Laurence Tognetti, Author at Universe Today

November 25, 2022November 26, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

Why ‘Contact’ still resonates after 25 years

Credit: Fuawas; permission to share under the under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

25 years ago, the film Contact made its theatrical debut starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey and told the story of Dr. Eleanor Arroway (Jodie Foster) who picked up a radio signal from the star Vega and how this discovery impacted not just herself, but humanity as a whole. Over time, she discovers the signal has embedded instructions sent by the aliens to build a device capable of sending one person into outer space, presumably to meet the Vegans.

November 20, 2022November 20, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

Scroll Through the Universe with This Cool Interactive Map

Expansion of the Universe (Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team)

Johns Hopkins University (JHU) continues to pad its space community résumé with their interactive map, “The map of the observable Universe”, that takes viewers on a 13.7-billion-year-old tour of the cosmos from the present to the moments after the Big Bang. While JHU is responsible for creating the site, additional contributions were made by NASA, the European Space Agency, the National Science Foundation, and the Sloan Foundation.

November 16, 2022November 16, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

NASA’s MAVEN Witnessed Auroras as Multiple Solar Storms Crashed into Mars

Artist’s illustration of NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft orbiting Mars. (Credit: NASA)

After orbiting Mars for eight long years, NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft observed an extraordinary duo of auroras around the Red Planet that resulted from solar storms emanating from the Sun only a few days earlier on August 27. This observation is extraordinary since Mars lacks a global magnetic field so the solar flares must have been very powerful for MAVEN to detect them.

November 14, 2022November 14, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

The Sun Could Hurl Powerful Storms at Earth From its Goofy Smile

NASA recently photographed the Sun "smiling" (Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Solar Dynamics Observatory)

Our Sun is the very reason we’re alive. It provides warmth and the energy our planet needs to keep going. Now you can add photogenic to its illustrious résumé, as NASA recently photographed our giant ball of nuclear fusion doing something quite peculiar.

November 12, 2022November 13, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

Will Triton finally answer, ‘Are we alone?’

NASA’s Voyager 2 took this global color mosaic of Neptune’s largest moon, Triton, in 1989. (Credit: NASA/NASA-JPL/USGS)

We recently examined how and why Saturn’s icy moon, Enceladus, could answer the longstanding question: Are we alone? With its interior ocean and geysers of water ice that shoot out tens of kilometers into space that allegedly contains the ingredients for life, this small moon could be a prime target for future astrobiology missions. But Enceladus isn’t the only location in our solar system with active geysers, as another small moon near the edge of the solar system shares similar characteristics, as well. This is Neptune’s largest moon, Triton, which has been visited only once by NASA’s Voyager 2 in 1989. But are Triton’s geysers the only characteristics that make it a good target for astrobiology and finding life beyond Earth?

November 7, 2022November 7, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

Searching for Life on Highly Eccentric Exoplanets

Artist’s rendition of a hypothetical highly eccentric exoplanet (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

When we think about finding life beyond Earth, especially on exoplanets, we immediately want to search for the next Earth, or Earth 2.0. We want an exoplanet that orbits a star firmly in its habitable zone (HZ) with vast oceans of liquid water, and plenty of land to go around. An exoplanet like that most certainly has life, right? But what if we’re looking in the wrong places? What if we find life on exoplanets that don’t possess the aforementioned characteristics, i.e., Earth 2.0?

November 2, 2022November 2, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

The International Space Station Gets a Clean Bill of Health. Despite a Few Opportunistic Microbes, the Station is “Safe” for Astronauts

In a recent study published in Microbiome, a team of researchers led by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory conducted a five-year first-of-its-kind study investigating the microbiome (environmental profile) of the International Space Station (ISS). The purpose of the study was to address “the introduction and proliferation of potentially harmful microorganisms into the microbial communities of piloted spaceflight and how this could affect human health”, according to the paper.

October 30, 2022October 30, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

Would Mark Watney Have Survived in Real Life, and What This Can Teach Us About Sending Humans to Mars

NASA astronaut, Dr. Mark Watney played by Matt Damon, as he’s stranded on the Red Planet in ‘The Martian’. (Credit: 20th Century Fox)

We want to send humans to Mars eventually, and while this will be both a historic and exciting journey, it could also be tragic and terrible, and we must also address the potential pitfalls and risks of such an adventure. The intent behind this is to allow fans of space exploration to consider the full picture of such an endeavor. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

October 30, 2022October 30, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

Will Enceladus finally answer, ‘Are we alone?’

We recently examined how and why the planet Mars could answer the longstanding question: Are we alone? There is evidence to suggest that it was once a much warmer and wetter world thanks to countless spacecraft, landers, and rovers having explored—and currently exploring—its atmosphere, surface, and interior. Here, we will examine another one of Saturn’s 83 moons, an icy world that spews geysers of water ice from giant fissures near its south pole, which is strong evidence for an interior ocean, and possibly life. Here, we will examine Enceladus.

October 29, 2022October 30, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

Another Reason Red Dwarfs Might Be Bad for Life: No Asteroid Belts

In a recent study accepted to The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of researchers at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) investigated the potential for life on exoplanets orbiting M-dwarf stars, also known as red dwarfs, which are both smaller and cooler than our own Sun and is currently open for debate for their potential for life on their orbiting planetary bodies. The study examines how a lack of an asteroid belt might indicate a less likelihood for life on terrestrial worlds.