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Sunday, December 25, 2022
Friday, December 23, 2022
🚀 December 23, 2022: InSight is Gone, Webb Peers into a Stellar Nursery, Why DART was so Successful, And More...
Last Newsletter of 2022
Hi everyone! I just wanted to write a brief note and let you know that this will be the last newsletter I'll be writing for 2022. I'll take most of next week off and back again in the new year.
Thanks to everyone who has subscribed to the newsletter, and a special thanks to all of the Patrons who support our work and make it so that these newsletters can be sent ad-free. It's an honor to bring you this space news every week.
From all of us at Universe Today, I hope you have a wonderful holiday and a great new year.
See you in 2023!
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InSight Officially Dead // Detecting Warp Drives // New SLS Engine
It's official, InSight is gone. Perseverance is putting samples onto the surface of Mars. More scientific results from James Webb, and using gravitational wave observatories to detect warp drives.
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LAST WEEK: Accident on the ISS, JWST Deep Field, Space Habitat Goes BANG!
Splashdown! Artemis I has returned home. Webb has made its first Deep Field survey. Listen to the sound of a dust devil on Mars, and a Space journalist is going to the Moon.
Read the full story by Anton Pozdnyakov
What FUSION IGNITION Really Means for The Future of Energy Production
This week we got an announcement that a historical milestone was achieved. Fusion Ignition. But what does it really mean for the future of energy production, what most stories don't say, and should you be excited after all?
Could Space-Based Satellites Power Remote Mines?
Solar energy on Earth is spotty, thanks to the day/night cycle and clouds. Put your solar panels in space, and you can harvest energy 24/7. It's so expensive to launch satellites into orbit, and the significant loss of energy through transmission means that space power is still searching for its "killer app." A new suggestion is to use solar power from space to power mining operations, typically powered by giant diesel generators that need fuel to be constantly trucked in. Does it make financial sense?
Read the full story by Andy Tomaswick
Gravitational Wave Observatories Could Search for Warp Drive Signatures
Although Star Trek has given us a glimpse of a possible science fiction future, we have no idea how to build a practical warp drive. According to researchers, we could use gravitational wave observatories to search the Universe for other civilizations who have mastered the technique. The current detectors would only be able to sense massive warp drives with the mass of a gas giant planet, but future observatories could see less massive, more practical starships.
Read the full story by Matt Williams
JWST Sees Furious Star Formation in a Stellar Nursery
We saw the first science images from JWST in July, but only preliminary science results. Another paper has been released from that first crop of photos, revealing details on the iconic Carina Nebula. By studying the pictures, researchers have discovered dozens of young, hot stars that were previously invisible. The telescope revealed an outflow of gas and dust extending light-years from their stars and huge cavities carved out in their surroundings.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
Giant Exoplanet is Spiraling Inward to its Doom
The first planet ever discovered by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope is Kepler-1658b, a hot Jupiter located about 2,600 light-years from Earth. Astronomers have been monitoring the planet ever since and discovered that the period of its orbit is getting shorter. The planet is spiraling inward to its doom. Don't panic; the planet won't be engulfed by the star for another 2.5 billion years. This discovery will help astronomers understand the dynamics of star systems and maybe help see what the future holds for the Solar System.
Read the full story by Carolyn Collins Petersen
Hubble and Spitzer Team up to Find a Pair of Waterworld Exoplanets
Astronomers have discovered many planets, from small rocky worlds orbiting pulsars to gigantic gas giants orbiting their stars every few hours. Now researchers think they've found a new class of planets: water worlds. In a recent study, scientists found two planets in a nearby system that are less dense than rocky worlds but denser than gas giants. Their density indicates that a significant fraction is probably made up of water. The planets aren't located in the star's habitable zone, so they're more like planet-sized Europas than ocean-covered water worlds.
Read the full story by Matt Williams
We Could Spread Life to the Milky Way With Comets. But Should We?
