Universe Today (Page 463)

Look at This Adorable Pen-Sized Booster, Perfect for Tiny Satellites When it comes to space exploration, the motto “keep it simple” isn’t always followed! For the most part, satellites, spacecraft, telescopes, and the many other technologies that allow humans to study and explore the Universe are the result of highly-technical and complex feats of engineering. But sometimes, it is the simplest ideas that offer the most innovative solutions. This is especially true when it comes to the today’s space agencies, who are concerned with cutting costs and increasing accessibility to space. A good example is the Fenix propulsion system, a proposal created by Italian techRead More →

Uh oh, Mars Doesn’t Have Enough Carbon Dioxide to be Terraformed For almost a century now, the concept of terraforming has been explored at length by both science fiction writers and scientists alike. Much like setting foot on another planet or traveling to the nearest star, the idea of altering an uninhabitable planet to make it suitable for humans is a dream many hope to see accomplished someday. At present, much of that hope and speculation is aimed at our neighboring planet, Mars. But is it actually possible to terraform Mars using our current technology? According to a new NASA-sponsored study by a pair ofRead More →

With All These New Planets Found in the Habitable Zone, Maybe it’s Time to Fine Tune the Habitable Zone In the past few decades, thousands of extra-solar planets have been discovered within our galaxy. As of July 28th, 2018, a total of 3,374 extra-solar planets have been confirmed in 2,814 planetary systems. While the majority of these planets have been gas giants, an increasing number have been terrestrial (i.e. rocky) in nature and were found to be orbiting within their stars’ respective habitable zones (HZ). However, as the case of the Solar System shows, HZs do not necessary mean a planet can support life. EvenRead More →

Our Book: The Universe Today Ultimate Guide to Viewing the Cosmos The Universe Today Ultimate Guide to Viewing the Cosmos by David Dickinson with Fraser Cain Have you ever wanted to get into the hobby of astronomy but don’t know where to start? It can be challenging, especially with the bewildering array of telescopes, objects in the night sky, and techniques. Our new book, The Universe Today Ultimate Guide to Viewing the Cosmos, is all you need to get started. It’s written by David Dickinson, the Universe Today reporter who covers skywatching and astronomical events, with additional material from Fraser Cain, publisher of Universe Today,Read More →

Einstein Was Right… Again! Successful Test of General Relativity Near a Supermassive Black Hole In 1915, Albert Einstein published his famous Theory of General Relativity, which provided a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of space and time. This theory gave rise to the modern theory of gravitation and revolutionized our understanding of physics. Even though a century has passed since then, scientists are still conducting experiments that confirm his theory’s predictions. Thanks to recent observations made by a team of international astronomers (known as the GRAVITY collaboration), the effects of General Relativity have been revealed using a Supermassive Black Hole (SMBH) forRead More →

Catch Comet C/2017 S3 PanSTARRS in Outburst Comet C/2017 S3 PanSTARRS from July 22nd. Image credit and copyright: hodorgabor Comets are one of those great question marks in observational astronomy. Though we can plot their orbits thanks to Newton and Kepler, just how bright they’ll be and whether or not they will fizzle or fade is always a big unknown, especially if they’re a dynamic newcomer from the Oort Cloud just visiting the inner solar system for the first time. We had just such a surprise from a cosmic visitor over the past few weeks, as comet C/2017 S3 PanSTARRS erupted twice, brightening into binocularRead More →

New Photos of Saturn and Mars from Hubble During the summer of 2018, the planets of Mars and Saturn (one after the other) have been in opposition. In astronomical terms, opposition refers to when a planet is on the opposite side of the Earth relative to the Sun. This not only means that the planet is closer to Earth in its respective orbit, but that is also fully lit by the Sun (as seen from Earth) and much more visible. As a result, astronomers are able to observe these planets in greater detail. The Hubble Space Telescope took advantage of this situation to do whatRead More →

Mars is 1000x Drier Than the Driest Places on Earth For generations, many have dreamed about the day when it would be possible to set foot on Mars – aka. “Earth’s Twin” planet. And in the past few years, multiple orbiters, landers and rovers have revealed evidence of past water on Mars, not to mention the possibility that water still exists underground. These findings have fueled the desire to send crewed missions to Mars, not to mention proposals to establish a colony there. However, this enthusiasm may seem a little misguided when you consider all the challenges the Martian environment presents. In addition to itRead More →

