Nancy Atkinson, Author at Universe Today

September 18, 2024September 18, 2024 by Nancy Atkinson

NASA Watches a Peanut-Shaped Asteroid Drift Past Earth

Near-Earth asteroid 2024 ON. Credit: NASA/JPL.

Peanuts! Get your peanuts here! The Solar System has been passing out peanuts lately in the form of two different oddly shaped asteroids that recently passed by Earth, and both look like over-sized peanuts. The latest peanut-shaped asteroid pass was on September 16, 2024, when the near-Earth asteroid 2024 ON came within 1 million kilometers (62,000 miles) of Earth (2.6 times the Earth-Moon distance). Radar imaging revealed the asteroid was peanut-shaped because it is actually a contact binary – which means it is made of two smaller objects touching each other. NASA says the two rounded lobes are separated by a pronounced neck, and one lobe about 50% larger than the other.

In total, 2024 ON measures about 350 meters (382 yards) long. The radar could resolve features down to about 3.75 meters across on the surface, including brighter boulders. NASA says about 14% of asteroids in this size range (larger than about 200 meters (660 feet)) are contact binaries.

September 12, 2024September 12, 2024 by Nancy Atkinson

And the Winner is…. Astronomy Photographers of the Year 2024 Announced

The 2024 Overall Winner of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition is "Distorted Shadows of the Moon’s Surface Created by an Annular Eclipse" © Ryan Imperio (USA)

Every year, the “Astronomy Photographer of the Year” competition provides incredible images of our night sky — whether they are stunning views of distant galaxies or dramatic photos of aurorae or other views from our home planet. This year is no different, and the awards were just announced at a special presentation at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich (ROG), England for the incredible 16^th year of the competition. The event is sponsored by the ROG, supported by Liberty Specialty Markets and in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine. For the 2024 competition there were over 3,500 entries from 58 countries.

Above is the overall winner, Ryan Imperio from the USA for his photograph, Distorted Shadows of the Moon’s Surface Created by an Annular Eclipse. This unusual and stunning photo captures the progression of Baily’s beads during the 2023 annular eclipse.

September 11, 2024September 11, 2024 by Nancy Atkinson

High Resolution Images Show Bubbling Gas on the Surface of Another Star

Astronomers have captured a sequence of images of a star other than the Sun in enough detail to track the motion of bubbling gas on its surface. The images of the star, R Doradus, were obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). This panel shows three of these real images, taken with ALMA on 18 July, 27 July and 2 August 2023. The giant bubbles — 75 times the size of the Sun — seen on the star’s surface are the result of convection motions inside the star. The size of the Earth’s orbit is shown for scale. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/W. Vlemmings et al.

Although stars are enormous, they’re extremely far away, and appear as point sources in telescopes. Usually, you never get to see more than a pixel. Now astronomers have used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to resolve details on the surface of the star R Doradus and track its activity for 30 days. The images revealed giant, hot bubbles of gas 75 times larger than the entire Sun. R Doradus is 350 times larger than our Sun, but only 180 light-years away.

“This is the first time the bubbling surface of a real star can be shown in such a way,“ said Wouter Vlemmings, a professor at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, and lead author of the study, in a press release from the European Southern Observatory (ESO). “We had never expected the data to be of such high quality that we could see so many details of the convection on the stellar surface.”

September 7, 2024September 7, 2024 by Nancy Atkinson

China Will Launch its Mars Sample Return Mission in 2028

The launch of the Tianwen-1 mission, Wenchang City, south China's Hainan Province, July 23, 2020. /CFP

While NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission has experienced a setback, China is still moving forward with their plans to bring home a piece of the Red Planet. This week, officials from the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced their sample return mission, called Tianwen-3, will blast off for Mars in 2028. It will land on the surface, retrieve a sample, and then take off again, docking with a return vehicle in orbit. They also announced another mission, Tianwen-4 will head off to Jupiter in 2030 as well as unveiling a conceptual plan for China’s first mission to test defenses against a near-Earth asteroid.

The announcements were made this week at the second International Deep Space Exploration Conference, also known as the Tiandu Forum, held in China. China says the conference promotes international cooperation for future large-scale missions.

September 5, 2024September 5, 2024 by Nancy Atkinson

The Final Vega Rocket Blasts Off

The launch of a Vega rocket from the European Spaceport in French Guiana, as seen from the Bois Dable Lake on April 9, 2024. Credit: ESA/ArianeGroup/Arianespace/CNES

The European Space Agency (ESA) launched its final Vega rocket this week, lofting a Sentinel-2C Earth observation satellite into orbit. This wraps up 12 years of service and 20 successful flights for the venerable Vega. The rocket launched several well-known missions, including LISA Pathfinder (2015), the Earth-observing satellites Proba-V (2013), and Aeolus (2018). ESA will now launch these types of payloads on the new Vega-C rocket, capable of launching heavier payloads at a lower price.

