Nancy Atkinson, Author at Universe Today

May 2, 2023May 2, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Gaze at a Nearby Actively Feeding Supermassive Black Hole

This Hubble image shows the central region of NGC 4395. The image uses data from Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3. Credits: NASA, ESA, S. Larsen (Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen) and E. Sabbi (STScI); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

Astronomers recently shared a new image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope of the galaxy NGC 4395. This relatively diffuse and dim dwarf galaxy is located just 14 million light-years from Earth.

NGC 4395 has several oddities, and this new image zooms in on the galaxy’s central region to highlight just one of those quirks. NGC 4395 is different from other dwarf galaxies because it contains an actively feeding supermassive black hole at its center.

But this black hole is considered one of the lowest mass supermassive holes ever detected, an oxymoron if there ever was one.

April 28, 2023April 28, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

JWST’s MIRI Instrument is Having Problems Again

JWST's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI is shown here, wrapped in its aluminized thermal shield while being integrated into the JWST Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM). Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Gunn

Last week, NASA shared a blog post saying they detected a sensor glitch associated with the James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). For some reason, the sensor for MIRI’s Medium Resolution Spectroscopy (MRS) is receiving less light than expected at the longest wavelengths.

NASA is investigating the cause, and said that the instrument is not at risk and no effect has been seen for images taken by MIRI. According to agency officials, all other modes of JWST and MIRI remain unaffected, and they are searching for the underlying issue.

April 27, 2023April 27, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

One Day Astronauts Will Be Breathing Oxygen Made From Rocks

A high-powered laser and carbothermal reactor located inside the testing chamber of NASA’s Carbothermal Reduction Demonstration (CaRD) at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Credits: NASA/Brian Sacco

When there’s a permanent base on the Moon, astronauts will need a way to replenish their oxygen supply. Fortunately, there’s an almost infinite amount of oxygen in the surrounding regolith, locked up the rocks and soil. The key would be to figure out a cost-effective way to extract it.

Now, NASA has demonstrated that they can harvest oxygen from the lunar regolith, even in the vacuum conditions of space. They used a device called a carbothermal reactor to successfully extract oxygen from a simulated lunar regolith, while also simulating the heat that would be produced by a solar energy concentrator.

April 26, 2023April 27, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

JWST Sees a Galaxy Cluster Coming Together in the Early Universe

The seven galaxies highlighted in this image from the James Webb Space Telescope are helping astronomers precisely measure the distances of these galaxies, helping them determine these galaxies are part of a developing cluster. Credit: ESA/NASA/STScI/CSA, Takahiro Morishita (IPAC) Image processing Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

One of the James Webb Space Telescope’s science goals is to help cosmologists understand how the first galaxies and galaxy clusters formed in the early Universe. New images from the telescope show just that. Astronomers say the seven galaxies shown in this new JWST images are the earliest yet to be spectroscopically confirmed as part of a developing galaxy cluster. These galaxies are about 13 billion light-years away, meaning JWST is seeing them at about 95% of the age of the observable Universe.

April 26, 2023April 26, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

New High-Resolution Photos of Deimos From the Hope Mission

The Hope spacecraft from the United Arab Emirates took this image of Mars and its moon Deimos from a distance of approximately 100 km from the moon. Credit: UAE Space Agency.

We’ve seen our share of photos of Mars from orbit and the surface, but what about its moons? The United Arab Emirates Hope orbital mission to Mars sent home new beautiful high-resolution images of the Red Planet’s moon Deimos when it flew within 100 km of the moon last month. This is the closest any spacecraft has been to Deimos in almost 50 years.

In the photos, the science team says that their images of Deimos help provide evidence that the moon wasn’t a captured asteroid but came from Mars itself during an impact in the ancient past, much like Earth’s Moon.

April 24, 2023April 24, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Here's How NASA is Planning to Protect Earth From Asteroids and Comets

This diagram shows the orbits of 2,200 potentially hazardous objects as calculated by JPL’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS). Highlighted is the orbit of the double asteroid Didymos, the target of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The large impact craters dotting our planet are powerful reminders that asteroids and comets strike the Earth from time to time. As often said, it’s not a question of “if”; it’s a matter of “when” our planet will face an impending strike from space. But an impact is one existential threat humanity is finally starting to take seriously and wrap its head around.

Seemingly spurred by the success of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), NASA just released a new planetary defense strategy and action plan, describing its efforts to find and identify potentially hazardous objects to provide an advanced warning, and then even push them off an impact trajectory.

This 10-year strategy looks to advance efforts to protect the Earth from a devastating encounter with a Near Earth asteroid or comet.

April 24, 2023April 24, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Hakuto-R Spacecraft Just Captured its Own Stunning Version of ‘Earthrise’

The Hakuto-r lunar lander took this 'Earthrise"-like image from its current location in lunar orbit. Credit: ispace.

The Hakuto-R lunar lander, currently in orbit around the Moon, just captured a beautiful “Earthrise”-like image, and one with an interesting side note. The Mission 1 lander, from the Tokyo-based commercial company ispace, took the image during the time of the April 20 solar eclipse, where totality was visible in Australia; and so the photo includes a perfect view of the shadow of the Moon passing above the Land Down Under.

The spacecraft was approximately 100 km (60 miles) above the lunar surface when it took the photo.

April 22, 2023April 22, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

UFO Office Fails to Find Anything That Defies the Laws of Physics

UFO encounter video — Cockpit video shows an anomalous aerial encounter in 2015. Credit: U.S Navy Video

The head of the Pentagon office that is reviewing reported unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP – commonly known as UFOs, unidentified flying objects) told the US Congress this week that his office is now reviewing more than 650 incidents, but so far, none exhibited anything that was evidence of extraterrestrial activity or defied the known laws of physics.

April 20, 2023April 20, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

The Perseverance Rover has Lost its Pet Rock

NASA's Mars Perseverance rover acquired this image of a rock inside the rover's wheel, along with the area in front of it using its onboard Front Left Hazard Avoidance Camera A. This image was acquired on May 26, 2022 (Sol 449). Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

It’s the end of an era, at least for the Perseverance rover on Mars, who has lost a long-time friend.

For 427 sols or days on Mars, Perseverance has been carrying around a rock in one of its wheels. We’ve been following the saga of this pet rock, which for over a year has stuck with Perseverance over the hills and sands of the Martian landscape.

However, according to Dr. Gwénaël Caravaca, who works with the rover’s SuperCam instrument, the team found out overnight in the latest Hazcam image that the rock has been lost.

April 20, 2023April 20, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Solar Orbiter Continues to Get Closer to the Sun, Revealing More and More With Each Pass

An artists concept of the Solar Orbiter spacecraft studying the Sun. Credit: ESA.

On April 10th, ESA’s Solar Orbiter made its closest flyby of the Sun, coming to within just 29% of the distance from the Earth to the Sun. From this vantage point, the spacecraft is performing close-up studies of our Sun and inner heliosphere. This is basically uncharted territory, as we’ve never had a spacecraft this close to the Sun.

One of the goals of the mission is to figure out why the Sun’s corona — its outer atmosphere — is so hot. The corona can reach temperatures of 2 million degrees C, vastly hotter than its 5,500 C surface. A new paper based on Solar Orbiter data, may offer some clues.