Universe Today (Page 419)

Musk Drops Propulsive Landing Plans for SpaceX Crew Dragon Artists concept for sending SpaceX Red Dragon spacecraft to land propulsively on Mars as early as 2020. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX is dropping its original plans to propulsively ground land the advanced crewed version of their Dragon spacecraft planned for missions carrying astronauts returning from the International Space Station (ISS) – in a decision that potentially impacts future plans for Mars landings as well. The announcement came directly from SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk while speaking at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference in Washington, D.C. on July 19. For “safety” reasons, Musk saidRead More →

Earth-Sized Planet Takes Just Four Hours to Orbit its Star The Kepler space observatory has made some interesting finds since it began its mission back in March of 2009. Even after the mission suffered the loss of two reaction wheels, it has continued to make discoveries as part of its K2 mission. All told, the Kepler and K2 missions have detected a total of 5,106 planetary candidates, and confirmed the existence of 2,493 planets. One of the latest finds made using Kepler is EPIC 228813918 b, a terrestrial (i.e. rocky) planet that orbits a red dwarf star some 264 to 355 light years from Earth.Read More →

Advanced Civilizations Could Build a Galactic Internet with Planetary Transits Decades after Enrico Fermi’s uttered his famous words – “Where is everybody?” – the Paradox that bears his name still haunts us. Despite repeated attempts to locate radio signals coming from space and our ongoing efforts to find visible indications of alien civilizations in distant star systems, the search extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI) has yet to produce anything substantive. But as history has taught us, failure has a way of stimulated new and interesting ideas. For example, in a recently-published paper, Dr. Duncan H. Forgan of St. Andrews University proposed that extra-terrestrial civilizations could be communicatingRead More →

Hey Map Collectors, Here’s a New Map of Pluto! On July 14th, 2015, the New Horizons mission made history when it became the first spacecraft to conduct a flyby of Pluto and its moons. In the course of making its way through this system, the probe gathered volumes of data on Pluto and its many satellites using a sophisticated suite of instruments. These included the first detailed images of what Pluto and its largest moon (Charon) look like up close. And while scientists are still analyzing the volumes of data that the probe has sent home (and probably will be for years to come), theRead More →

One. More. Month: Our Guide to the Total Solar Eclipse Totality! An incredible moment from the March 29th, 2006 total solar eclipse. Credit and copyright: Alan Dyer/Amazing Sky Photography Have you heard? I remember, getting into astronomy as a kid back in the 1970s, building a pinhole projector in a shoe box and watching the partial solar eclipse of February 26th, 1979 from our living room in northern Maine. I had no Learjet, no magic carpet to whisk me off to that thin thread of a path of totality way out west along the Pacific coast. As I settled for the 66% partial solar eclipse,Read More →

Carnival of Space #518 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 #518. And if you’re interested in looking back, here’s an archive to the past Carnivals of Space. If you’ve got a space-related blog, you should really join the carnival. Just email an entry to carnivalofspace@gmail.com, and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community – and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really wantRead More →

Ancient Impacts Shaped the Structure of the Milky Way Understanding how the Universe came to be is one of the greater challenges of being an astrophysicist. Given the observable Universe’s sheer size (46.6 billion light years) and staggering age (13.8 billion years), this is no easy task. Nevertheless, ongoing observations, calculations and computer simulations have allowed astrophysicists to learn a great deal about how galaxies and larger structures have changed over time. For example, a recent study by a team from the University of Kentucky (UK) has challenged previously-held notions about how our galaxy has evolved to become what we see today. Based on observationsRead More →

Strange Radio Signals Detected from a Nearby Star Astronomers have been listening to radio waves from space for decades. In addition to being a proven means of studying stars, galaxies, quasars and other celestial objects, radio astronomy is one of the main ways in which scientists have searched for signs of extra-terrestrial intelligence (ETI). And while nothing definitive has been found to date, there have been a number of incidents that have raised hopes of finding an “alien signal”. In the most recent case, scientists from the Arecido Observatory recently announced the detection of a strange radio signal coming from Ross 128 – a redRead More →

This is the One of the Largest Structures We Know of in the Universe The Milky Way Galaxy, which measures 100,000 to 180,000 light years (31 – 55 kiloparsecs) in diameter and contains 100 to 400 billion stars, is so immense that it boggles the mind. And yet, when it comes to the large-scale structure of the Universe, our galaxy is merely a drop in the bucket. Looking farther, astronomers have noted that galaxies form clusters, which in turn form superclusters – the largest known structures in the Universe. The supercluster in which our galaxy resides is known as the Laniakea Supercluster, which spans 500 millionRead More →

Long After Humanity is Gone and the Sun Dies, the Water Bears Will be There Like all living creatures, stars have a natural lifespan. After going through their main sequence phase, they eventually exhaust their nuclear fuel and begin the slow process towards death. In our Sun’s case, this will consist of it growing in size and entering the Red Giant phase of its evolution. When that happens, roughly 5.4 billion years from now, the Sun will encompass the orbit’s of Mercury, Venus, and maybe even Earth. However, even before this happens, astronomers theorize that the Sun will dramatically heat up, which will render EarthRead More →

