Universe Today (Page 389)

Carnival of Space #616 It’s that time again! This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Pamela Hoffman at the Everyday Spacer blog. Click here to read Carnival of Space #616. And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to all the past Carnivals of Space. If you’ve got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. … Continue reading “Carnival of Space #616” The post Carnival of Space #616 appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Weekly Space Hangout: June 19, 2019 – Corey Gray, Lead Operator at the LIGO Hanford Observatory Hosts: Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain) Dr. Kimberly Cartier (KimberlyCartier.org / @AstroKimCartier ) Dr. Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg & ChartYourWorld.org) Dr. Brian Koberlein (briankoberlein.com / @BrianKoberlein) Tonight we are pleased to welcome Corey Gray, Lead Operator at the LIGO Hanford Observatory. Corey earned dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Physics and Applied Mathematics from … Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout: June 19, 2019 – Corey Gray, Lead Operator at the LIGO Hanford Observatory” The post Weekly Space Hangout: June 19, 2019 – Corey Gray, Lead Operator at theRead More →

Martian Clouds Might Start with Meteor Trails Through the Atmosphere On Earth, clouds form when enough droplets of water condense out of the air. And those droplets require a tiny speck of dust or sea salt, called a condensation nuclei, to form. In Earth’s atmosphere, those tiny specks of dust are lofted high into the atmosphere where they trigger cloud formation. But on Mars? Mars … Continue reading “Martian Clouds Might Start with Meteor Trails Through the Atmosphere” The post Martian Clouds Might Start with Meteor Trails Through the Atmosphere appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Inflatable Heat Shield Could Deliver Heavy Payloads to Worlds With a Thick Atmosphere NASA is testing out a new inflatable heat shield which could enable them to send heavier missions to Mars, as well as Venus and Titan. The post Inflatable Heat Shield Could Deliver Heavy Payloads to Worlds With a Thick Atmosphere appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Earth has a Water Cycle. Mars has a Dust Cycle To say there are some myths circulating about Martian dust storms would be an understatement. Mars is known for its globe-encircling dust storms, the likes of which are seen nowhere else. Science fiction writers and Hollywood movies often make the dust storms out to be more dangerous than they really are. In “The Martian,” a … Continue reading “Earth has a Water Cycle. Mars has a Dust Cycle” The post Earth has a Water Cycle. Mars has a Dust Cycle appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Satellites Equipped With a Tether Would be Able to De-Orbit Themselves at the end of Their Life A new technology that allows satellites to de-orbit themselves at the end of their lives could help mitigate the problem of space debris. The post Satellites Equipped With a Tether Would be Able to De-Orbit Themselves at the end of Their Life appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Robotic asteroid mining spacecraft wins a grant from NASA This year, the NASA’s NIAC Program is looking at some really interesting ideas – such as a water-powered, laser-shooting, asteroid-mining spacecraft! The post Robotic asteroid mining spacecraft wins a grant from NASA appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Saltwater Similar to the Earth’s Oceans has been Seen on Europa. Another Good Reason Why We Really Need to Visit This Place Jupiter’s moon Europa is an intriguing world. It’s the smoothest body in the Solar System, and the sixth-largest moon in the Solar System, though it’s the smallest of the four Galilean moons. Most intriguing of all is Europa’s subsurface ocean and the potential for habitability. The scientific consensus is that Europa has a subsurface ocean … Continue reading “Saltwater Similar to the Earth’s Oceans has been Seen on Europa. Another Good Reason Why We Really Need to Visit This Place” The post SaltwaterRead More →

This is What the Ground Looked Like After InSight Landed on Mars When InSight landed on Mars on Nov. 26th, 2018, it deployed a parachute to slow its descent through the thin Martian atmosphere. As it approached the surface, it fired its retro rocket to slow it even more, and then gently touched down on the surface. As it did so, its retro rockets excavated two small … Continue reading “This is What the Ground Looked Like After InSight Landed on Mars” The post This is What the Ground Looked Like After InSight Landed on Mars appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go toRead More →

In order to reveal planets around another star, a starshade needs to fly 40,000 km away from a telescope, aligned within only 1 meter If NASA sends a Starshade into space, it will need to perform some very accurate formation flying with the space telescopes it is working with The post In order to reveal planets around another star, a starshade needs to fly 40,000 km away from a telescope, aligned within only 1 meter appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

