Nancy Atkinson, Author at Universe Today

December 11, 2023December 11, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Amateur Astronomers Found Planets Crashing Into Each Other

Artist impression of two colliding planets.

Astronomy is one of the sciences where amateurs make regular contributions. Over the years, members of the public have made exciting discoveries and meaningful contributions to the scientific process, either through direct observing, citizen science projects, or through combing through open data from the various space missions.

Recently, amateur astronomer Arttu Sainio saw a conversation on X (Twitter) where researchers were discussing the strange behavior of a dimming sun-like star. Intrigued, Arttu decided to look at the data on this star, called Asassn-21qj, on his own. Looking at archival data from NASA’s NEOWISE mission, Sainio was surprised to find that the star had dimmed before, with an unexpected brightening in infrared light two years before the optical dimming event. So, he joined the discussion on social media and shared his finding – which led to more amateurs joining the research, which lead to an incredible discovery.

December 7, 2023December 9, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Fly Slowly Through Enceladus' Plumes to Detect Life

The plumes of Enceladus have phosphate-rich ice grains entrained. Credit: NASA — A NASA illustrations of Cassini flying through the plumes of Enceladus. Credit: NASA.

Enceladus is blasting water into space from the jets at its southern pole. This makes it the ideal place to send a dedicated mission, flying the spacecraft through the plumes with life-detection instruments s. A new study suggests that a spacecraft must proceed carefully through the plumes, keeping its speed below 4.2 km/second (2,236 miles per hour). Using a specialized, custom-built aerosol impact spectrometer at these speeds will allow fragile amino acids to be captured by the spacecraft’s sample collector. Any faster, they’ll shatter, providing inclusive results.

December 6, 2023December 9, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

For its Final Trick, Chandrayaan-3 Brings its Propulsion Module to Earth Orbit

Chandrayaan-3 propulsion module in front of the Moon. Image credit: ISRO, NASA

On August 23, ISRO’s Vikram lander detached from its propulsion module and made a soft landing near the Moon’s south pole region. The lander then deployed its Pragyan rover, and for two weeks the endearing little solar-powered rover performed marvelously, detecting water ice and characterizing the makeup of the lunar regolith before succumbing to the darkness and cold of the lunar night.

But since the rover mission ended, the propulsion module that brought it to the Moon has made a detour, performing a series of complex maneuvers that took it from a tight lunar orbit back to Earth orbit. This was possible because the module still had more than 100 kg of fuel, allowing scientists to conduct additional maneuvers and experiments.

December 6, 2023December 6, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

99% of Space Junk is Undetectable. That Could Change Soon

A map of space debris orbiting Earth. Credit: European Space Agency

Private and military organizations are tracking some of the 170 million pieces of space junk orbiting the planet, but they’re limited to how small an object they can detect. Only chunks larger than a softball can be tracked with radar or optical systems, and that only accounts for less than 1% of the junk out there.

But a new technique is being developed to resolve space junk to pieces smaller than one millimeter in diameter.

December 4, 2023December 4, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

NASA's Interstellar Mapping Probe Prepares for a 2025 Launch

IMAP will study the protective magnetic bubble that surrounds our solar system, called the heliosphere, and the particle acceleration that occurs across it. Credits: NASA/Princeton/Johns Hopkins APL/Josh Diaz

Engineers at NASA have completed an important milestone in developing the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) spacecraft. It’s now moving from development and design to the assembly, testing, and integration phase, targeting a launch in late Spring 2025. After launch, the spacecraft will fly to the Earth-Sun L1 Lagrange Point and analyze how the Sun’s solar wind interacts with charged particles originating from outside the Solar System.

IMAP will follow up on discoveries and insights from the two Voyager spacecraft and the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) and will help investigate two of the most important overarching issues in heliophysics: the energization of charged particles from the Sun and the interaction of the solar wind at its boundary with interstellar space.

