Universe Today (Page 446)

What is the Alcubierre “Warp” Drive? It’s always a welcome thing to learn that ideas that are commonplace in science fiction have a basis in science fact. Cryogenic freezers, laser guns, robots, silicate implants… and let’s not forget the warp drive! Believe it or not, this concept – alternately known as FTL (Faster-Than-Light) travel, Hyperspace, Lightspeed, etc. – actually has one foot in the world of real science. In physics, it is what is known as the Alcubierre Warp Drive. On paper, it is a highly speculative, but possibly valid, solution of the Einstein field equations, specifically how space, time and energy interact. In thisRead More →

Bullseye: Amazing SpaceX Images Highlight Perfect Falcon 9 Landing SpaceX was able to celebrate a successful return to flight this week with a picture-perfect launch of the Falcon 9 rocket on January 14, 2017 that successfully delivered a fleet of ten advanced Iridium NEXT mobile voice and data relay satellites to orbit. But the icing on the cake was the dead-center landing and recovery of the Falcon 9 booster on their drone barge (named “Just Read The Instructions”) in the Pacific Ocean, off the west coast of California. SpaceX released some images from the landing that are absolutely stunning, like this one, below: A stunningRead More →

NASA: 2016 Was the Warmest Year on Record… Again! The reality of Climate Change has become painfully apparent in recent years, thanks to extended droughts in places like California, diminishing water tables around the world, rising tides, and coastal storms of increasing intensity and frequency. But perhaps the most measurable trend is the way that average global temperatures have kept rising year after year. And this has certainly been the case for the year of 2016. According to independent analyses provided by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), 2016 was the warmest year since modern recordRead More →

Adventures With “Copyscope” Presenting… Copyscope. Image credit: Dave Dickinson Every telescope has a story to tell, and our discovery of Copyscope sent us on an interesting detective tale. We returned back to the U S of A recently, and one of our first tasks upon re-establishing our lives back in Florida was to dig through the archaeological strata that is our storage unit. Headlamp on and Leatherman in hand, we worked our way hacking through layers put in place over years of storage unit drop-off runs. On one hand, it’s like Xmas all over again, as you rediscover all your stuff anew. But on theRead More →

Air Force Missile Warning SBIRS GEO 3 Satellite Set for Spectacular Night Liftoff Jan. 19; 1st 2017 Cape Launch-Watch Live ULA Atlas V rocket carrying the USAF SBIRS GEO 3 missile warning satellite is poised for blastoff from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Jan. 19 , 2017. Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, FL – A U.S. Air Force satellite that will provide vital early warnings on incoming missiles that are critical to the defense of our homeland is set for a spectacular nighttime blastoff on Thursday Jan. 19 from the Florida Space Coast. The AtlasRead More →

New NASA-themed TV Pilot by ‘The Martian’ Author Andy Weir Author Andy Weir, who wrote the bestselling novel “The Martian” on which the successful 2015 movie of the same name was based, announced CBS is picking up his idea for a new pilot for a television show called “Mission Control.” “For the past several months, I’ve been working on a TV show pilot, and I’m happy to announce that CBS is going to make it!” Weir posted on Facebook. “Of course, I’m all about scientific accuracy and this show will be no exception.” Weir added (in what I assume was his best Tom Hanks), “ShouldRead More →

What Was the Carrington Event? Isn’t modern society great? With all this technology surrounding us in all directions. It’s like a cocoon of sweet, fluffy silicon. There are chips in my fitness tracker, my bluetooth headset, mobile phone, car keys and that’s just on my body. At all times in the Cain household, there dozens of internet devices connected to my wifi router. I’m not sure how we got to the point, but there’s one thing I know for sure, more is better. If I could use two smartphones at the same time, I totally would. And I’m sure you agree, that without all thisRead More →

Who was Max Planck? Imagine if you will that your name would forever be associated with a groundbreaking scientific theory. Imagine also that your name would even be attached to a series of units, designed to performs measurements for complex equations. Now imagine that you were German who lived through two World Wars, won the Nobel Prize for physics, and outlived many of your children. If you can do all that, then you might know what it was like to be Max Planck, the German physicist and founder of quantum theory. Much like Galileo, Newton, and Einstein, Max Planck is regarded as one of theRead More →

Some Earth Life is Ready to Live on Mars, Right Now For some time, scientists have suspected that life may have existed on Mars in the deep past. Owing to the presence of a thicker atmosphere and liquid water on its surface, it is entirely possible that the simplest of organisms might have begun to evolve there. And for those looking to make Mars a home for humanity someday, it is hoped that these conditions (i.e favorable to life) could be recreated again someday. But as it turns out, there are some terrestrial organisms that could survive on Mars as it is today. According toRead More →

Last Man on the Moon, Gene Cernan, Has Died One of Apollo’s finest, astronaut Gene Cernan, has left Earth for the last time. Cernan, the last man to walk on the Moon, died Monday, January 16, 2017. “Gene Cernan, Apollo astronaut and the last man to walk on the moon, has passed from our sphere, and we mourn his loss,” said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden in statement. “Leaving the moon in 1972, Cernan said, ‘As I take these last steps from the surface for some time into the future to come, I’d just like to record that America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destinyRead More →

Messier 32 – the “Le Gentil” Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy Welcome back to Messier Monday! In our ongoing tribute to the great Tammy Plotner, we take a look at dwarf elliptical galaxy known as Messier 32. Enjoy! During the 18th century, famed French astronomer Charles Messier noted the presence of several “nebulous objects” in the night sky. Having originally mistaken them for comets, he began compiling a list of them so that others would not make the same mistake he did. In time, this list (known as the Messier Catalog) would come to include 100 of the most fabulous objects in the night sky. One ofRead More →