An Orbit Map of the Solar System If you want to know what a talent for scientific visualizations looks like, check out Eleanor Lutz. She’s a PhD student in biology at the University of Washington, and at her website Tabletop Whale, you can see her amazing work on full display. Her latest piece is a map showing all the orbits of over … Continue reading “An Orbit Map of the Solar System” The post An Orbit Map of the Solar System appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Ceres is a Strange Place, Including a Volcanic Peak 4,000 Meters High Made From Bubbling Salt Water, Mud and Rock Ceres, at almost 1,000 km (620 miles) in diameter, is the largest body in the asteroid belt. Between 2015 and 2018, NASA’s ion-powered Dawn spacecraft visited the dwarf planet, looking for clues to help us understand how our Solar System formed. Ceres is the first dwarf planet ever visited by a spacecraft. Now that scientists … Continue reading “Ceres is a Strange Place, Including a Volcanic Peak 4,000 Meters High Made From Bubbling Salt Water, Mud and Rock” The post Ceres is a Strange Place,Read More →

Mimas Pushes Through Saturn’s Rings Like a Snowplow Saturn’s moon Mimas is the smallest of the gas giant’s major moons. (Saturn has 62 moons, but some of them are tiny moonlets less than 1 km in diameter.) Two new studies show how Mimas acted as a kind of snow-plow, widening the Cassini division between Saturn’s rings. Saturn’s iconic rings set it apart from … Continue reading “Mimas Pushes Through Saturn’s Rings Like a Snowplow” The post Mimas Pushes Through Saturn’s Rings Like a Snowplow appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Weekly Space Hangout: June 12, 2019 – Mike Simmons of Astronomers Without Borders and Nancy Atkinson talks Apollo 11 Hosts: Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain) Dr. Kimberly Cartier (KimberlyCartier.org / @AstroKimCartier ) Dr. Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg & ChartYourWorld.org) Dr. Brian Koberlein (briankoberlein.com / @BrianKoberlein) This week we are joined by our good friend Mike Simmons, President of Astronomers Without Borders. Mike will be bringing us up to date with all of the … Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout: June 12, 2019 – Mike Simmons of Astronomers Without Borders and Nancy Atkinson talks Apollo 11” The post Weekly Space Hangout: June 12, 2019 –Read More →

Apollo 10’s “Snoopy” Lunar Lander May Have Been Found in Space Apollo 11 was the first mission to land people on the lunar surface. But Apollo relied on a lot of predecessor missions to lay the groundwork for the successful mission to the Moon. One of them was Apollo 10, the fourth crewed mission in the Apollo program. Apollo 10 was an almost complete mission that … Continue reading “Apollo 10’s “Snoopy” Lunar Lander May Have Been Found in Space” The post Apollo 10’s “Snoopy” Lunar Lander May Have Been Found in Space appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

1.2 billion years ago, a 1-km asteroid smashed into Scotland New research by a team of UK scientists has located the site of the massive impact that took place in Scotland 1.2 billion years ago. The post 1.2 billion years ago, a 1-km asteroid smashed into Scotland appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

It’s Been Exactly One Year Since Opportunity Sent This Final Message Home – on its 5,111th Martian Day Opportunity’s final message home is not much to look at on its own. If you’re old enough to remember film cameras, it looks like the final exposure on a roll of film, developed but partly missing. It’s a suitable epitaph for Opportunity’s mission. Opportunity captured this image with the left half of its PanCam, or … Continue reading “It’s Been Exactly One Year Since Opportunity Sent This Final Message Home – on its 5,111th Martian Day” The post It’s Been Exactly One Year Since Opportunity Sent ThisRead More →

New Instrument is Searching for Planets Around Alpha Centauri Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to us, at 4.37 light-years (about 25 trillion miles) away. In 2016, astronomers discovered an exoplanet orbiting one of the three stars in the Alpha Centauri system. Spurred on by that discovery, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) has developed a new instrument to find any other planets that … Continue reading “New Instrument is Searching for Planets Around Alpha Centauri” The post New Instrument is Searching for Planets Around Alpha Centauri appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

That Explains a Lot. The Moon’s Largest Crater has a Chunk of Metal Embedded in it That’s 5 Times Bigger than the Big Island of Hawaii One of the largest craters in the Solar System is on our Moon. It’s called the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) basin and it’s 2,500 km (1,600 mi) in diameter and 13 km (8.1 mi) deep. A new study says that the basin may contain an enormous chunk of metal that’s larger than Hawaii’s Big Island. The study, titled “Deep Structure … Continue reading “That Explains a Lot. The Moon’s Largest Crater has a Chunk of Metal Embedded in it That’s 5 Times Bigger thanRead More →

Ep. 533: Indigenous South African Astronomy Let’s move to another continent this week, and look at the astronomy that was going on in southern Africa in ancient times. We usually record Astronomy Cast every Friday at 3:00 pm EST / 12:00 pm PST / 20:00 PM UTC. You can watch us live on AstronomyCast.com, or the AstronomyCast YouTube page. Visit the … Continue reading “Ep. 533: Indigenous South African Astronomy” The post Ep. 533: Indigenous South African Astronomy appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →