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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Thanks!
Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today
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