Astronomy Archives

September 25, 2019September 25, 2019 by Evan Gough

This Summer’s Asteroid Near-Miss Helped Greenlight NASA’s NEOCam Mission to Search the Skies for Killer Spacerocks

An artist's conception of an NEO asteroid orbiting the Sun. Credit: NASA/JPL.

Last July, a once-in-a-lifetime event happened. Not the good kind; the football-field-sized-asteroid near-miss kind. And that near miss is the catalyst for a renewed effort from NASA to detect more dangerous space-rocks that might threaten Earth.

Last summer’s near-miss asteroid was named 2019 OK, and it passed within about 77,000 km (48,000 miles) of Earth. It managed to slip past all of our detection methods and came within 0.19 lunar distances to Earth. In astronomical terms, that is remarkably close.

We only had 24 hours notice that the asteroid was coming, thanks to a small telescope in Brazil that spotted it. That near miss has sparked a renewed conversation on planetary defense and on NASA’s role in it.

It also left people wondering how this could happen.

September 24, 2019September 24, 2019 by Matt Williams

Lockheed Wins the Contract to Build Six More Orion Capsules

Orion is NASA’s deep space exploration spaceship that will carry astronauts from Earth to the Moon and bring them safely home. Credit: Lockheed Martin

When NASA sends astronauts back to the Moon and to Mars, the Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) will be what takes them there. To build these next-generation spacecraft, NASA contracted aerospace manufacturer Lockheed Martin. Combined with the massive Space Launch System (SLS), the Orion spacecraft will allow for long-duration missions beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for the first time in over 50 years.

On Monday, Sept. 23rd, NASA and Lockheed Martin announced that they had finalized a contract for the production and operations of six missions using the Orion spacecraft, with the possibility of up to twelve being manufactured in total. This fulfills the requirements for NASA’s Project Artemis and opens the possibility for further missions to destinations like Mars and other locations in deep-space.

September 23, 2019December 2, 2019 by Tammy Plotner

Messier 92 – the NGC 6341 Globular Cluster

M92 by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: ESA/NASA

Welcome back to Messier Monday! Today, we continue in our tribute to our dear friend, Tammy Plotner, by looking at the globular cluster known as Messier 92!

During the 18th century, famed French astronomer Charles Messier noticed the presence of several “nebulous objects” while surveying the night sky. Originally mistaking these objects for comets, he began to catalog them so that others would not make the same mistake. Today, the resulting list (known as the Messier Catalog) includes over 100 objects and is one of the most influential catalogs of Deep Space Objects.

One of these objects is Messier 92, a globular cluster located in the northern constellation of Hercules. This cluster lies at a distance of 26,700 light-years from Earth and is also approaching our galaxy at a speed of about 112 km/s (403,200 km/h; 250,500 mph) – which means it will eventually merge with our own. With an average estimated age of 14.2 billion years (± 1.2 billion years), it is almost as old as the Universe itself!

September 23, 2019September 23, 2019 by Evan Gough

Elliptical Galaxy Messier 110 Has a Surprising Core of Hot Blue Stars

A new Hubble image of M 110 shows that these dwarf elliptical galaxies do contain some blue, hot young stars and that they may harbour areas of star formation after all. Image credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, L. Ferrarese et al.

Messier 110 (NGC 205) is a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy. It’s a dwarf elliptical galaxy, a common type of galaxy often found in galaxy clusters and groups, and it contains about 10 billion stars. Like all dwarf ellipticals, it doesn’t have the characteristic shape of galaxies like Andromeda or the Milky Way, with their vast, spiral arms. It has a smooth, featureless shape.

Dwarf ellipticals lack the blazing bright areas of active star formation that other galaxies display. In fact, astronomers think that they’re too old to have any young stars at all. But M110 appears to be different.

