Universe Today (Page 406)

Weekly Space Hangout: September 11, 2019 – Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of New Horizons Hosts: Fraser Cain (universetoday.com / @fcain) Dr. Morgan Rehnberg (MorganRehnberg.com / @MorganRehnberg & ChartYourWorld.org) Dave Dickinson (www.astroguyz.com / @astroguyz) Welcome back everyone from our Summer Hiatus – we are all looking forward to another exciting year! We have made some minor format changes that we hope you will like, but we will continue to bring you fascinating … Continue reading “Weekly Space Hangout: September 11, 2019 – Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of New Horizons” The post Weekly Space Hangout: September 11, 2019 – Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of New Horizons appeared first onRead More →

Hubble Has Looked at the 2017 Kilonova Explosion Almost a Dozen Times, Watching it Slowly Fade Away In 2017, LIGO (Laser-Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory) and Virgo detected gravitational waves coming from the merger of two neutron stars. They named that signal GW170817. Two seconds after detecting it, NASA’s Fermi satellite detected a gamma ray burst (GRB) that was named GRB170817A. Within minutes, telescopes and observatories around the world honed in on the … Continue reading “Hubble Has Looked at the 2017 Kilonova Explosion Almost a Dozen Times, Watching it Slowly Fade Away” The post Hubble Has Looked at the 2017 Kilonova Explosion Almost a DozenRead More →

India has Located the Vikram Lander, But it’s Still not Communicating With Home The ISRO has confirmed the location of their Vikram lander on the lunar surface, but is uncertain if it survived its hard landing. The post India has Located the Vikram Lander, But it’s Still not Communicating With Home appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Water Discovered in the Atmosphere of an Exoplanet in the Habitable zone. It Might Be Rain Astronomers using the Hubble space telescope have discovered water in the atmosphere of an exoplanet in its star’s habitable zone. If confirmed, it will be the first time we’ve detected water—a critical ingredient for life as we know it—on an exoplanet. The water was detected as vapour in the atmosphere, but the temperature of the … Continue reading “Water Discovered in the Atmosphere of an Exoplanet in the Habitable zone. It Might Be Rain” The post Water Discovered in the Atmosphere of an Exoplanet in the Habitable zone. ItRead More →

Astronauts Try Mixing Concrete in Space What sounds like a slap-stick comedy shtick is actually solid science. With so much of humanity’s space-faring future involving habitats, other structures, and a permanent presence on the Moon and Mars, mixing concrete in space is serious business. NASA has a program of study called MICS, (Microgravity Investigation of Cement Solidification) which is examining how … Continue reading “Astronauts Try Mixing Concrete in Space” The post Astronauts Try Mixing Concrete in Space appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Entrepreneurs and Engineers Come Together to Design a Peaceful Lunar Settlement The OpenLuna Foundation wants to create a base on the Moon using crowdsourcing and open-source technology to allow the public to take part in lunar colonization. The post Entrepreneurs and Engineers Come Together to Design a Peaceful Lunar Settlement appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

China’s FAST Telescope, the World’s Largest Single Radio Dish Telescope, is Now Fully Operational After years of construction, China’s new radio telescope is in action. The telescope, called FAST (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope) has double the collecting power of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, which has a 305 meter dish. Until now, Arecibo was the world’s largest radio dish of its type. FAST is made up of … Continue reading “China’s FAST Telescope, the World’s Largest Single Radio Dish Telescope, is Now Fully Operational” The post China’s FAST Telescope, the World’s Largest Single Radio Dish Telescope, is Now Fully Operational appeared first onRead More →

NASA Tests Autonomous Lunar Landing Technology In anticipation of many Moon landings to come, NASA is testing an autonomous lunar landing system in the Mojave Desert in California. The system is called a “terrain relative navigation system.” It’s being tested on a launch and landing of a Zodiac rocket, built by Masten Space Systems. The test will happen on Wednesday, September … Continue reading “NASA Tests Autonomous Lunar Landing Technology” The post NASA Tests Autonomous Lunar Landing Technology appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Time and Space: The Strange Reality of Reality “Are the dilation calculations correct” the jump coordinator asks you as he approaches your desk. You look over some papers in front of you that contain various equations scribbled down with certain values circled. The equations are more for your own sense of security, as the computer console in front of you displays the same … Continue reading “Time and Space: The Strange Reality of Reality” The post Time and Space: The Strange Reality of Reality appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Whoa. Lakes on Titan Might be the Craters from Massive Underground Explosions The Cassini spacecraft ended its mission to Saturn and its moons two years ago when it was sent plunging into Saturn to be destroyed. But after two years, scientists are still studying the data from the Cassini mission. A new paper based on Cassini data proposes a new explanation for how some lakes on Titan … Continue reading “Whoa. Lakes on Titan Might be the Craters from Massive Underground Explosions” The post Whoa. Lakes on Titan Might be the Craters from Massive Underground Explosions appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go toRead More →