Vega’s final launch was on September 5, 2024 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, and ESA said that it was fitting the rocket boosted to orbit one of the Sentinel satellites, as Vega had previously launched Sentinel-2A in 2015 and Sentinel-2B in 2017.

August 29, 2024August 29, 2024 by Nancy Atkinson

NASA's New Solar Sail Extends Its Booms and Sets Sail

An artist's concept of NASA's Advanced Composite Solar Sail System spacecraft in orbit as the Sun crests Earth's horizon. Credits: NASA/Aero Animation/Ben Schweighart

Solar sails are an exciting way to travel through the Solar System because they get their propulsion from the Sun. NASA has developed several solar sails, and their newest, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (or ACS3), launched a few months ago into low-Earth orbit. After testing, NASA reported today that they extended the booms, deploying its 80-square-meter (860 square feet) solar sail. They’ll now use the sail to raise and lower the spacecraft’s orbit, learning more about solar sailing.

“The Sun will continue burning for billions of years, so we have a limitless source of propulsion. Instead of launching massive fuel tanks for future missions, we can launch larger sails that use ‘fuel’ already available,” said Alan Rhodes, the mission’s lead systems engineer at NASA’s Ames Research Center, earlier this year. “We will demonstrate a system that uses this abundant resource to take those next giant steps in exploration and science.”

August 26, 2024August 26, 2024 by Nancy Atkinson

NASA Decides to Play it Safe. Wilmore and Williams are Coming Home on a Crew Dragon in February

NASA’s Boeing Crew Flight Test astronauts (from top) Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams pose on June 13, 2024 for a portrait inside the vestibule between the forward port on the International Space Station’s Harmony module and Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. Credit: NASA

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will remain on board the International Space Station until February, returning to Earth on a SpaceX Crew Dragon. NASA announced its decision over the weekend, citing concerns about the safety of the Boeing Starliner capsule due to helium leaks and thruster issues. The troublesome Starliner is slated to undock from the ISS without a crew in early September and attempt to return on autopilot, landing in the New Mexico desert.

NASA said this allows them and Boeing to continue gathering test data on Starliner during its uncrewed flight home, while also not accepting more risk than necessary for the crew.

August 2, 2024August 2, 2024 by Nancy Atkinson

The Surface of Dimorphos is Surprisingly New

Simulation of Dimorphos. Credit: University of Michigan/Yun Zhang and Johns Hopkins APL/Olivier Barnouin

When NASA’s DART mission intentionally slammed into Dimorphos in September 2022, the orbit of the moonlet was altered. Researchers have studied the photos and data taken by DART before its impact, learning more about the geology of the Didymos/Dimorphos system. They have now estimated the surface age of both the asteroid and its moon. The asteroid Didymos has a surface age of 12.5 million years, while the moon Dimorphos is only 300,000 years old.

Additionally, the DART researchers concluded both Didymos and Dimorphos are rubble piles, with Dimorphos likely inheriting its boulders from Didymos.

“It’s a pile of gravel and boulders (and some sand/dust) held together by its own gravity, and really not anything else,” said Andy Rivkin, DART investigation team co-lead at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL), on Bluesky. “There’s really no cohesion between different pieces of gravel or rocks on Dimorphos.”

July 3, 2024July 3, 2024 by Nancy Atkinson

LEGO Bricks Printed out of Space Dust

A LEGO-style ESA space brick, 3D-printed using dust from a meteorite. Credit: The LEGO Group

There have been many proposals for building structures on the Moon out of lunar regolith. But here’s an idea sure to resonate with creators, mechanical tinkerers, model builders and the kid inside us all.

What about using actual LEGO bricks?

Researchers ground up a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite and used the dust to 3D print LEGO-style space bricks. They actually click together like the plastic variety, with so far only one downside: they only come in one color, grey.

Want to see some of these lunar LEGOs? LEGO will showcase the space bricks at some of its stores.

June 24, 2024June 25, 2024 by Nancy Atkinson

NASA Doesn't Know When Starliner Will Return From Orbit

An aurora streams below Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft docked to the forward port on the Harmony module as the International Space Station soared 266 miles above the Indian Ocean southwest of Australia. Photo credit: NASA/Matt Dominick

After helium leaks and thruster problems with Boeing’s Starliner capsule, NASA has been pushing back the return date from the International Space Station. On Friday, the agency announced they no longer had a planned return date. Instead, they will keep testing the capsule, trying to understand its issues, and seeing if they can make any fixes. Plenty of supplies are on the station, so there’s no urgent need to bring the two astronauts back to Earth.