Andy Tomaswick, Author at Universe Today

June 20, 2024June 20, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

Slingshotting Around the Sun Would Make a Spacecraft the Faster Ever

NASA is very interested in developing a propulsion method to allow spacecraft to go faster. We’ve reported several times on different ideas to support that goal, and most of the more successful have utilized the Sun’s gravity well, typically by slingshotting around it, as is commonly done with Jupiter currently. But, there are still significant hurdles when doing so, not the least of which is the energy radiating from the Sun simply vaporizing anything that gets close enough to utilize a gravity assist. That’s the problem a project supported by NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) and run by Jason Benkoski, now of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is trying to solve.

June 19, 2024June 19, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

The Earliest Merging Quasars Ever Seen

This illustration depicts two quasars in the process of merging. There are many unanswered questions around galaxy mergers and the quasars that can result. Image Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Garlick)

Studying the history of science shows how often serendipity plays a role in some of the most important discoveries. Sometimes, the stories are apocryphal, like Newton getting hit on the head with an apple. But sometimes, there’s an element of truth to them. That was the case for a new discovery of the oldest pair of merging quasars ever discovered – and it all started with a pair of red blots on a picture.

June 18, 2024June 18, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

There’s Chang’e-6 on the Far Side of the Moon

The newest phase of China’s lunar exploration project is soon coming to an end. On June 20th, the Chang’e 6 sample return mission starts its journey back to Earth from the far side of the Moon, having already collected samples and blasted itself back into lunar orbit. But since a picture is worth a thousand words, let’s look at some of the more memorable images that have come out of this mission so far.

June 17, 2024June 17, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

Baby Stars are Swarming Around the Galactic Center

The vicinity of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the Milky Way’s center, is hyperactive. Stars, gas, and dust zip around the black hole’s gravitational well at thousands of kilometers per hour. Previously, astronomers thought that only mature stars had been pulled into such rapid orbits. However, a new paper from the University of Cologne and elsewhere in Europe found that some relatively young stars are making the rounds rather than older ones, which raises some questions about the models predicting how stars form in these hyperactive regions.

June 17, 2024June 17, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

Rotation Curves of Galaxies Stay Flat Indefinitely

In his classic book On the Structure of Scientific Revolutions, the philosopher Thomas Kuhn posited that, for a new scientific framework to take root, there has to be evidence that doesn’t sit well within the existing framework. For over a century now, Einstein’s theory of relativity and gravity has been the existing framework. However, cracks are starting to show, and a new paper from researchers at Case Western Reserve University added another one recently when they failed to find decreasing rotational energy in galaxies even millions of light years away from the galaxy’s center.

June 17, 2024June 17, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

Which Stars are Lethal to their Planets?

Many years ago, there was a viral YouTube video called “History of the entire world, i guess,” which has been an endless source of internet memes since its release. One of the most prominent is also scientifically accurate—when describing why animals couldn’t start living on land, the video’s creator, Bill Wurtz, intones, “The Sun is a deadly laser.”

June 12, 2024June 12, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

How a Single Atomic Sensor Can Help Track Earth’s Glaciers

Earth observations are one of the most essential functions of our current fleet of satellites. Typically, each satellite specializes in one kind of remote sensing – monitoring ocean levels, for example, or watching clouds develop and move. That is primarily due to the constraints of their sensors – particularly the radar. However, a new kind of sensor undergoing development could change the game in remote Earth sensing, and it recently received a NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) grant to further its development.

June 11, 2024June 11, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

A Mission To Find 10 Million Near Earth Asteroids Every Year

So far, scientists have found around 34,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) that could serve as humanity’s stepping stone to the stars. These balls of rock and ice hold valuable resources as we expand throughout the solar system, making them valuable real estate in any future space economy. But the 34,000 we know of only make up a small percentage of the total number of asteroids in our vicinity – some estimates theorize that up to 1 billion asteroids larger than a modern car exist near Earth. A project from the Trans Astronautics Corp (TransAstra), an asteroid-hunting start-up based in California, hopes to find the missing billion.

June 10, 2024June 10, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

Landing on Pluto May Only Be A Hop Skip and Jump Away

There are plenty of crazy ideas for missions in the space exploration community. Some are just better funded than others. One of the early pathways to funding the crazy ideas is NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts. In 2017 and again in 2021, it funded a mission study of what most space enthusiasts would consider only a modestly ambitious goal but what those outside the community might consider outlandish—landing on Pluto.

June 8, 2024June 8, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

Euclid is Finding Free Floating Planets in Orion Too

There are likely millions of “rogue” or free-floating planets (FFPs) spread through the galaxy. These planets, which aren’t big enough to become stars but also aren’t beholden to a star’s gravity, are some of the hardest objects for astronomers to spot, as they don’t give off their own light, and can only be seen when they cross in front of something that does give off its own light. Enter Euclid, a space telescope that launched last year. Its primary mission is to observe the universe’s history, but a new paper describes an exciting side project – finding FFPs in Orion.