atmosphere, between 4.2 and 3.7 billion years ago, that caused Mars to go from being a warmer, wetter environment to the dry, freezing environment it is today. Despite the existence of both a thicker atmosphere and water, questions remain as to whether or not Mars was truly habitable in the past. According to a new study fromRead More →

Chinese Astronomers Spot Two New Hypervelocity Stars Most stars in our galaxy behave predictably, orbiting around the center of the Milky Way at speeds of about 100 km/s (62 mi/s). But some stars achieve velocities that are significantly greater, to the point that they are even able to escape the gravitational pull of the galaxy. These are known as hypervelocity stars (HVS), a rare type of star that is believed to be the result of interactions a with supermassive black hole (SMBH). The existence of HVS is something that astronomers first theorized in the late 1980s, and only 20 have been identified so far. ButRead More →

X-37B Secret Air Force Spaceplane Blasts Off on SpaceX Falcon 9 as Monster Hurricane Irma Threatens Florida Peninsula USAF X-37B military spaceplane blasts off with picturesque water reflections at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 UTC) Sept. 7, 2017 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – Amidst the frenzy of ‘Sunshine State’ preparations for Cat 5 monster Hurricane Irma and quite dismal weather favorability odds, the skies surrounding the Florida Space Coast suddenly parted just in the nick of time enabling the Air Force’s secret military X-37B spaceplane to blast offRead More →

Second Fastest Pulsar Spins 42,000 Times a Minute Pulsars are what remains when a massive star undergoes gravitational collapse and explodes in a supernova. These remnants (also known as neutron stars) are extremely dense, with several Earth-masses crammed into a space the size of a small country. They also have powerful magnetic fields, which causes them to rotate rapidly and emit powerful beams of gamma rays or x-rays – which lends them the appearance of a lighthouse. In some cases, pulsars spin especially fast, taking only milliseconds to complete a single rotation. These “millisecond pulsars” remain a source of mystery for astronomers. And after followingRead More →

Secret X-37B Military Mini-Shuttle Set for SpaceX Blastoff/Landing Sept. 7 as Cat 5 Hurricane Irma Forces Florida State of Emergency – Watch Live SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rolls horizontally up incline at Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on 6 Sept. 2017. The rocket is being processed for liftoff of the X-37B OTV-5 mini-shuttle mission scheduled for Sept. 7, 2017. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FL – Although its far from sunny in the so called ‘Sunshine State’ the secret X-37B military mini-shuttle is set for a SpaceX blastoff and booster landing combo Thursday, Sept. 7 – even as the looming threatRead More →

The Orbit of Earth will be Hiding Earth 2.0 In the hunt for extra-solar planets, astronomers and enthusiasts can be forgiven for being a bit optimistic. In the course of discovering thousands of rocky planets, gas giants, and other celestial bodies, is it too much to hope that we might someday find a genuine Earth-analog? Not just an “Earth-like” planet (which implies a rocky body of comparable size) but an actual Earth 2.0? This has certainly been one of the goals of exoplanet-hunters, who are searching nearby star systems for planets that are not only rocky, but orbit within their star’s habitable zone, show signsRead More →

Supermassive Black Holes or Their Galaxies? Which Came First? There’s a supermassive black hole at the center of almost every galaxy in the Universe. How did they get there? What’s the relationship between these monster black holes and the galaxies that surround them? Every time astronomers look farther out in the Universe, they discover new mysteries. These mysteries require all new tools and techniques to understand. These mysteries lead to more mysteries. What I’m saying is that it’s mystery turtles all the way down. One of the most fascinating is the discovery of quasars, understanding what they are, and the unveiling of an even deeperRead More →

Now We Know When Stars Will Be Passing Through the Oort Cloud To our Solar System, “close-encounters” with other stars happen regularly – the last occurring some 70,000 years ago and the next likely to take place 240,000 to 470,000 years from now. While this might sound like a “few and far between” kind of thing, it is quite regular in cosmological terms. Understanding when these encounters will happen is also important since they are known to cause disturbances in the Oort Cloud, sending comets towards Earth. Thanks to a new study by Coryne Bailer-Jones, a researcher from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, astronomersRead More →

Big Solar Storm Coming Our Way, Now’s Your Chance to See Auroras An X9.3 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the Sun on Sept. 6, 2017. Credit:NASA/GSFC/SDO If you’re still riding that high from seeing the recent total solar eclipse and you want to keep the party going, now’s your chance to see another of the night sky’s wonders: an aurora. That said, a totally full Moon is going to try and wreck the party. NASA announced that two powerful flares were just emitted on the surface of the Sun, casting coronal mass ejections in our direction. Over the course of the nextRead More →

Another Monster Black Hole Found in the Milky Way At the center of the Milky Way Galaxy resides the Supermassive Black Hole (SMBH) known as Sagittarius A*. This tremendous black hole measures an estimated 44 million km in diameter, and has the mass of over 4 million Suns. For decades, astronomers have understood that most larger galaxies have an SMBH at their core, and that these range from hundreds of thousands to billions of Solar Masses. However, new research performed by a team of researchers from Keio University, Japan, has made a startling find. According to their study, the team found evidence of a mid-sizedRead More →

NASA’s Peggy Whitson Safely Returns Home in Soyuz from Record Breaking Stay in Space The Soyuz MS-04 vehicle is pictured the moment it touches down with the Expedition 52 crew inside comprising NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fisher and Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos on Sept. 3, 2017, Kazakhstan time. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls NASA’s Peggy Whitson, America’s most experienced astronaut, returned to Earth safely and smiling Sunday morning on the steppes of Kazahsstan, concluding her record-breaking stay in space aboard the International Space Station along with Soyuz crewmates Jack Fischer of NASA and Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos. The multinational trio touched down softlyRead More →

Preparations for Deployment of InSight Lander to Mars are Rampting Up! This summer has been a busy time for NASA. At present, the agency is making the final preparations for the Cassini mission‘s plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere, monitoring the large Near-Earth Asteroid that recently made a flyby of Earth, marking the 40th anniversary of the historic Voyager missions, and hosting the Summer of Mars at the Kennedy Space Center. In addition to all that, engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, are busy preparing the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) Lander for its scheduled launch in 2018. OnceRead More →