What happens if we explore the Milky Way and discover that it's devoid of life? Barren rocks extending to infinity. One idea is to fill comets with bacteria and send them into the cosmos to spread life to other worlds. It's theoretically possible and might even explain how life arrived on Earth billions of years ago. This strategy has ethical implications; it's not a journey we should undertake unless we're absolutely sure we're alone in the Universe.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
Astronomers Spot Stars in the Most Distant Galaxies for the First Time
Thanks to JWST, astronomers are peering ever closer to the beginning of the Universe, seeing how the first dwarf galaxies assembled into larger and larger structures. But what about the galaxies themselves? Astronomers used Webb to examine a quasar about a billion years ago and could see stars for the first time at that range. These observations will help them see the processes inside the first galaxies that feed and support quasars, which can impact future star formation.
Read the full story by Matt Williams
Mental Health in Space With Logan Smith
Space madness is a common concept in science fiction. But how it works in reality? How dangerous are mental health breakdowns and what can we do to prevent them?
Comet Impacts Could Have Brought the Raw Ingredients for Life to Europa's Ocean
Scientists believe there's a vast ocean of liquid water underneath a thick shell of ice on Jupiter's moon Europa. Could there be life there beneath the ice? A new study suggests that comet impacts could have delivered the raw ingredients for life to Europa. The ice shell could be dozens of kilometers thick, so it isn't easy to imagine how a single comet impact could reach the water below. But a comet might only need to make it halfway, releasing the chemicals for life into subsurface water cracks, and then they percolate lower through eons to reach the sub-ice oceans.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
What Kind of an Impact did DART Have on Dimorphos? The Science Results are Here
The world watched as NASA's DART spacecraft slammed into asteroid Dimophos, changing the space-rock's orbit. Now the scientific data are out, and we're learning just what kind of an impact the spacecraft had. The scientists reported that DART altered Dimorphos's orbital period by 33 minutes and caused about a million kilograms of debris to eject from its surface. This ejected debris acted like a rocket, giving the impact an additional boost and causing a 3.6X more significant effect than if DART had just splatted onto the asteroid.
Read the full story by Matt Williams
Dark Antimatter, Human Missions to Asteroids, Rockets and Global Warming | Q&A 204
Does the Black Knight satellite really exist? Can JWST explore the Oort cloud? Did we hopelessly contaminate Mars with life? Would I fly on the dearMoon mission without the abort system? Should we do crewed missions to near-earth asteroids? Answers to all these questions and more in this week's Q&A with Fraser Cain!
Astronomers Scanned 12 Planets for Alien Signals While They Were in Front of Their Stars
Thousands of stars in our corner of the Milky Way could harbor an alien civilization. With limited radio telescope time, how do we prioritize our search? One idea is to wait for a rare event, an apparent special occasion that another civilization might choose to signal our way. A group of researchers has tested the idea that aliens might wait until their planet passes before their star to broadcast a signal to us. They scanned 12 planets and didn't turn up anything, but the search continues.
Read the full story by Matt Williams
Webb Stares Deeply Into the Universe, Showing How Galaxies Assemble
The Hubble Deep Field is one of the most critical observations ever made by the iconic observatory, staring for days into a seemingly empty part of the Universe and revealing thousands of galaxies. The James Webb Space Telescope has gone further, gazing at the same region of the Universe, capturing details 15 times fainter, and finding tens of thousands of galaxies. From the deep field, astronomers are learning how the first galaxies assembled into the larger structures we see in the Universe today.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
This Will Probably Be InSight's Last Picture Before it Runs Out of Power Forever
It's been a good run, but NASA's InSight Lander has finally exhausted its power supplies, going dark and losing contact with Earth. Engineers at NASA last heard from InSight on Dec. 15th, getting one last picture of the spacecraft covered in clogging dust. It was hoped that InSight would last a year on Mars, but it made it to four years, detecting over 1,300 seismic events, 50 of which were clear enough to reveal their locations on Mars. InSight even noticed a meteorite impact on Mars which was later confirmed from space.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
NASA Just Tested a new Engine That Will Launch Artemis V and Beyond
NASA's Space Launch System uses the same RS-25 engines as the Space Shuttle. I don't mean the same style; I mean recycled engines from retired shuttles. They'll be out of used engines in a few more launches, so NASA is buying more from the manufacturer. They recently tested a new RS-25E engine at the Stennis Space Center, firing it for almost three and a half minutes. Once the evaluation stage is complete, these engines will be installed in the upcoming Artemis V and VI missions.
