Astronomy Archives

November 20, 2022November 20, 2022 by Allen Versfeld

Many Next-Generation Telescopes are Carried on Balloons. Here's What the Next Decade Holds in Balloon Astronomy

Flying high over Antarctica, a NASA long duration balloon has broken the record for longest flight by a balloon of its size. Credits: NASA/BPO — A NASA long duration balloon prepares to carry the Super Trans-Iron Galactic Element Recorder (Super-TIGER) experiment on a long-duration flight over the South Pole Credits: NASA/BPO

NASA’s Balloon Program Analysis Group recently presented a roadmap to NASA, to guide them on how to plan and fund future balloon astronomy programs. Balloons have been used for over a century to conduct physics experiments, astronomical observations and Earth observing work, but remain relatively unknown to the general public. Balloon astronomy share many advantages with space telescopes, but at a fraction of the cost.

Continue reading “Many Next-Generation Telescopes are Carried on Balloons. Here's What the Next Decade Holds in Balloon Astronomy”

November 19, 2022November 19, 2022 by Anton Pozdnyakov

Artemis 1 Launch, Secret Space Plane, JWST Protection Plan

SLS finally launches to the Moon. SpaceX gets another contract from NASA. James Webb gets a protection plan from micrometeoroids. A Chinese booster shreds in low-Earth orbit. A secret space plane returns.

November 18, 2022November 18, 2022 by Evan Gough

Andromeda Contains the Remnants of a Recent “Feeding Event”

NASA Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared image of the Andromeda galaxy. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Ariz.

There’s a growing body of evidence that galaxies grow large by merging with other galaxies. Telescopes like the Hubble have captured dozens of interacting galaxies, including well-known ones like Arp 248. The Andromeda galaxy is the nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way, and a new study shows that our neighbour has consumed other galaxies in two distinct epochs.

November 18, 2022November 18, 2022 by David Dickinson

BlueWalker-3 Unfolds, Brightens One-Hundredfold

After months of waiting, we’re getting our first good looks at a fully deployed BlueWalker-3.

A new high-profile satellite may now be visible in a sky over you. We recently wrote about AST Space Mobile’s new BlueWalker-3 satellite, and its potential to be among the brightest objects in the night sky. Launched on September 10^th, 2022 an a SpaceX Falcon-9 rocket along with the Starlink Group 4-2 batch, BlueWalker-3 is the first of the company’s planned mega-constellation of 110 BlueBird satellites set to be deployed by the end of 2024 for worldwide communication.

November 17, 2022November 17, 2022 by David Dickinson

Are We in for a Leonid Outburst Friday Night?

Leonid from 2001 — A lone Leonid meteor from 2001. Image credit and copyright: Frankie Lucena.

The November Leonid meteors may produce a surprise outburst this weekend.

If forecasters are right, a notorious meteor shower may put on a surprise showing soon, right after its expected peak. The meteor shower in question is the November Leonids. Most years, the Leonids are really nothing to wake up early for, producing an average hourly rate of 10 meteors an hour, barely double the background sporadic rate. But every 33 years or so, the Leonids are the source of great storms of meteors, as the Earth plows headlong into the stream of debris laid down by comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle on its 33-year orbit around the Sun.

November 16, 2022November 16, 2022 by Matt Williams

Greenland’s ice Loss is Worse Than We Thought

Cumulative melt days on the Greenland Ice Sheet for the 2022 melt season (left) and difference from the 1981 to 2010 average melt days for the same period (right). Credit: NSIDC/T. Mote, University of Georgia

Climate change is the single greatest threat facing our planet today. Thanks to excess carbon emissions that have been growing steadily since the mid-20th century, average temperatures continue to rise worldwide. This leads to feedback mechanisms, such as rising sea levels, extreme weather, drought, wildfires, and glacial melting. This includes the Arctic Ice Pack, the East Antarctic glacier, and the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS), which are rapidly melting and increasing global sea levels.

Worse than that, the disappearance of the world’s ice sheets means that Earth’s surface and oceans absorb more heat, driving global temperatures even further. According to a new NASA-supported study by an international team of Earth scientists and glaciologists, the Greenland Ice Sheet is melting at an accelerating rate, much faster than existing models predict. According to these findings, far more ice will be lost from Greenland during the 21st century, which means its contribution to sea-level rise will be significantly higher.

November 15, 2022November 15, 2022 by Scott Alan Johnston

The X-37B is Back After 908 Days in Orbit. What was it Doing up There? That's Classified

At 5:22 AM Eastern Time on November 12, the Space Force’s (and Air Force’s) X-37B spaceplane landed back on Earth after two and a half years in orbit. The secretive spaceplane has now performed 6 missions, and the latest, OTV-6, was the longest flight yet. Details about the X-37B’s purpose are scarce, though it is clear that the vehicle is designed to serve as a testbed for advanced spaceflight capabilities. Here’s what we know about the latest mission.

November 15, 2022November 15, 2022 by Evan Gough

A White Dwarf is Surrounded by Torn-up Pieces of its Inner Planets and its Kuiper Belt

This illustration shows a white dwarf star siphoning off debris from shattered objects in a planetary system. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

What will happen to our Sun?

In several billion years, it’ll cease fusion, shrivel into a white dwarf, and emanate only remnant heat. There it’ll sit, dormant and comatose.

But the Sun anchors the entire Solar System. What will happen to Earth? To the rest of the planets? To the rest of the objects in the Solar System?

November 14, 2022November 14, 2022 by Evan Gough

New Observations Confirm That a Magnetar has a Solid Surface and No Atmosphere

An artist's impression of a magnetar, a highly magnetic, slowly rotating neutron star. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

Can a star have a solid surface? It might sound counterintuitive. But human intuition is a response to our evolution on Earth, where up is up, down is down, and there are three states of matter. Intuition fails when it confronts the cosmos.

November 12, 2022November 12, 2022 by Anton Pozdnyakov

SLS Hurricanes, James Webb Fixed, Strange Quark Star

JWST’s MIRI is fully operational again. Have astronomers found the first strange star? The first test of an inflatable heat shield. And SLS just got hit by a Hurricane. Again.