Carolyn Collins Petersen, Author at Universe Today

April 30, 2023April 30, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Be Grateful the Sun Can’t Produce Flares Like This

Artist’s impression of the a massive flare -- called a superflare -- observed on one of the stars in the V1355 Orionis binary star system. The binary companion star is visible in the background on the right. (Credit: NAOJ)

Okay, so we all know that the Sun is heading into solar maximum. That means it’s quite a bit more active, with sunspots, coronal mass ejections, and flares aplenty. But, luckily for us, the Sun isn’t as active as the members of the binary star system V1355 Orionis. One of its stars periodically releases superflares. These are ten times more extensive than the largest solar flare ever recorded on the Sun.

April 30, 2023April 30, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

A Black Hole Tore a Star to Pieces. The Closest We’ve Ever Seen.

This artist's illustration depicts what astronomers call a "tidal disruption event," or TDE, when an object such as a star wanders too close to a black hole and is destroyed by tidal forces generated from the black hole's intense gravitational forces. (Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss.

We all know that black holes are destructive monsters. Their tremendous gravitational pull sucks in anything that gets in the way. This is particularly true for supermassive black holes in the hearts of galaxies. They can tear apart stars. And, every so often—like once every, 10,000 years, that happens. The star passes too close and the black hole’s gravity shreds it.

April 29, 2023April 29, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

European Satellite Measures Exactly How Much Ice Has Been Lost from Glaciers

ESA’s Earth Explorer CryoSat mission is dedicated to precise monitoring of changes in the thickness of marine ice floating in the polar oceans and variations in the thickness of the vast ice sheets that blanket Greenland and Antarctica. Its data are being used to measure ice loss in glaciers. Courtesy ESA/AOES Medialab

As global warming heats up our atmosphere a degree at a time, the world’s glaciers are paying the price. In ten years, they’ve shrunk by a total of 2 percent. To look at it another way, collectively the glaciers have lost 2,720 gigatons of ice thanks to warming air.

April 28, 2023April 28, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Ingenuity Snaps Another Shot of Perseverance on the Move

This image of NASA's Perseverance Mars rover at the rim of Belva Crater was taken by the agency's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter during the rotorcraft's 51st flight on April 22, 2023, the 772nd Martian day, or sol, of the rover's mission. At the time the image was taken, the helicopter was at an altitude of about 40 feet (12 meters). Check out the chopper's shadow in the lower right, and Perseverance off in the distance at upper left. Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Our favorite Martian helicopter did it again. The tiny Ingenuity chopper recently did its 51st flight on Mars. It traveled 188 meters this time (about 617 feet) on April 22, 2023, and reached a maximum altitude of 12 meters (about 39 feet) over the Martian surface. During that time, it snapped another image of its Perseverance mothership, waiting patiently on the horizon.

April 28, 2023April 28, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

What Would be in a Moon Salad?

SINTEF researcher Galina Simonsen pictured here demonstrating the growing medium for Moon salad in the laboratory at the CIRiS/NTNU Social Research Centre in Trondheim. Photo: Jana Pavlova

Imagine you’re a lunar astronaut, putting in a hard day’s work building your lab or excavating moon rocks. You get back into the hab and ask, “What’s for dinner?” The answer could be “We’re starting with a Moon salad” featuring lettuce and other goodies grown on the lunar surface. It’s an idea scientists are researching as part of a project called LunarPlant, an effort to figure out ways to grow healthy veggies on the Moon.

April 27, 2023April 27, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

A Supermassive Black Hole and its Jet, All in a Single Picture

Here's the jet and shadow of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy shown together for the first time. The observations were obtained with telescopes from the Global Millimetre VLBI Array (GMVA), the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), of which ESO is a partner, and the Greenland Telescope. Credit: R.-S. Lu (SHAO), E. Ros (MPIfR), S. Dagnello (NRAO/AUI/NSF) — This image shows the jet and shadow of the black hole at the center of the M87 galaxy together for the first time. The observations were obtained with a set of three radio telescopes. Courtesy ESO.

In May 2022, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team released the first-ever radio image of M87’s central black hole. It was a stunning revelation based on observations made using a worldwide array of radio telescopes. Recently, they re-released a newer, sharper image of the black hole’s “ring of light.”

April 26, 2023April 26, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

China’s New Solar Observatory is Almost Ready for its Trials

The infrared system for the accurate measurement of solar magnetic field (AIMS) at Lenghu Astronomical Observation Base in the city of Mangya, Northwest China’s Qinghai Province Photo: IC

There’s a new solar observing facility taking shape in China. It lies far up on a mountain near Mangya City in the Mongol and Tibetan autonomous prefecture of Qinghai. The telescope is reputed to be the world’s first mid-infrared telescope built for accurate measurements of the solar magnetic field.

April 24, 2023April 24, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

If a Star Has Less Metals, it Might Have a Better Chance to Spark Life

An illustration of the variations among the more than 5,000 known exoplanets discovered since the 1990s. Could their stars' metallicity play a role in making them habitable to life? Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

In the hunt for habitable worlds around other stars, planetary atmospheres provide fertile places to look. But, as a group of scientists at the Max-Planck Institute for Solar System Studies in Germany found, maybe astronomers should focus on a star’s metallicity, too. That’s because there seems to be a direct link between their metallicity, how much UV radiation they give off, and the atmospheres of rocky planets orbiting them. It turns out that metal-poor stars provide better conditions for life on their planets than metal-rich ones do.

April 20, 2023April 20, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Mount Everest from Space

Clouds gather on Nepal's sub-tropical side of the Himalayas with Mount Everest at the center of this photograph taken by an external high definition camera on the International Space Station as it orbited 263 miles above the Indian subcontinent. Courtesy NASA.

Earth is a favorite target for the cameras and astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). This week, NASA shared an amazing picture of the Himalayan mountain range as seen from space. This jagged set of mountains stretches out across Asia above the Indian subcontinent and is home to Mount Everest, the tallest mountain on Earth. It’s centered in the image.

April 20, 2023April 20, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

NASA Was Hoping for 5 Helicopter Flights on Mars. Ingenuity Just Completed its 50th!

This image taken by the Perseverance rover of the Ingenuity helicopter is a composite of a single Left- and Right-Mastcam-Z camera photo, both taken at a local mean solar time of 2:25 pm Wednesday, 8 March 2023. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU.

The Ingenuity chopper on Mars is the little helicopter that just keeps on going. It’s doing that, even as it takes on flights over some pretty tough ground on the Red Planet. On April 13, Ingenuity made its 50th flight of the mission, 45 more than it was originally scheduled to do.