Read the full story by Matt Williams
Perseverance Places its First Sample on the Surface of Mars. One Day This Will be in the Hands of Scientists on Earth
No, that's not a light-saber on the surface of Mars; it's a sample collected by NASA's Perseverance Rover, placed onto the surface of the Red Planet. One of the rover's goals is to deliver a collection of samples from Mars into the sample return mission that will carry them back to Earth. As backups, Perseverance is also depositing samples onto the surface of Mars, which could be picked up by a helicopter flying as part of the sample return mission. If all goes well, we could see these samples back on Earth by the decade's end.
Read the full story by Carolyn Collins Petersen
A Star Came too Close to a Black Hole. It Didn't End Well
When stars venture too close to black holes, the immense tidal forces tear them apart, adding their mass to the black hole. Astronomers have seen this happen a few times, but they recently discovered an event that occurred only 250 million light-years away in a nearby galaxy (astronomically speaking). The black hole is 10 million times more massive than our Sun, and the star's destruction can last for weeks or even months from start to finish, giving astronomers plenty of time to witness the carnage.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
Scientists Investigate Potential Regolith Origin on Uranus' Moon, Miranda
Uranus's moon Miranda is one of the most fascinating places in the Solar System. Unfortunately, we've only visited it once close up, thanks to NASA's Voyager 2. In a recent study, scientists are investigating the possibility that this heavily cracked moon can have an internal ocean of liquid water like Europa or Enceladus. The researchers studied Voyager 2 pictures of Miranda to see if the surface regolith can act as insulation for an ocean beneath the surface.
Read the full story by Laurence Tognetti
Antihelium Generated in the Large Hadron Collider can Help in the Search for Dark Matter
Large particle colliders can generate antimatter particles as massive as antihelium. By doing this, physicists are gaining insights into the search for dark matter in the Universe. One theory for dark energy is that it could be annihilated in extreme environments, releasing atoms of antihelium into the Universe. By creating these particles in the large hadron collider, scientists have discovered that they should be stable enough to cross vast distances in the Universe and be detected here on Earth.
Read the full story by Matt Williams
Other Interesting Space Stuff
- The Universe is Brighter Than we Thought
- An Ongoing Study of Jupiter's Cloudtops has Been Going on for 40 Years
- Is the Milky Way... Normal?
- A Star Came too Close to a Black Hole. It Didn't end Well
- Despite the low air Pressure, Wind Turbines Might Actually Work on Mars
- Many of the World's Greatest Observatories Suffer From Some Light Pollution
- Webb's new Image Reveals a Galaxy Awash in Star Formation
- Power on the Moon. What Will it Take to Survive the Lunar Night?
- Minerals Could Form on Mars Without an Oxygen-Rich Atmosphere
- NASA has Begun Building a Space Telescope That Will Hunt Asteroids to Help Defend Earth
- Space Weather is an Ever-Increasing Threat to Humanity. But it's not the Sun's Fault, it's Ours
- Anti
Amazing Astrophotography on @universetoday
Webb's New Image Reveals a Galaxy Awash in Star Formation
Another terrific image from the James Webb Space Telescope. You're looking at the face-on galaxy NGC 7469, known to harbor vast star formation regions through its spiral arms. The galaxy's core has an actively feeding supermassive black hole, contributing to its central brightness. Webb also revealed the outflow of molecular gas from the galaxy, hurtling outward at 6.4 million kph and crashing into the surrounding halo of gas and dust.
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Universe Today
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Friday, December 16, 2022
🚀 December 16, 2022: Splashdown! Artemis I is Over, Fusion Ignition Achieved, Best Landing Sites on Mars, And More...
We Have Ignition! Fusion Breakthrough Raises Hopes — and Questions
Researchers at the National Ignition Facility have made a historic breakthrough, releasing more energy in a fusion experiment than was pumped in. They fired 192 high-powered lasers at a tiny capsule that contained a mix of deuterium and tritium, using 2.05 megajoules of energy. They extracted 3.15 megajoules of neutron-producing fusion energy, a gain of 1.5. This is a tremendous accomplishment, demonstrating that the technique works, but we're still a long way to commercial fusion plants.