This is Why Saturn’s Rotation is So Hard to Measure For a rocky planet, finding the length of a day can be simple. Just pick a reference point and watch how long it takes to rotate out of view, then back into view. But for planets like Saturn, it’s not so simple. There are no surface features to track. Scientists have spent decades trying to … Continue reading “This is Why Saturn’s Rotation is So Hard to Measure” The post This is Why Saturn’s Rotation is So Hard to Measure appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Gravitational Wave Detectors Might be Able to Detect Dark Matter Particles Colliding With Their Mirrors According to a new study by a team of Japanese researchers, gravitational wave detectors could be used to confirm the existence of a major Dark Matter candidate. The post Gravitational Wave Detectors Might be Able to Detect Dark Matter Particles Colliding With Their Mirrors appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Carnival of Space #627 This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Allen Versfeld at his Urban Astronomer blog. Click here to read Carnival of Space #627. 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. Just email an entry … Continue reading “Carnival of Space #627” The post Carnival of Space #627 appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Chandrayaan 2 Mission Loses Contact With Vikram Lander During Descent The ISRO dispatched their Vikram lunar lander towards the lunar surface today, but lost contact with it just before it was meant to touch down. The post Chandrayaan 2 Mission Loses Contact With Vikram Lander During Descent appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Mercury has Magnetic Poles that Drift Like Earth’s Earth’s magnetic poles drift over time. This is something that every airplane pilot or navigator knows. They have to account for it when they plan their flights. They drift so much, in fact, that the magnetic poles are in different locations than the geographic poles, or the axis of Earth’s rotation. Today, Earth’s magnetic north … Continue reading “Mercury has Magnetic Poles that Drift Like Earth’s” The post Mercury has Magnetic Poles that Drift Like Earth’s appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

This Star Has Reached the End of its Life About 10,000 light years away, in the constellation Centaurus, is a planetary nebula called NGC 5307. A planetary nebula is the remnant of a star like our Sun, when it has reached what can be described as the end of its life. This Hubble image of NGC 5307 not only makes you wonder about the … Continue reading “This Star Has Reached the End of its Life” The post This Star Has Reached the End of its Life appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Europe and US are Going to Try and Deflect an Asteroid The ESA and NASA are getting closer to mounting the AIDA mission, which will will test the effectiveness of asteroid deflection in the coming years. The post Europe and US are Going to Try and Deflect an Asteroid appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

It Hasn’t Rained on Mars for a Long Time, but These Sand Dunes Look Like Raindrops, and They’re Filled with Chemicals Made in Water A recent image from the MRO shows rows of olivine-rich dunes in the Copernicus Crater on Mars, a feature that is quite rare here on Earth. The post It Hasn’t Rained on Mars for a Long Time, but These Sand Dunes Look Like Raindrops, and They’re Filled with Chemicals Made in Water appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →

Thanks to Trump, We’ve Got a Better Idea of the Capabilities of US Surveillance Satellites The US President has done it again. Just when you think things can’t get any more—”unusual”— in the White House, the President has Tweeted an American spy satellite image as part of a juvenile jab at Iranian leadership. After some sleuthing, astronomers were able to figure out which satellite it came from: a (formerly) top-secret … Continue reading “Thanks to Trump, We’ve Got a Better Idea of the Capabilities of US Surveillance Satellites” The post Thanks to Trump, We’ve Got a Better Idea of the Capabilities of US Surveillance SatellitesRead More →

The Spaceline: an Elevator From the Earth to the Moon – Humanity’s future may lie in space, but getting out there is a very big challenge. In short, launching payloads into space from the bottom of Earth’s gravity well is quite expensive, regardless of whether or not reusable rockets are involved. And while some have suggested that building a Space Elevator would be a long-term solution … Continue reading “The Spaceline: an Elevator From the Earth to the Moon –” The post The Spaceline: an Elevator From the Earth to the Moon – appeared first on Universe Today. Universe Today Go to SourceRead More →