Astronomy Archives

February 10, 2022February 10, 2022 by Matt Williams

Could Astronauts Hibernate on Long Space Voyages?

A renewed era of space exploration is upon us, and many exciting missions will be headed to space in the coming years. These include crewed missions to the Moon and the creation of permanent bases there. Beyond the Earth-Moon system, there are multiple proposals for crewed missions to Mars and beyond. This presents significant challenges since a one-way transit to Mars can take six to nine months. Even with new propulsion technologies like nuclear rockets, it could still take more than three months to get to Mars.

In addition to the physical and mental stresses imposed on the astronauts by the duration and long-term exposure to microgravity and radiation, there are also the logistical challenges these types of missions will impose (i.e., massive spacecraft, lots of supplies, and significant expense). Looking for alternatives, the European Space Agency (ESA) is investigating hibernation technology that would allow their astronauts to sleep for much of the voyage and arrive at Mars ready to explore.

February 10, 2022February 6, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Galilean Moons

A "family portrait" of the four Galilean satellites around Jupiter taken by the New Horizons spacecraft and released in 2007. From left, the montage includes Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You’ll dance around Jupiter with today’s topic: the Galilean Moons!

February 9, 2022February 9, 2022 by Evan Gough

Asteroids are Dangerous, but They Might Also be the Key to Life on Earth

This artist's conception shows how families of asteroids are created. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Trying to piece together the appearance of life on Earth is a little like looking through a kaleidoscope. There are competing theories for where Earth’s water came from, and there’s incomplete evidence for how the Moon formed and what role it played in life’s emergence. There are a thousand other questions, each with competing answers. Sometimes, contradictory research is published within days of each other.

But that’s nature, and that’s part of the thrill of science. There’s rigorous determination behind all the evidence and inquiry, and the kaleidoscope calms down over time. Order emerges, and the picture becomes clearer.

February 9, 2022February 6, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Event Horizon

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole. In coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers revealed that they succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of the supermassive black hole in the centre of Messier 87 and its shadow. The shadow of a black hole seen here is the closest we can come to an image of the black hole itself, a completely dark object from which light cannot escape. The black hole’s boundary — the event horizon from which the EHT takes its name — is around 2.5 times smaller than the shadow it casts and measures just under 40 billion km across. While this may sound large, this ring is only about 40 microarcseconds across — equivalent to measuring the length of a credit card on the surface of the Moon. Although the telescopes making up the EHT are not physically connected, they are able to synchronize their recorded data with atomic clocks — hydrogen masers — which precisely time their observations. These observations were collected at a wavelength of 1.3 mm during a 2017 global campaign. Each telescope of the EHT produced enormous amounts of data – roughly 350 terabytes per day – which was stored on high-performance helium-filled hard drives. These data were flown to highly specialised supercomputers — known as correlators — at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and MIT Haystack Observatory to be combined. They were then painstakingly converted into an image using novel computational tools developed by the collaboration. Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You won’t ever stop reading about today’s topic: event horizons!

February 8, 2022February 6, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Eccentricity

This 11-Jupiter-mass exoplanet called HD106906 b occupies an unlikely orbit around a double star 336 light-years away and it may be offering clues to something that might be much closer to home: a hypothesized distant member of our Solar System dubbed “Planet Nine.” This is the first time that astronomers have been able to measure the motion of a massive Jupiter-like planet that is orbiting very far away from its host stars and visible debris disc. Image Credit: ESA/Hubble, M. Kornmesser

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You’ll be sure to find your center with today’s topic: eccentricity!

February 7, 2022February 6, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Eclipsing Binary

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You’ll be seeing double with today’s topic: eclipsing binaries!

February 6, 2022February 6, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomy Jargon 101: Elliptical Galaxy

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image captures the galaxy Messier 84 — also known as NGC 4374 — an object from the Messier catalogue, published in its final version in 1781 by Charles Messier. This elliptical galaxy was discovered in March 1781 and lies about 60 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin). The galaxy is part of the very heavily populated centre of the Virgo Cluster, a cluster which consists of more than 1000 galaxies. This image does not show the whole galaxy but only its very interesting centre, and is likely to be the best image of the region ever captured. Previous observations using Hubble’s Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) revealed a supermassive black hole in the centre of Messier 84. Astronomers found the supermassive black hole by mapping the motion of the gas and the stars which are caught in its grip. Next to its interesting centre Messier 84 is also known for its supernovae. Two supernovae have been observed within the galaxy. The first, SN1957 was discovered in 1957 and another, called SN1991bg, was discovered in 1991. Credit: NASA/ESA/HST

In this series we are exploring the weird and wonderful world of astronomy jargon! You’ll try to get back in shape with today’s topic: elliptical galaxies!

February 5, 2022February 5, 2022 by Matt Williams

The Space Shuttle was Originally Hoped to be a Fully Reusable two-Stage Rocket

For anyone old enough to remember the 1980s, the Space Shuttle was an iconic symbol of spaceflight. For thirty years (1981-2011), this program flew 135 missions, which consisted of orbital science experiments, deploying satellites, launching interplanetary probes, participating in the Shuttle-Mir program, deploying the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and constructing the International Space Station (ISS). There were also tragedies along the way, such as the Challenger (1986) and Columbia disasters (2003).

But here’s an interesting and little-known fact: the actual design of the Space Shuttle could have been entirely different. Rather than the reusable Space Transportation System (STS) and expendable external tank (E.T.) and solid rocket boosters (SRB) we all remember, there was also a concept for a fully-reusable two-stage-to-orbit spaceplane (DC-3). In a lovely video by spaceflight animator Haze Gray Art (YouTube handle Hazegrayart), viewers get a chance to see what a full take-off and landing would have looked like.

February 4, 2022February 4, 2022 by Evan Gough

A Second Generation of Planets can Form Around a Dying Star

An illustration of a protoplanetary disk. The solar system formed from such a disk. Astronomers suggest this birthplace was protected by a larger filament of molecular gas and dust early in history. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (SSC)

When young stars coalesce out of a cloud of molecular hydrogen, a disk of leftover material called a protoplanetary disk surrounds them. This disk is where planets form, and astronomers are getting better at peering into those veiled environments and watching embryonic worlds take shape. But young stars aren’t the only stars with disks of raw material rotating around them.

Some old, dying stars also have disks. Can a second generation of planets form under those conditions?

February 3, 2022February 4, 2022 by Matt Williams

Ice Cores Tell the Tale of an Incredibly Powerful Solar Storm That Hit the Earth 9,200 Years Ago

For decades, climate researchers and Earth scientists have used cores from ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctic to better understand Earth’s climate history. Given how sensitive our atmosphere and climate are to the Sun, these ice cores are also a record of Solar activity. In a recent analysis of ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, a research team led by Lund University in Sweden found evidence of an extreme solar storm that occurred about 9,200 years ago – when solar activity was believed to be one of the Sun’s more “quiet” phases.

The team consisted of researchers from Lund’s Department of Geology & Quaternary Sciences, the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) for Polar and Marine Research, the Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics at ETH Zürich, and the Ice Dynamics and Paleoclimate team (part of the British Antarctic Survey) at Cambridge University. Their results appeared in a paper that was recently published by Nature Communications.