Read the full story by Alan Boyle
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Should You Get a Degree, Straight Line Space Travel, Astronomy in 100 Years | Q&A 203
How far away do constellations start to change? What if The Big Bang was more energetic? Is a university degree worth it? Why don't we travel through the solar system in straight lines? All this and more in this week's Q&A with Fraser Cain.
🎧 Subscribe to our podcasts:
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- Astronomy Cast. Your weekly facts-based journey through the cosmos, which I co-host with astronomer Dr. Pamela Gay.
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Orion Splashes Down in the Pacific Ocean, Completing the Artemis I Mission
Splashdown! On December 11th, 2022, after almost 26 days in space, NASA's Orion capsule landed in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja, California. It had completed a multi-million-kilometer journey flying past the Moon and testing the techniques and technologies that would eventually carry humans to the Moon and back. The entire mission had almost no problems, but its payload of Cubesats wasn't so lucky - half had already failed. With Artemis I over, NASA is preparing for Artemis II, which is expected to fly in 2024.
Read the full story by Matt Williams
Asteroids Didn't Create the Moon's Largest Craters. Left-Over Planetesimals Did
The surface of the Moon is covered in craters large and small - astronomers have found over 9,000. The most significant impacts are known as "basins," and astronomers now believe that planetesimals, leftover from the formation of the Solar System, caused these vast regions. There are about 50 of these larger impact basins on the Moon, the largest of which could hold the state of Texas. These objects would have been dozens or even hundreds of kilometers across.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
The Voids Closest to Us May Not be Entirely Empty
Galaxy clusters clump together through mutual gravity, with vast voids opening up between them as the Universe expands. We can't see many galaxies in these voids, and astronomers assumed they'd also be free of dark matter. But that might not be true. Researchers simulated the seven nearest voids to the Milky Way and found that they weren't always free of dark matter. Many don't even have densities below the Universe's average density.
Read the full story by Paul M. Sutter
Accident on the ISS // JWST Deep Field // Space Habitat Goes BANG!
Splashdown! Artemis I has returned home. Webb has made its first Deep Field survey. Listen to the sound of a dust devil on Mars, and a Space journalist is going to the Moon.
Sierra Space Inflated a Habitat to Destruction, Testing its Limits Before Going to Orbit
Pop goes the space habitat. Engineers at Sierra Space pushed their new LIFE habitat to destruction in a recent Ultimate Burst Pressure (UBP). They filled the inflatable habitat with gaseous nitrogen to test its materials' strength. NASA required them to reach 182.4 PSI, but they made it past that milestone, eventually reaching 204 PSI when the module blew apart. Their next step will be to test a full-scale model in 2023 and then fly a working module to space a few years later.
Read the full story by Nancy Atkinson
Birds use Dynamic Soaring to Pick Up Velocity. We Could Use a Similar Trick to Go Interstellar
Birds are the masters of flight and have evolved various tricks to go faster when they need to by exploiting different wind speeds. A team of engineers has proposed taking this idea to space, using different speeds from the solar wind to help a spacecraft go faster. Instead of a traditional solar sail or laser sail, the engineers suggest using an electric sail that interacts with the charged particles in the solar wind, exploiting different regions of the heliosphere. It's theoretically possible to reach 6,000 km/s or 2% of the speed of light.
Read the full story by Matt Williams
Watch a NASA Supercut of the Entire Artemis I Mission, From Launch to Landing
Too busy to watch every single second of the Artemis I mission? No problem; NASA just released a supercut of all the significant events from the launch, flight, and landing of SLS and Orion. The full video is about 25 minutes long, so about 1 minute's footage for each day of the mission. You can see the launch of SLS from many angles, the flight of Orion past the Moon and then its return trajectory, and finally, the landing and recovery of the capsule on Earth. Artemis II isn't scheduled to fly until 2024, so this will have to keep us entertained until then.
Read the full story by Nancy Atkinson
NASA Artemis I Mission Explained
It's been 50 years since humans set foot on the Moon. Entire generations were born after this historic accomplishment. But humanity has kept its eyes on the sky and vowed to return. This week marks the end of the beginning of that journey, the completion of Artemis I, sending a human-rated capsule around the Moon and back again. With Orion safely back on Earth, let's look at this fantastic accomplishment and ponder what comes next.