September 20, 2019September 20, 2019 by Evan Gough

Rosetta Saw Collapsing Cliffs and Other Changes on 67P During its Mission

An example of a boulder having moved across the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s surface, captured in Rosetta’s OSIRIS imagery. The image was taken with the narrow-angle camera and shows the boulder in the lower third of the image. Image Credit: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA (CC BY-SA 4.0);

It seems that comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko is not the stoic, unchanging Solar System traveller that it might seem to be. Scientists working through the vast warehouse of images from the Rosetta spacecraft have discovered there’s lots going on on 67P. Among the activity are collapsing cliffs and bouncing boulders.

September 20, 2019September 20, 2019 by Evan Gough

Enceladus Causes Snowfall On Other Moons of Saturn

Stunningly beautiful Enceladus has a subsurface ocean. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Radar evidence shows that geysers on Enceladus are ejecting water that turns to snow. The snow not only falls back on Enceladus’ surface, but also makes its way to its neighboring moons, Mimas and Tethys, making them more reflective. Researchers are calling this a ‘snow cannon.’

September 19, 2019September 19, 2019 by Evan Gough

Yes, This is Actually the Shadow of Io Passing Across the Surface of Jupiter.

Io casts a crisp circular shadow on the the cloud tops in Jupiter's atmosphere in this JunoCam image processed by Kevin Gill. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kevin M. Gill https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

The JunoCam onboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft continues to provide we Earthbound humans with a steady stream of stunning images of Jupiter. We can’t get enough of the gas giant’s hypnotic, other-worldly beauty. This image of Io passing over Jupiter is the latest one to awaken our sense of wonder.

This image was processed by Kevin Gill, a NASA software engineer who has produced other stunning images of Jupiter.

September 17, 2019September 17, 2019 by Evan Gough

The Most Massive Neutron Star has been Found. It’s ALMOST the Most Massive Neutron Star That’s Even Possible

Artist's illustration of a rotating neutron star, the remnants of a super nova explosion. Credit: NASA, Caltech-JPL

Neutron stars are the end-state of massive stars that have spent their fuel and exploded as supernovae. There’s an upper limit to their mass, because a massive enough star won’t become a neutron star; it’ll become a black hole. But finding that upper mass limit, or tipping point, between a star that becomes a black hole and one that becomes a neutron star, is something astronomers are still working on.

Now a new discovery from astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Green Bank Telescope (GBT) have found the most massive neutron star yet, putting some solid data in place about the so-called tipping point.

September 17, 2019September 17, 2019 by Matt Williams

Could We Intercept Interstellar Comet C/2019 Q4 Borisov?

Artist's impression of Oumuamua leaving the Solar System. Credit: NASA

When ‘Oumuamua passed through our Solar System two years ago, it set off a flurry of excitement in the astronomical community. Here was the first-ever interstellar object that be observed by human trackers, and the mysteries surrounding its true nature and composition led to some pretty interesting theories. There were even some proposals for a rapid mission that would be able to rendezvous with it.

And now that a second interstellar object – C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) – has been detected traveling through the Solar System, similar proposals are being made. One of them comes from a group of scientists from the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) in the UK. In a recent study, they assess the technical feasibility of sending a mission to this interstellar comet using existing technology, and found that there were a few options!

September 16, 2019September 17, 2019 by Matt Williams

Real Artificial Gravity for SpaceX’s Starship

Despite the many, many problems we face in the world today, it is still an exciting time to be alive! As we speak, mission planners and engineers are developing the concepts that will soon take astronauts on voyages beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for the first time in almost fifty years. In addition to returning to the Moon, we are also looking further afield to Mars and other distant places in the Solar System.

This presents a number of challenges, not the least of which are the effects of prolonged exposure to radiation and microgravity. And whereas there are many viable options for protecting crews from radiation, gravity remains a bit of a stumbling block. To address this, Youtuber smallstars has proposed a concept that he calls the Gravity Link Starship (GLS), a variation of SpaceX’s Starship that will be able to provide its own artificial gravity.