Mars Curiosity Rolls Up to a Cool New Meteorite This peculiar rock, photographed on Jan. 12 (Sol 1577) by NASA’s Curiosity rover, appears to be a metal meteorite. When confirmed, this will be the rover’s third meteorite find on the Red Planet. Click for the high resolution original. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS Rolling up the slopes of Mt. Sharp recently, NASA’s Curiosity rover appears to have stumbled across yet another meteorite, its third since touching down nearly four and a half years ago. While not yet confirmed, the turkey-shaped object has a gray, metallic luster and a lightly-dimpled texture that hints of regmaglypts. Regmaglypts, indentations that resembleRead More →

Chilean Government Releases Declassified UFO Video The term UFO has a way of stirring up speculation and controversy. Even though this bland acronym refers only to an airborne object who’s appearance hasn’t been explained yet – with no references whatsoever to “aliens” or “extra-terrestrials” – one cannot mention it without inspiring talk of little green men and massive conspiracies. This has certainly been the reaction to a video that was recently released by the Committee for the Study of Anomalous Air Phenomena (CEFAA), the Chilean government agency responsible for investigating UFOs. Originally captured by a helicopter belonging to the Chilean navy two years ago, theRead More →

SpaceX Falcon 9 Comes Roaring Back to Life with Dramatically Successful Iridium Fleet Launch and Ocean Ship Landing Picture perfect blastoff of SpaceX Falcon 9 on Jan. 14, 2017, Return to Flight launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California carrying fleet of ten advanced Iridium NEXT comsats to low Earth orbit. Credit: SpaceX With Billions and Billions of dollars at stake and their reputation riding on the line, SpaceX came roaring back to life by dramatically executing a picture perfect Falcon 9 rocket launch this morning (Jan. 14) that successfully delivered a fleet of ten advanced Iridium NEXT voice and data relay satellites toRead More →

The Incredible Story of How the Huygens Mission to Titan Succeeded When It Could Have Failed Twelve years ago today, the Huygens probe landed on Titan, marking the farthest point from Earth any spacecraft has even landed. While a twelfth anniversary may be an odd number to mark with a special article, as we said in our previous article (with footage from the landing), this is the last opportunity to celebrate the success of Huygens before its partner spacecraft Cassini ends its mission on September 15, 2017 with a fateful plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere. But Huygens is also worth celebrating because, amazingly, the mission almostRead More →

SpaceX Set for High Stakes Falcon 9 Blastoff Resumption with Iridium Satellite Fleet on Jan. 14 – Watch Live SpaceX Falcon 9 poised for Jan. 14, 2017, Return to Flight launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California carrying ten Iridium NEXT comsats to orbit. Credit: SpaceX The stakes could almost not be higher for SpaceX as the firm readies their twice failed Falcon 9 rocket for a blastoff resumption on Saturday morning, Jan. 14 carrying the vanguard of the commercial Iridium NEXT satellite fleet to orbit from their California rocket base. Barely four and a half months after another Falcon 9 and its $200Read More →

The Constellation Capricornus Welcome back to Constellation Friday! Today, in honor of the late and great Tammy Plotner, we will be dealing with the “Sea Goat” – aka. Capricornus! In the 2nd century CE, Greek-Egyptian astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus (aka. Ptolemy) compiled a list of all the then-known 48 constellations. This treatise, known as the Almagest, would used by medieval European and Islamic scholars for over a thousand years to come, effectively becoming astrological and astronomical canon until the early Modern Age. One of these constellations is Capricornus, otherwise known as the “Sea Goat” (or simply as Capricorn). Positioned on the ecliptic plane, this constellation isRead More →

The Moon is Older than We Thought, says New Study For decades, scientists have been of the belief that the Moon, Earth’s only natural satellite, was four and a half billion years old. According to this theory, the Moon was created from a fiery cataclysm produced by a collision between the Earth with a Mars-sized object (named Theia) roughly 100 million years after the formation of primordial Earth. But according to a new study by researchers from UCLA (who re-examined some of the Apollo Moon Rocks), these estimates may have been off by about 40 to 140 million years. Far from simply adjusting our notionsRead More →

Weekly Space Hangout – January 13, 2017: News Roundup! Host: Fraser Cain (@fcain) Guests: Carolyn Collins Petersen (thespacewriter.com / space.about.com / @spacewriter ) Paul M. Sutter (pmsutter.com / @PaulMattSutter) Kimberly Cartier ( KimberlyCartier.org / @AstroKimCartier ) Their stories this week:New studies of Boyajian’s Star Breakthrough Starshot hunting for planets Probing the Nearby Space Between Stars Looking for the stuff of life A new star in 2022 We use a tool called Trello to submit and vote on stories we would like to see covered each week, and then Fraser will be selecting the stories from there. Here is the link to the Trello WSH pageRead More →

What Will the Voyager Spacecraft Encounter Next? Hubble Helps Provide a Roadmap The twin Voyager spacecraft are now making their way through the interstellar medium. Even though they are going where none have gone before, the path ahead it is not completely unknown. Astronomers are using the Hubble Space Telescope to observe the ‘road’ ahead for these pioneering spacecraft, to ascertain what various materials may lay along the Voyagers’ paths through space. Combining Hubble data with the information the Voyagers are able to gather and send back to Earth, astronomers said a preliminary analysis reveals “a rich, complex interstellar ecology, containing multiple clouds of hydrogenRead More →