We Could Simulate Living in Lunar Lava Tubes in Caves on Earth
The Moon is a hostile environment for anyone living on the surface. But caverns and ancient lava tubes could protect explorers from the harsh lunar environment, providing reasonable temperatures and blocking radiation. A new paper suggests that a simulated lunar base could be built on Earth inside Karst caves. These caves are found worldwide and could house a small human outpost. Many of the same challenges for living on the Moon would happen in these caves, too, like access to power, supplies, and construction. And we could learn more about caves at the same time.
Read the full story by Andy Tomaswick
Iconic Earthrise By Artemis 1, Rule-Breaking GRB, SpaceX Launches Starshield
In case you missed it, here's a roundup of the space news we reported last week. Construction begins on the Square Kilometer Array, the Iconic Earthrise image from Artemis 1; SpaceX launches its new Starshield service, a gamma-ray burst that breaks all the rules; evidence of a tsunami on Mars, and more.
Read the full story by Anton Pozdnyakov
A New Way to Produce Primordial Black Holes in the Early Universe
One exotic explanation for dark matter is primordial black holes. These could be black holes of various masses, produced at the very beginning of the Universe in overdense regions. Previous theories about primordial black holes rely on violent, rapid transitions through phases of matter. But a new paper has reexamined the Standard Model of particle physics and suggests that there could be a way that smooth transitions from one state to another could lead to the formation of black holes.
Read the full story by Paul M. Sutter
Perseverance's Latest Sample is Just Crumbled Regolith. When Scientists get Their Hands on it, we'll Learn so Much About how to Live on Mars
NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover is toiling away on the Red Planet, gathering samples scientists will analyze on Earth in the next decade. All of the collected samples have been rock cores, but recently, a sample made of crumbled regolith was gathered. This sample will be critical because it will hold a record of the evolution of Mars's climate. We know that the regolith contains toxic perchlorates, which could be dangerous if it gets into astronauts' lungs. Hopefully, we'll learn how to mitigate the risks before astronauts make the long voyage to Mars.
Read the full story by Andy Tomaswick
To Fight Climate Change, We Could Block the Sun. A Lightweight Solar Sail Could Make it Feasible
As the world struggles to get its carbon emissions under control, governments will soon consider geoengineering solutions to address climate change. One idea is to put a solar sail at the Earth-Sun L1 Lagrange point. This would partly shade the Earth, reducing the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface and giving nations more time to get their emissions under control. The weight of a sail like this has always been a big challenge, but a new paper suggests an innovative way to make a more lightweight sail. But there's no way to reduce the unintended consequences.
Read the full story by Scott Alan Johnston
Will This be the Iconic Picture From Artemis I?
The Apollo missions gave us some iconic images, from the Blue Earth image of the entire planet to the Earthrise image. What will be the iconic image for the Artemis I mission? Let me nominate this one: a spectacular view of a crescent Earth rising above the lunar surface with the Orion capsule in the foreground. Orion took this image right after it completed its final burn past the Moon on December 5th, the 20th day of its mission. During this burn, it came within 130 km of the lunar surface.
Read the full story by Andy Tomaswick
This Interactive Tool Lets you Simulate Asteroid Impacts Anywhere on Earth
We often talk about how devastating asteroid impacts can be and why they're an existential threat to humanity. How bad are they? Well, find out for yourself with this new interactive asteroid impact simulator. This lets you smash a 1-mile asteroid into your home city and see the damage. How big of an area was vaporized or lit on fire? How far away does the shockwave flatten trees and buildings? It's fascinating and terrifying. Give it a try yourself!
Read the full story by Andy Tomaswick
A Supercomputer Climate Model is so Accurate it Predicted the Weather Patterns Seen in the Famous 1972 "Blue Marble" Image of Earth
You must be familiar with this iconic picture of Earth taken by the astronauts of Apollo 17 as they were returning home from the Moon in 1972: the "Blue Marble." Climate scientists accurately recreated the weather patterns seen in this image purely with a supercomputer simulation. Their simulation ran on the Levante supercomputer at the German Climate Computing Center and was so robust that it could draw up details about Earth to a resolution of 1 km. It's incredible to compare the two images.