December 1, 2023December 1, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

After Stalling Out for 40 Years, the Largest Iceberg in the World is on the Move

An animation from Copernicus Sentinel-1 images shows iceberg A23a’s movements from 2 November 2023, 14 November 2023 and 26 November 2023. Credit: ESA.

In 1986, a gigantic iceberg separated from the Fichner-Ronne ice shelf in West Antarctica. It was so big that it became grounded, stuck to the seafloor, and remained in position for 40 years. Finally, it has now been pushed off the seafloor and has begun drifting in the Weddell Sea to a region in the South Atlantic called Iceberg Alley. Designated A23a, this monster berg measures 4000 sq km (1,500 square miles) and is about 400 meters (1,300 feet) thick – the world’s largest.

November 30, 2023December 1, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Vera Rubin Will Generate a Mind-Boggling Amount of Data

The LSST, or Vera Rubin Survey Telescope, under construction at Cerro Pachon, Chile. Image Credit: LSST

When the Vera C. Rubin Observatory comes online in 2025, it will be one of the most powerful tools available to astronomers, capturing huge portions of the sky every night with its 8.4-meter mirror and 3.2-gigapixel camera. Each image will be analyzed within 60 seconds, alerting astronomers to transient events like supernovae. An incredible five petabytes (5,000 terabytes) of new raw images will be recorded each year and made available for astronomers to study.

Not surprisingly, astronomers can’t wait to get their hands on the high-resolution data. A new paper outlines how the huge amounts of data will be processed, organized, and disseminated. The entire process will require several facilities on three continents over the course of the projected ten-year-long survey.

November 30, 2023November 30, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

The New Asteroid Moon Discovered by Lucy Just Got its Own Name

Asteroid Dinkinesh and its satellite companions, the "kissing moons". These appear to be a contact binary. Courtesy NASA/JPL/SWRI — Asteroid Dinkinesh and its satellite companions, the "kissing moons" now named Selam. The moon is a contact binary. Courtesy NASA/JPL/SWRI

When NASA’s Lucy mission flew past asteroid Dinkinesh on November 1, 2023, it made the surprising discovery the asteroid had a tiny moon. Then came another surprise. This wasn’t just any moon, but a contact binary moon, where two space rocks are gently resting against each other. Of course, this new and unique moon needed a name, so the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has just approved approved “Selam,” which means peace in Ethiopia’s language.

But, everything’s connected here. Dinkinesh is the Ethiopian name for the Lucy fossil, and Selam is named after another fossil from the same species of human ancestor.

November 29, 2023November 29, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

A Protoplanetary Disc Has Been Found… in Another Galaxy!

With the combined capabilities of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a disc around a young massive star in another galaxy has been observed. The image at the centre shows the jets that accompany it. The top part of the jet is aimed slightly towards us and thus blueshifted; the bottom one is receding from us and thus redshifted. Observations from ALMA, right, then revealed the rotating disc around the star, similarly with sides moving towards and away from us. Credit: ESO/ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/A. McLeod et al.

Astronomers have imaged dozens of protoplanetary discs around Milky Way stars, seeing them at all stages of formation. Now, one of these discs has been found for the first time — excitingly — in another galaxy. The discovery was made using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile along with the , which detected the telltale signature of a spinning disc around a massive star in the Large Magellanic Cloud, located 160,000 light-years away.

November 29, 2023November 30, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

There are Mysterious Polygons Beneath the Surface of Mars

China's Zhurong rover on Mars — An image from China's Zhurong rover shows spacecraft hardware in the foreground and Martian terrain in the background. (Credit: CNSA)

China’s Zhurong rover was equipped with a ground-penetrating radar system, allowing it to peer beneath Mars’s surface. Researchers have announced new results from the scans of Zhurong’s landing site in Utopia Planitia, saying they identified irregular polygonal wedges located at a depth of about 35 meters all along the robot’s journey. The objects measure from centimeters to tens of meters across. The scientists believe the buried polygons resulted from freeze-thaw cycles on Mars billions of years ago, but they could also be volcanic, from cooling lava flows.