Last week it was all about InSight. This week, all eyes are on OSIRIS-REx and its arrival at asteroid Bennu. It'll now begin a year of orbiting the asteroid, observing the spacerock from various altitudes. It will take high resolution images of the surface of Bennu, and scientists back on Earth will choose the perfect target for it to try and grab a sample.
If all goes well, OSIRIS-REx will eventually land gently on Bennu. It'll then reach out with its grabber arm and puff out nitrogen dioxide gas and then it'll capture the particles sprayed out. With the sample in hand, it'll make its way back to Earth, delivering up to 2000 grams of fresh asteroid sample into the hands of waiting scientists.
Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today
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Um, yuck? The space station is home to all kinds of Earthly bacteria and molds, but NASA has discovered that particularly troublesome antibiotic resistant bacteria has taken residence on the station. They found examples of several bacteria which are resistant to even the most potent antibiotics like floroquinolone and ciprofloxin. Nothing serious yet, but something to study further.
Okay, I suspect you're probably getting a little sick of the whole Oumuamua speculation. Is it a comet? Is it an asteroid? Is it a comet with asteroid tendencies or vice versa? Rob Reid talks with Dr. Avi Loeb and gets to the bottom of the speculation and where he stands on the matter. Spoiler alert, it's probably not aliens.
You think digital clocks are accurate, just check out the new clock developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Their new clock is based on the oscillation of ytterbium atoms, and would be off by less than a second over the entire 14.8 billion years since the Big Bang. This is about 100 times more accurate than the caeseum clocks physicists have been using.
I already miss the Kepler Space Telescope. :-( But one of the final acts of this prolific planet hunter was to watch the detonation of supernova SN 2018oh, which exploded in February, 2018. It's an example of a Type 1a supernova, where a white dwarf feeds on material from a stellar companion, but it surprised astronomers by brightening three times faster than others of its type.
Thinking of counting all the photons in the Universe? Don't worry, astronomers have already done the math and come up with 4x10^84 photons. That's a 4 followed by 84 zeroes. How did they come up with this number? You'll have to read the article from Dr. Paul Sutter.
The Large Hadron Collider has completed another round of searching for the fundamental particles that make up the Universe. And now the enormous particle accelerator has been shut down to begin two years of upgrades. Once these have been completed, it'll be powered up again in 2021, beginning its third major run of science operations.
Nobody has actually sent a mission up to look at the Sun's northern pole, but astronomers have done the next best thing. They extrapolated data from ESA's Proba-2 satellite to figure out what the region probably looks like. But in 2020, their Solar Orbiter mission will launch and observe these regions directly.
We know that asteroids have impacted the Earth in the past, but now geologists think they've found evidence of a deadly airburst that might have happened more than 3,700 years ago above the Dead Sea. Researchers found evidence of pottery shards and rocks that were heated to immense temperatures, supporting the idea that a meteor detonated in the air like a nuclear bomb.
SpaceX made a fairly routine flight on Monday, lofting a collection of 64 satellites into orbit. What was historic, however, was the fact that this was the third flight for the first stage booster. And after its successful landing, it won't be its last. They tried to capture the fairings again, with Mr. Steven, but failed to get to them before they hit the ocean. Elon Musk said they can still be used for a future flight, though.
You know you're living in the future when the announcement of 100 new exoplanets barely makes headlines. Well, I'm excited, and you should be too. The announcement was made by an international team of astronomers who had confirmed planets first found by NASA's Kepler telescope. In one batch they confirmed 60 planets and then confirmed an additional 44 from another of Kepler's observing runs. That brings the total number of planets to something like a gazillion. I lost count.
When a tiny fleck of paint or piece of space dust slams into a spacecraft at huge velocities, it can create a surprising amount of damage. This is a photograph taken with a microscope that shows just what kind of a crater these impacts can cause. Researchers simulated micrometeorite impacts, firing debris at high velocity to learn what kinds of materials might make the best protection.
A Soyuz rocket blasted off from Kazakhstan earlier this week, like so many have gone before. But this was the first launch after October's launch abort that put the station itself in jeopardy. If the Russians couldn't get astronauts to the station by January they might have needed to abandon it entirely. But now, astronauts Anne McClain, Canadian David Saint-Jacques and cosmonaut Oleg Konenenko are safely on the station and we're back in business.
Humans have been fascinated by the sky for as long as recorded history. And one of the oldest pieces of recorded histories we have are the cave paintings of Europe that date back tens of thousands of years. And it appears that even these ancient people had advanced knowledge of the skies, tracking the equinoxes and major events in the sky in their cave paintings.
Other Interesting Space Stuff
This week we've got a beautiful photo of the Moon taken by @astronewton. The best time to photograph the Moon isn't when it's full, but when it's partly illuminated like this. That's when you get longer shadows that show off all the Moon's structures. Beautiful.
We have featured nearly 1,000 astrophotographers on our Instagram page, which has more than 145,000 followers. Want to do a takeover? Use the hashtag #universetoday and I'll check out your photos.
Find your way across the night sky. Choose a variety of astronomy gear. Follow the Moon and the planets. Find deep sky objects across the seasons in both hemispheres. Observe comets, asteroids, satellites and space stations. Learn to do astrophotography.
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