Read the full story by Andy Tomaswick
Life on Proxima b Is Not Having a Good Time
Astronomers know of an exoplanet in the habitable zone of nearby Proxima Centauri. We don't know if there's life on the planet, but it's having a miserable time if it is inhabited. Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star with only a fraction of the mass of the Sun, so planets have to be close to being habitable. Unfortunately, red dwarf stars are much more chaotic than stars like the Sun, blasting out enormous flares and coronal mass ejections. And since the planet is close to the star, it takes about 1000 times more solar wind radiation than Earth.
Read the full story by Paul M. Sutter
A Black Hole has Been Burping for 100 Million Years
It's believed that there are supermassive black holes in the hearts of almost every galaxy in the Universe. When these black holes are actively feeding, material piles up in a vast accretion disk, and powerful jets form. These jets can flare up when the black hole gorges on new material. A recent study describes the behavior of a black hole that released one of the brightest bursts of radiation ever seen. As the black hole feeds, it hurls out hot plasma into its environment, creating vast radio bubbles surrounding its galaxy.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
Perhaps a Supervoid Doesn't Explain the Mysterious CMB Cold Spot
One exciting feature in the Cosmic Microwave Background is the mysterious "cold spot." It's one place in the CMB where temperatures are slightly colder than you would expect from the standard model of cosmology. The accepted explanation is that it's a region where radiation from the CMB has traveled from an enormous void, which is less dense than the rest of the Universe. A new study suggests that a cosmic supervoid wouldn't explain the cold spot, as that radiation would have passed through the area before the Universe had expanded significantly.
Read the full story by Paul M. Sutter
Black Holes Shouldn't be Able to Merge, but Dozens of Mergers Have Been Detected. How Do They Do It?
Astronomers have detected dozens of mergers between black holes thanks to LIGO and other gravitational wave observatories. We know this is happening. But according to current theories, black holes shouldn't be able to merge easily; instead, they should settle into relatively stable orbits around one another. Researchers believe that the black holes need to be in a busy environment, like inside a globular star cluster, for there to be enough interactions to push black holes together into a collision.
Read the full story by Carolyn Collins Petersen
Webb Completes its First "Deep Field" With Nine Days of Observing Time. What did it Find?
The Hubble Deep Field is one of the most famous results from the long-lived space telescope, peering more deeply into the Universe than had ever been done before. Once James Webb launched, we wondered when we'd get a JWST version of the Deep Field using its vastly more sensitive instruments. A first survey has been completed, using 9 hours of Webb observing time to stare at a single region of space. As you can imagine, the survey turned up some interesting results.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
How Growing Giant Planets Fight for Food
Newly forming stars surround themselves with accretion disks of gas and dust. Inside these disks, planets form, gathering material until the star ignites and blasts away the remaining material with its stellar winds. To form giant planets like Jupiter, which is three times more massive than Saturn, the supply of raw material needs to be shut off relatively early in a star system's formation. This stops the other planets from growing as large before the stellar winds clear out the system.
Read the full story by Paul M. Sutter
Astronomers Spot Three Interacting Systems With Twin Discs
Stars and their planets form out of vast clouds of gas and dust. The material is pulled inward by gravity, and the newly-forming system spins faster and faster, flattening out into a protoplanetary disk. That's the theory, anyway, but astronomers have discovered that star-forming regions can spin out multiple systems rather than just one. These solar siblings can interact with each other as the star and planets are still forming with unpredictable results.
Read the full story by Matt Williams
ESA's Upcoming Mission Will Tell us if Venus is Still Volcanically Active
There are spacecraft at the Moon and Mars imaging their surfaces with incredible detail, down to resolutions of dozens of centimeters. But Venus is covered in thick clouds that obscure its surface. The highest-resolution images we've ever gotten of Venus come from NASA's Magellan spacecraft, which used radar to scan the surface to a resolution of dozens of meters. ESA's upcoming EnVision mission will be flying to Venus in the 2030s and will be equipped with a subsurface radar sounder that will scan at much higher resolution. It would tell us if there has been recent volcanic activity at Venus.