Titan Looks Cool in Infrared The Cassini spacecraft ended its mission on September 15th, 2017, when it crashed into Saturn’s atmosphere, thus preventing any possible contamination of the system’s moons. Nevertheless, the wealth of data the probe collected during the thirteen years it spent orbiting Saturn (of the gas giant, its rings, and its many moons) continues to be analyzed by scientists – with amazing results! Case in point, the Cassini team recently released a series of colorful images that show what Titan looks like in infrared. The images were constructing using 13 years of data that was accumulated by the spacecraft’s Visual and Infrared MappingRead More →

Was There a Time When the Moon was Habitable? To put it simply, the Earth’s Moon is a dry, airless place where nothing lives. Aside from concentrations of ice that exist in permanently-shaded craters in the polar regions, the only water on the moon is believed to exist beneath the surface. What little atmosphere there is consists of elements released from the interior (some of which are radioactive) and helium-4 and neon, which are contributed by solar wind. However, astronomers have theorized that there may have been a time when the Moon might have been inhabitable. According to a new study by an astrophysicist andRead More →

Underground Liquid Water Found on Mars! According to evidence gathered by multiple robotic orbiters, rovers, and landers over the course of several decades, scientists understand that Mars was once a warmer, watery place. But between 4.2 and 3.7 billion years ago, this began to change. As Mars magnetic field disappeared, the atmosphere slowly began to be stripped away by solar wind, leaving the surface the cold and dry and making it impossible for water to exist in liquid form. While much of the planet’s water is now concentrated in the polar ice caps, scientists have speculated some of Mars’ past water could still be locatedRead More →

Andromeda Shredded and Consumed a Massive Galaxy About Two Billion Years Ago Scientists have long understood that in the course of cosmic evolution, galaxies become larger by consuming smaller galaxies. The evidence of this can be seen by observing galactic halos, where the stars of cannibalized galaxies still remain. This is certainly true of the Andromeda Galaxy (aka. M31, Earth’s closest neighbor) which has a massive and nearly-invisible halo of stars that is larger than the galaxy itself. For some time, scientists believed that this halo was the result of hundreds of smaller mergers. But thanks to a new study by a team of researchersRead More →

Mars Meets the MiniMoon During the Longest Total Lunar Eclipse of the Century A blood red moon captured during the total lunar eclipse of January 31st, 2018. Image credit and copyright: Eliot Herman The Blood Moon cometh. One of the top astronomy events of 2018 occurs on the evening of Friday, July 27th, when the Moon enters the shadow of the Earth for a total lunar eclipse. In the vernacular that is the modern internet, this is what’s becoming popularly known as a “Blood Moon,” a time when the Moon reddens due to the refracted sunlight from a thousand sunsets falling upon it. Standing onRead More →

Life on Europa Would be Protected by Just a Few Centimeters of Ice Ever since the Galileo probe provided compelling evidence for the existence of a global ocean beneath the surface of Europa in the 1990s, scientists have wondered when we might be able to send another mission to this icy moon and search for possible signs of life. Most of these mission concepts call for an orbiter or lander than will study Europa’s surface, searching the icy sheet for signs of biosignatures turned up from the interior. Unfortunately, Europa’s surface is constantly bombarded by radiation, which could alter or destroy material transported to theRead More →

This is a Photo of Neptune, From the Ground! ESO’s New Adaptive Optics Makes Ground Telescopes Ignore the Earth’s Atmosphere In 2007, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) completed work on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory in northern Chile. This ground-based telescope is the world’s most advanced optical instrument, consisting of four Unit Telescopes with main mirrors (measuring 8.2 meters in diameter) and four movable 1.8-meter diameter Auxiliary Telescopes. Recently, the VLT was upgraded with a new instrument known as the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE), a panoramic integral-field spectrograph that works at visible wavelengths. Thanks to the new adaptive optics modeRead More →

This Stunning Photo Shows the Martian Dust Storm as it was Just Getting Going The weather patterns on Mars are rather fascinating, owing to their particular similarities and differences with those of Earth. For one, the Red Planet experiences dust storms that are not dissimilar to storms that happen regularly here on Earth. Due to the lower atmospheric pressure, these storms are much less powerful than hurricanes on Earth, but can grow so large that they cover half the planet. Recently, the ESA’s Mars Express orbiter captured images of the towering cloud front of a dust storm located close to Mars’ northern polar region. ThisRead More →

Twelve New Moons Discovered Around Jupiter, and One of Them is Pretty Odd! The gas giant Jupiter, which was named in honor of the king of the gods in the Roman pantheon, has always lived up to its name. In addition to being the largest planet in the Solar System – with two and a half times the mass of all the other planets combined – it also has an incredibly powerful magnetic field and the most intense storms of any planet in the Solar System. What’s more, it is home to some of the largest moons in the Solar System (known as the GalileanRead More →