Evan Gough, Author at Universe Today

January 13, 2025January 13, 2025 by Evan Gough

Gravitational Waves Could Give Us Insights into Fast Radio Bursts

This artist's illustration shows a neutron star with a powerful magnetic field, a magnetar. Scientists want to know if magnetars can generate both Fast Radio Bursts and Gravitational Waves. Image Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are mysterious pulses of energy that can last from a fraction of a millisecond to about three seconds. Most of them come from outside the galaxy, although one has been detected coming from a source inside the Milky Way. Some of them also repeat, which only adds to their mystery.

Though astrophysicists think that a high-energy astrophysical process is the likely source of FRBs, they aren’t certain how they’re generated. Researchers used gravitational waves (GWs) to observe one nearby, known source of FRBs to try to understand them better.

January 13, 2025January 13, 2025 by Evan Gough

As We Explore the Solar System, Radiation Will Be One of Our Greatest Threats

Astronauts are vulnerable to radiation from the Sun and other sources. They're even more vulnerable beyond the ISS, on missions to the lunar or Martian surfaces. However, different countries and space agencies assess the risk differently. That needs to change. Image Credit: NASA

The Sun can kill. Until Earth developed its ozone layer hundreds of millions of years ago, life couldn’t venture out onto dry land for fear of exposure to the Sun’s deadly ultraviolet radiation. Even now, the 1% of its UV radiation that reaches the surface can cause cancer and even death.

Astronauts outside of Earth’s protective ozone layer and magnetic shield are exposed to far more radiation than on the planet’s surface. Exposure to radiation from the Sun and elsewhere in the cosmos is one of the main hurdles that must be cleared in long-duration space travel or missions to the lunar and Martian surfaces.

Unfortunately, there’s no harmonized approach to understanding the complexity of the hazard and protecting astronauts from it.

January 8, 2025January 8, 2025 by Evan Gough

NASA is Keeping an Eye on InSight from Space

This image from October 2024 shows the InSight lander at its final resting place on Mars. As dust covers its solar panels the lander is taking on the same colour as the Martian surface. The image was captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

The InSight Lander arrived on Mars in 2018 to study the planet’s interior. Its mission ended prematurely in December 2022 after its solar panels were covered in the planet’s ubiquitous dust. NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured an image of InSight recently and will continue to do so as the Martian dust slowly and inexorably reclaims the lander.

January 6, 2025January 6, 2025 by Evan Gough

An Early Supermassive Black Hole Took a Little Break Between Feasts

This artist’s impression shows a black hole about 800 million years after the Big Bang, during one of its short periods of rapid growth. Image Credit: Jiarong Gu

In the last couple of decades, it’s become increasingly clear that massive galaxies like our own Milky Way host supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in their centres. How they became so massive and how they affect their surroundings are active questions in astronomy. Astronomers working with the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered an SMBH in the early Universe that is accreting mass at a very low rate, even though the black hole is extremely massive compared to its host galaxy.

What’s going on with this SMBH, and what does it tell astronomers about the growth of these gargantuan black holes?

December 30, 2024December 30, 2024 by Evan Gough

Saturn’s Rings Might Be Really Old After All

The Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of Saturn in February, 2023. Image Credit: STScI

Saturn’s rings are among the most glorious, stunning, and well-studied features in the Solar System. However, their age has been difficult to ascertain. Did they form billions of years ago when the planet and the Solar System were young? Or did they form in the last few hundred millions of years?

The latest new research shows that the iconic rings are, in fact, very old.

December 19, 2024December 19, 2024 by Evan Gough

Archaeology On Mars: Preserving Artifacts of Our Expansion Into the Solar System

There's something wistful about this image, one of the InSIGHT missions final ones before it succumbed to Mars' dust storms. One anthropologist points out that this is now a historical artifact worthy of preservation, as are other spacecraft and equipment on Mars. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

In 1971, the Soviet Mars 3 lander became the first spacecraft to land on Mars, though it only lasted a couple of minutes before failing. More than 50 years later, it’s still there at Terra Sirenum. The HiRISE camera NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may have imaged some of its hardware, inadvertently taking part in what could be an effort to document our Martian artifacts.

Is it time to start cataloguing and even preserving these artifacts so we can preserve our history?

Some anthropologists think so.

December 18, 2024December 18, 2024 by Evan Gough

The JWST Looked Over the Hubble’s Shoulder and Confirmed that the Universe is Expanding Faster

These 36 galaxies all contain Type 1a supernovae and Cepheid variables. They serve as standard distance markers used to measure how fast the Universe is expanding. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Adam G. Riess (STScI, JHU)

It’s axiomatic that the Universe is expanding. However, the rate of expansion hasn’t remained the same. It appears that the Universe is expanding more quickly now than it did in the past.

Astronomers have struggled to understand this and have wondered if the apparent acceleration is due to instrument errors. The JWST has put that question to rest.

December 17, 2024December 17, 2024 by Evan Gough

Zwicky Classifies More Than 10,000 Exploding Stars

Artistic impression of a star going supernova, casting its chemically enriched contents into the universe. Credit: NASA/Swift/Skyworks Digital/Dana Berry

Even if you knew nothing about astronomy, you’d understand that exploding stars are forceful and consequential events. How could they not be? Supernovae play a pivotal role in the Universe with their energetic, destructive demises.

There are different types of supernovae exploding throughout the Universe, with different progenitors and different remnants. The Zwicky Transient Facility has detected 100,000 supernovae and classified 10,000 of them.

December 16, 2024December 16, 2024 by Evan Gough

We Might Finally Know How Galaxies Grow So Large

Spiral galaxies and elliptical galaxies both contain bulges, also called spheroids. How these spheroids form and evolve is a puzzling question, but new research brings us closer to an answer. Image Credit: ESA

Astronomers have spent decades trying to understand how galaxies grow so large. One piece of the puzzle is spheroids, also known as galactic bulges. Spiral galaxies and elliptical galaxies have different morphologies, but they both have spheroids. This is where most of their stars are and, in fact, where most stars in the Universe reside. Since most stars reside in spheroids, understanding them is critical to understanding how galaxies grow and evolve.

New research focused on spheroids has brought them closer than ever to understanding how galaxies become so massive.

December 11, 2024December 11, 2024 by Evan Gough

Does Life Really Need Planets? Maybe Not

Newly discovered Earth-size planet TOI 700 e orbits within the habitable zone of its star in this illustration. New research questions whether planets are necessary for life. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Robert Hurt

Do we have a planetary bias when it comes to understanding where life can perpetuate? It’s only natural that we do. After all, we’re on one.

However, planets may not be necessary for life, and a pair of scientists from Scotland and the USA are inviting us to reconsider the notion.