Read the full story by Carolyn Collins Petersen
Hubble Sees a Glittering Jewel in the Small Magellanic Cloud. But the Jewel is Disappearing
A new image from the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed a glittering open star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud called NGC 376. Open clusters like this remain after a vast star-forming nebula has lost all its excess gas and dust, revealing the stars to the Universe. But NGC 376 is being dismantled by the gravitational forces in the Small Magellanic Cloud, and astronomers estimate that it might have already lost 90% of its mass.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
The Formation of the Southern Ring Nebula was Messier Than the Death of a Single Star
When the first science images from JWST were unveiled in July, we saw a new view of the Southern Ring Nebula. Now the science is out, and we've learned how this beautiful planetary nebula formed. There's a white dwarf star at the center, but it's not alone. There's a low-mass companion object orbiting at about the distance of Pluto. With further study, astronomers now suspect that four stars are interacting in the region, whipping up the gas and dust forming the strange structure of the nebula.
Read the full story by Brian Koberlein
The Oort Cloud Could Have More Rock Than Previously Believed
The Oort Cloud is a vast expanse of primordial ice and rock that stretches almost halfway to the nearest star system. We only know it's there because of the occasional long-period comets that drop into the inner Solar System. Astronomers assumed this region mainly was water ice, but new evidence suggests that the Oort Cloud contains more rock than previously believed. Astronomers found a meteorite that hit the atmosphere over Alberta in 2021 and traced its trajectory to the Oort Cloud. It penetrated more deeply into the atmosphere than a purely icy object should have, which means it was rocky.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
Perseverance Heard a Dust Devil on Mars, and Now You Can Too
We've seen images of dust devils on Mars, both from the surface and from space, but we've never heard them before. Until now. NASA's Perseverance Rover is equipped with a microphone and has already listened to the wind blowing, the sand shifting, and its own mechanical noises on Mars. And now the rover has captured a whirling dust devil that passed directly over its location. Check out the article, and you can hear it for yourself.
Read the full story by Nancy Atkinson
Could Life Survive on Frigid Exo-Earths? Maybe Under Ice Sheets
The traditional "habitable zone" is a region where liquid water can exist on the surface of a terrestrial exoplanet. But what about worlds that are just outside their star's habitable zone? Could they still have life? A new study suggests that planets covered by ice sheets could still generate enough heat to create a persistent layer of liquid water under the ice or trapped between layers of ice. Life could survive (but probably not thrive) in those regions under the ice, waiting for the star to heat up enough to melt the ice and turn the planet green.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
Rubble Pile Asteroids Might be the Best Places to Build Space Habitats
Space habitats are a fixture in science fiction, with humans living and working far away from Planet Earth. But space is a harsh environment, and humans are fragile compared to robots, needing artificial gravity, protection from radiation, and resources like air and water. What's a realistic way to build a space colony? According to a new study, rubble pile asteroids like Ryugu or Bennu might hold the key. A strong, lightweight mesh could enclose an asteroid and then be spun up, with the debris forming a habitable ring in space.
Read the full story by Brian Koberlein
Where are the Best Places to Land Humans on Mars?
Only robots have visited Mars, but humans will eventually make the trip to the Red Planet. Where should they go? Many fascinating places have scientific value, like canyons, volcanoes, craters, and polar regions. You'll also want to ensure resources are available to build structures and gather other supplies. Researchers have evaluated potential landing sites across various criteria and have come up with their favorite locations to send humans.
Read the full story by Carolyn Collins Petersen
A Soyuz Capsule on ISS is Leaking Coolant Into Space
The Soyuz spacecraft attached to the International Space Station is leaking coolant into space. Mission controllers aren't sure how it happened, but it's possible that it was caused by a micrometeorite strike to the station. This is a big problem since the Soyuz is the only way for the three Russian cosmonauts to return to Earth. The temperature inside the Soyuz is rising, and it's unclear if it can be used safely on a return flight. Russia may need to send up a new Soyuz as quickly as possible.
Read the full story by Carolyn Collins Petersen
Here's a new Image of the Carina Nebula From Hubble
The famous Carina Nebula is one of the most photographed objects in the night sky, located about 7,500 light-years away. This enormous star-forming nebula contains many gigantic stars, some of which are 50-100 times the mass of the Sun. One of the most famous of these is Eta Carina, which is expected to be one of the next stars to detonate as supernovae in the coming years. A new photo has been released from the Hubble Space Telescope that reveals the Carina Nebula in stunning detail.
