Andy Tomaswick, Author at Universe Today

September 30, 2021September 30, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Some of the Moon’s Craters are so Dark, it Takes AI to see What’s Inside Them

There is no dark side of the Moon. But there are dark spots on it – specifically at the bottom of craters that are never reached by any sunlight no matter where the Moon is facing. These areas have intrigued scientists for decades, in no small part because lack of sunlight means a lower temperature, allowing frozen materials to stay frozen. In other words, there may be water in them thar craters. And water will be the lifeblood of any future permanent crewed lunar mission.

Unfortunately, lack of sunlight also means it’s challenging to see what’s at the bottom of those craters. The closest scientists have come was when LCROSS, a NASA moon mission, fired a projectile into the crater Cabeus and analyzed the resultant dust cloud, which contained a relatively high amount of water. But so far, no one has been able to image what water is in those craters directly.

September 30, 2021September 30, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Starlink can be Used as a Navigation System too

Starlink keeps growing, and so do its capabilities. Lately, even people outside of SpaceX have even been developing capabilities for it. A team of researchers from the Ohio State University (OSU) and the University of California Irvine (UCI) has developed a way to use Starlinks networked satellites as a basic navigation tool.

September 30, 2021September 30, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Giant Balls of Mush Made From Ammonia and Water Form in the Atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune

One advantage to planetary science is that insights from one planet could explain phenomena on another. We understand Venus’ greenhouse gas effect from our own experience on the Earth, and Jupiter and Saturn share some characteristics. But Jupiter also provides insight into other, farther out systems, such as Uranus and Neptune. Now, a discovery from a spacecraft orbiting Jupiter might have solved a long-standing mystery about Uranus and Neptune – where has all the ammonia gone?

September 29, 2021September 29, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Mars has Seasons, and They Might Have Revealed Where it’s Hiding its Water

The search for water on Mars has consumed a lot of data collection and research time. Underground lakes have been found and then discounted again. Melted ice has been proposed and then dismissed again. All this attention focuses on one of the most important resources available to any future Martian explorers. Water is critical to human life and can also be split into two crucial components for rocket fuel. So finding an easily accessible cache of it is a prerequisite to any serious human mission to the red planet that expects to return its crew back home.

A team from the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) thinks they might have found easily accessible reservoirs of water ice at much more temperate latitudes than had been traditionally thought. Finding any significant water source near the equator would be cause for celebration, as most large known water deposits are located near the poles, which is even more inhospitable to human exploration than the rest of the planet.

September 29, 2021September 29, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Dozens of Robots Competed to Race Through Underground Caves

America’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is well known for its challenges. It held a series of autonomous driving competitions back in the early 2000s that directly led to today’s self-driving cars. Now that Grand Challenge has evolved into a new one – the Subterranean (SubT) challenge, which took place last week. This new one also happens to be directly applicable to technologies that would be useful in space exploration.

September 29, 2021September 29, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Lunar Landers Could Spray Instant Landing Pads as They Arrive at the Moon

Illustration of the in-Flight Alumina Spray Technique (FAST). Credit: Masten Space Systems

Space exploration requires all kinds of interesting solutions to complex problems. There is a branch of NASA designed to support the innovators trying to solve those problems – the Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC). They occasionally hand out grant funding to worthy projects trying to tackle some of these challenges. The results from one of those grants are now in, and they are intriguing. A team from Masten Space Systems, supported by Honeybee Robotics, Texas A&M, and the University of Central Florida, came up with a way a lunar lander could deposit its own landing pad on the way down.

September 28, 2021September 28, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

NASA’s Human Space Exploration Division is Being Split in Two

Large government organizations require lots of people to run them. NASA is no exception. America’s space agency has long been under pressure to organizationally support its ongoing Artemis program to return to the moon. Now, it has taken a step in that direction by announcing that its Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate will split into two new ones: the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate and the Space Operations Missions Directorate.

September 23, 2021September 23, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

A Proposed Clockwork Solar System Made out of LEGO

One of the best innovations Lego has had in the last decade is leveraging the power of the internet to help choose what kits to create. Innovative designers can buy piece parts, make their own masterpieces, carefully document how to recreate them, and then lobby Lego to release them at a kit. One of the more creative recent projects is a Clockwork Solar System designed by Chris Orchard and Brent Waller, and it is absolutely stunning.

September 22, 2021September 22, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

NASA has a Ballistic air gun to Hurl Rocks at Space Suits to Test Their Micrometeorite Protection

Shock testing is commonly used throughout engineering to determine how a product will do when impacted by something. That something could be anything from the ground to a cruise missile. Like so much else in space exploration, engineers at NASA are performing the same type of test, just scaled up. Instead of simply dropping the object under test, as is common in most settings, they shoot it with a steel ball going 3000 ft/second.

September 21, 2021September 21, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

A LEGO® Version of the Very Large Telescope. It Even has a Laser Interferometer

Interferometers are some of the most highly advanced sensor instruments that humans have made. They are used in everything from astronomy to quantum mechanics and have profoundly impacted our understanding of science. But not all interferometers have to be functional. A Dutch astronomer named Frans Snik has just designed one that, while it isn’t function, is inspiring all the same – and it happens to be made out of Lego.