Clean Room Tour with NASA’s Next Gen Tracking Data Relay Satellite TDRS-M, Closeout Incident Under Review – Photos Inside the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, FL,NASA’s massive, insect like Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, or TDRS-M, spacecraft is undergoing preflight processing during media visit on 13 July 2017. TDRS-M will transmit critical science data gathered by the ISS, Hubble and numerous NASA Earth science missions. It is being prepared for encapsulation inside its payload fairing prior to being transported to Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for launch on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket on 3 August 2017.Read More →

Carnival of Space #517 This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Brian Wang at his Next Big Future blog. Click here to read Carnival of Space #517 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 to carnivalofspace@gmail.com, and the next host will link to it. It will help get awareness out there about your writing, help you meet others in the space community – and community is what blogging is all about. And if you really want to help out, sign upRead More →

Evidence Mounts for the Existence of Planet Nine In January of 2016, astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin published the first evidence that there might be another planet in our Solar System. Known as “Planet 9”, this hypothetical body was estimated to be about 10 times as massive as Earth and to orbit that our Sun at an average distance of 700 AU. Since that time, multiple studies have been produced that either support or cast doubt on the existence of Planet 9. While some argue that the orbits of certain Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) are proof of Planet 9, others argue that these studies sufferRead More →

Two Years Ago Today: It Was a Clear Day on Pluto When New Horizons Flew By It was two years ago this morning that we awoke to see the now iconic image of Pluto that the New Horizons spacecraft had sent to Earth during the night. You, of course, know the picture I’m talking about – the one with a clear view of the giant heart-shaped region on the distant, little world (see above). This image was taken just 16 hours before the spacecraft would make its closest approach to Pluto. Then, during that seemingly brief flyby (after traveling nine-and-a-half years and 3 billion milesRead More →

Even Though Red Dwarfs Have Long Lasting Habitable Zones, They’d be Brutal to Life Ever since scientists confirmed the existence of seven terrestrial planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1, this system has been a focal point of interest for astronomers. Given its proximity to Earth (just 39.5 light-years light-years away), and the fact that three of its planets orbit within the star’s “Goldilocks Zone“, this system has been an ideal location for learning more about the potential habitability of red dwarf stars systems. This is especially important since the majority of stars in our galaxy are red dwarfs (aka. M-type dwarf stars). Unfortunately, not all of the research hasRead More →

This is the Strangest Idea Ever for a Spacecraft Propulsion System: Ferrofluids When it comes to the future of space exploration, some truly interesting concepts are being developed. Hoping to reach farther and reduce associated costs, one of the overarching goals is to find more fuel-efficient and effective means of sending robotic spacecraft, satellites and even crewed missions to their destinations. Towards this end, ideas like nuclear propulsion, ion engines and even antimatter are all being considered. But this idea has to be the strangest one to date! It’s known as a ferrofluid thruster, a new concept that relies on ionic fluids that become stronglyRead More →

NASA to Use Converted Bombers to Chase Totality A NASA WB-57B on the ramp at Ellington Field near Houston ready to chase totality next month during the historic August 21st total solar eclipse. Credit: NASA/JSC In a classic swords-to-plowshares move, two converted WB-57 aircraft flown by NASA’s Airborne Science Program will greet the shadow of the Moon as it rushes across the contiguous United States on Monday, August 21st on a daring mission of science. “We are going to be observing the total solar eclipse with two aircraft, each carrying infrared and visible light cameras taking high definition video,” Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Principal InvestigatorRead More →

Satellite Images Show a Trillion Ton Iceberg Broke Off Antarctica For several months, scientists have been keeping an eye on a piece of Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf, waiting for the inevitable. And now it has happened. Sometime between July 10 and July 12, 2017 a trillion ton iceberg split off, “changing the outline of the Antarctic Peninsula forever,” said one scientist. The new iceberg is now called A68, and at 2,240 square miles (5,800 square km) it is one of the biggest ever recorded, about the size of Delaware in the US, or twice the size of Luxembourg. A fissure on the ice shelfRead More →

Turns Out, Mars Sucks Even Worse Than We Knew One of the most significant finds to come from our ongoing exploration and research efforts of Mars is the fact that the planet once had a warmer, wetter environment. Between 4.2 and 3.7 billion years ago, the planet had a thicker atmosphere and was able to maintain liquid water on its surface. As such, it has been ventured that life could have once existed there, and might still exist there in some form. However, according to some recent lab tests by a pair of researchers from the UK Center for Astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh,Read More →

Here They are! New Juno Pictures of the Great Red Spot Earlier this week, on Monday, July 10th, the Juno mission accomplished an historic feet as it passed directly over Jupiter’s most famous feature – the Great Red Spot. This massive anticyclonic storm has been raging for centuries, and Juno’s scheduled flyby was the closest any mission has ever come to it. It all took place at 7:06 p.m. PDT (11:06 p.m. EDT), just days after the probe celebrated its first year of orbiting the planet. And today – Wednesday, July 12th, a few days ahead of schedule – NASA began releasing the pics thatRead More →