Read the full story by Nancy Atkinson
Earth's Water is 4.5 Billion Years Old
Astronomers are still trying to find where the Earth's water came from. Was it delivered by comets or asteroids, or was the water part of the accretion disk where the Earth formed billions of years ago? A new paper has tracked the age of the Earth's water, dating it to about 4.5 billion years ago, just a few hundred million years after the Earth formed. This doesn't explain the source, but it tells us when water arrived on Earth and can help confirm future theories.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
NOAA's New Weather Satellite is Operational, and its Pictures of Earth are Gorgeous
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched its newest weather satellite, NOAA-21, on November 10, 2022. This spacecraft follows a polar orbit, orbiting the Earth 14 times daily and imaging the entire planet twice daily. In addition to providing enhanced weather monitoring, NOAA-21 takes stunning images of the world and its ever-changing weather systems. Mission controllers released this entire photo of Earth, taken over half a day, revealing many interesting features across the planet.
Read the full story by Evan Gough
Avatars Return to the Movies — and Find a Real-Life Foothold
"Avatar: The Way of the Water" opens in theatres today, 13 years since the original movie was released. In this article, Alan Boyle looks into the science of real-life avatars, allowing a human controller to remotely pilot a robot in a hostile environment. Japan's All Nippon Airways has sponsored a $10 million XPRIZE and awarded several prizes to teams in November for developing avatar technology.
Read the full story by Alan Boyle
Juno's has Been Touring Jupiter's Moons on its Extended Mission. Next Stop: Volcanic Io
NASA's Juno spacecraft has been observing Jupiter for several years, flying close to the giant planet every few months. Now that it's completed its main mission at Jupiter, it's starting to capture images and data of the Jovian moons. It's already observed Ganymede and Europa, and now it's setting its sights on the volcanic moon Io. Over the next 18 months, Juno will make nine flybys of Io, eventually coming within 1,500 kilometers of the surface.
Read the full story by Carolyn Collins Petersen
Other Interesting Space Stuff
- What Does it Take to Make Black Holes Collide?
- Artemis I Splashed Down 50 Years After Apollo 17 Returned Home
- We're Going to see at Least Five More SLS Rockets Launch in the Coming Years
- Gravitational Wave Observatories Could Search for Warp Drive Signatures
- Astronomers Scanned 12 Planets for Alien Signals While They Were in Front of Their Stars
- Aztecs Used an Extremely Accurate Solar Observatory to Manage Their Farming
- Lightweight Picogram-Scale Probes Could be the Best way to Explore Other Star Systems
- Astronomers use the World's Biggest Radio Telescope to map new Features of the Milky Way
- Are Planets Tidally Locked to red Dwarfs Habitable? It's Complicated
- We Could Spread Life to the Milky Way With Comets. But Should we?
- NASA Makes Asteroid Defense a Priority, Moving its NEO Surveyor Mission Into the Development Phase
- Anti-Helium Generated in the Large Hadron Collider can Help in the Search for Dark Matter
- Mars has Bizarre Dunes Thanks to its low Gravity and Strange Winds
- A new Simulation Shows how Supermassive Black Holes Grow With Their Galaxies
- Webb Stares Deeply Into the Universe, Showing how Galaxies Assemble
- Perseverance has Been Busy Collecting Samples on Mars. Here's the Full Collection so far
- Comet Could Have Brought the raw Ingredients for Life to Europa
- JWST Sees Furious Star Formation in a Stellar Nursery
- Webb and Hubble Team up to Find a Pair of Waterworld Exoplanets
- Navigation Could be Done on the Moon Just by Looking at Nearby Landmarks
- What Kind of an Impact did DART Have on Dimorphos? The Science Results are Here
- NASA Just Tested a new Engine That Will Launch Artemis V and Beyond
Amazing Astrophotography on @universetoday
In Case you Missed it, Here are Some Amazing Pictures of Mars Hiding Behind the Moon
Did you catch last week's occultation of Mars by the Moon? We had nothing but clouds here, but other astronomers were more fortunate. Nancy Atkinson reached out to several astronomers and pulled together an article that showcases their work. You'll want to check it out.
We have featured thousands of astrophotographers on our Instagram page, which has more than 200,000 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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Universe Today
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