Mark Thompson, Author at Universe Today

June 5, 2024June 5, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Research Work Begins on the Habitable Worlds Observatory

This artist’s concept features one of multiple initial possible design options for NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory. Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

NASA are planning on building a telescope to hunt for habitable worlds. The imaginatively named ‘Habitable Worlds Observatory’ is at least a decade away but NASA have started to develop the underlying technology needed. The contracts have been awarded to three companies to research the next-generation optics, mission designs and telescope features at a cost of $17.5 million. Work should begin late summer 2024.

June 3, 2024June 3, 2024 by Mark Thompson

What Impact Does Ozone Have on an Exoplanet?

Artist's illustration of Proxima Centauri b. ESO/M. Kornmesser

As we discover more and more exoplanets – and the current total is in excess of 5,200 – we continue to try to learn more about them. Astrobiologists busy themselves analysing their atmospheres searching for anything that provides a sign of life. It is quite conceivable of course that the Universe is teeming with life based on very different chemistry to ours but we often look to life on Earth to know what to look for. On Earth for example, ozone forms through photolysis of molecular oxygen and is an indicator of life. Using the James Webb Space Telescope astronomers are searching stars in the habitable zone of their star for the presence of ozone and how it impacts their climate.

June 1, 2024June 1, 2024 by Mark Thompson

A New Way to Make Precise Maps of the Lunar Surface

There was a time when maps of the Moon were created from telescopic observations and drawings. Indeed Sir Patrick Moore created maps of the Moon that were used during the historic Apollo landings. Now researchers have enhanced a technique to create accurate maps from existing satellite images. Their approach uses a technique called ‘shape-from-shading’ and involves analyzing shadows to estimate the features and shape of the terrain. Future lunar missions will be able to use the maps to identify hazards on the surface making them far safer.

May 31, 2024May 31, 2024 by Mark Thompson

South Korea is Planning to Send a Mission to Mars by 2045

It is truly wonderful to see so many nations aspiring to space exploration and trips to the Moon. Earlier this week on the 27th May, South Korea innaugurated its new space agency, the Korea AeroSpace Administration otherwise known as KASA. The group is headed up by former professor of aerospace engineering Yoon Young-bin. Whilst the group has yet to announce detailed plans for their upcoming missions Young-bin has stated they hope to land on the Moon by 2032 and to get to Mars by 2045.

May 30, 2024May 30, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Webb Finds the Farthest Galaxy Ever Seen (So Far)

There are some things that never cease to amaze me and the discovery of distant objects is one of them. The James Webb Space Telescope has just found the most distant galaxy ever observed! It has the catchy title JADES-GS-z14-0 and it has a redshift of 14.32. This means its light left when the Universe was only 290 million years old! That means the light left the source LOOOONG before even our Milky Way was here! How amazing is that!

May 30, 2024May 30, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Hot Gas is Being Vented Away from the Center of the Milky Way

X-Ray Data Revealing Jets at the Center of the Milky Way Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Chicago/S.C. Mackey et al.; Radio: NRF/SARAO/MeerKAT; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk

Studying gas in the Universe is no easy task. We often look to ‘non-visible’ wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum such as X-rays. The Chandra X-Ray observatory has been observing a vent of hot gas blowing away from the centre of the Milky Way. Located about 26,000 light years away, the jet extends for hundreds of light years and is perpendicular to the disk of the Galaxy. It is now thought the gas has been forced away from the centre of the Milky Way because of a collision with cooler gas lying in its path and creating shockwaves.

May 29, 2024May 29, 2024 by Mark Thompson

There’s Another, More Boring Explanation for those Dyson Sphere Candidate Stars

Dyson Spheres have been a tantalising digression in the hunt for alien intelligence. Just recently seven stars have been identified as potential candidates with most of their radiation given off in the infrared wavelengths. Potentially this is the signature of heat from a matrix of spacecraft around the star but alas, a new paper has another slightly less exciting explanation; dust obscured galaxies.

May 29, 2024May 29, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Hundreds of Massive Stars Have Simply Disappeared

This artist’s impression shows a possible seed for the formation of a supermassive black hole. Two of these possible seeds were discovered by an Italian team, using three space telescopes: the NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope.

The lifecycle of a star is regularly articulated as formation taking place inside vast clouds of gas and dust and then ending either as a planetary nebula or supernova explosion. In the last 70 years however, there seems to be a number of massive stars that are just disappearing! According to stellar evolution models, they should be exploding as supernova but instead, they just seem to vanish. A team of researchers have studied the behaviour of star VFTS 243 – a main sequence star with a black hole companion – and now believe it, like the others, have just collapsed, imploding into a black hole!

May 28, 2024May 28, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Volcanoes Were Erupting on Venus in the 1990s

Start talking about Venus and immediately my mind goes to those images from the Venera space probes that visited Venus in the 1970’s. They revealed a world that had been scarred by millennia of volcanic activity yet as far as we could tell those volcanoes were dormant. That is, until just now. Magellan has been mapping the surface of Venus and between 1990 and 1992 had mapped 98% of the surface. Researchers compared two scans of the same area and discovered that there were fresh outflows of molten rock filling a vent crater! There was active volcanism on Venus.

May 24, 2024May 25, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Toxic Perchlorate on Mars Could Make Life More Interesting

Credit: Joseph Heili, Tanner Hoog, and Aaron Engelhart

The search for life in the Universe has fascinated humans for centuries. Mars has of course been high on the list of potential habitats for alien existence but since the numerous spacecraft images that have come back showing a barren landscape, it seems Mars may not be so habitable after all. That is, until recently. The Martian regolith, the top layer of dust upon the surface has been found to be full of perchlorate salts. These chemicals are poisonous to most life on Earth but a new study suggests that some extremophile protein enzymes and RNA may just be able to survive!