News Archives

January 22, 2020January 22, 2020 by Evan Gough

Betelgeuse is Continuing to Dim! It’s Down to 1.506 Magnitude

Betelgeuse was the first star directly imaged -- besides our own Sun, of course. Image obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: Andrea Dupree (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA), Ronald Gilliland (STScI), NASA and ESA

Betelgeuse keeps getting dimmer and everyone is wondering what exactly that means. The star will go supernova at the end of its life, but that’s not projected to happen for tens of thousands of years or so. So what’s causing the dimming?

January 21, 2020January 21, 2020 by Evan Gough

Space Force Uniforms are Perfectly Camouflaged for a Forest Moon

The US Space Force has revealed their uniforms. Image Credit: US Space Force

The United States Space Force has given us a look at their new uniforms, and critics are savaging them on Twitter and elsewhere. That’s because the new uniforms are camouflage.

January 14, 2020January 14, 2020 by Evan Gough

LightSail 2 is Still Solar Sailing, But it’s Getting Lower and Lower with Each Orbit

LightSail 2 captured this image on 25 November 2019. The top end of Australia’s Northern Territory is in the center of the image. North is approximately at the bottom of the image. The city of Darwin is beneath the clouds near the tip of the sail’s middle boom. The island of New Guinea can be seen to the left. A lens flare also appears in the left part of the image. The sail appears curved due to the spacecraft's 185-degree fisheye camera lens. The image has been color corrected and some of the distortion has been removed. Image Credit: The Planetary Society

LightSail 2 deployed it solar sail five months ago, and it’s still orbiting Earth. It’s a successful demonstration of the potential of solar sail spacecraft. Now the LightSail 2 team at The Planetary Society has released a paper outlining their findings from the mission so far.

December 20, 2019December 20, 2019 by Evan Gough

Starliner Launches But it Can’t Reach the Station

Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule launched successfully, but a mishap prevented it from docking with the ISS. The ship is undamaged and will return and land at its designated location, according to officials. This could delay the planned crewed flight of the Starliner next summer.

December 11, 2019December 11, 2019 by Evan Gough

Wow, Meade Instruments Just Filed for Bankruptcy Protection

Meade Instruments, a company familiar to any backyard astronomer who’s drooled over their telescopes, has filed for bankruptcy. The company has fallen on hard times in recent years, as they’ve faced increasing competition. Meade also recently lost a lawsuit, which pushed them over the edge into bankruptcy.

The company is based in Irvine, California, and was founded in 1972. They started out selling small refracting telescopes. They expanded into Newtonian reflectors and Schmidt-Cassegrain telescopes over the years. Now, they sell telescope models worth upwards of $10,000.

December 10, 2019December 10, 2019 by Evan Gough

These Incredible Images of Alien Worlds are Actually Miniatures

View from an alien moon by Adam Makarenko. Image Copyright: Adam Makarenko

Have you heard of Adam Makarenko? No?

Adam is an artist who makes physical models of exoplanets then creates elaborate photo shoots of them. Adam is our new favorite Instagram feed at Universe Today, and he even took over the UT Instagram feed recently.

December 4, 2019December 4, 2019 by Evan Gough

IKEA’s New Collection is Inspired by the Challenges of Living on Mars

An artist's illustration of a Mars settlement. Image: Bryan Versteeg/MarsOne — An artist's illustration of an early Mars settlement. Credit: Bryan Versteeg/MarsOne

The Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) is a simulated Martian habitat in Utah. It’s owned by the Mars Society, and it’s the society’s second such station. The MDRS is a research facility, and while there, scientists must live as if they were on Mars, including wearing simulated space suits.

One group of visitors wasn’t there for science, but for interior design. Two years ago, a trio of Ikea designers spent three days at the MDRS to develop Ikea products for small spaces. As it turns out, they ended up using their experience at the MDRS to help outfit the MDRS itself.

November 25, 2019November 25, 2019 by Evan Gough

Here’s a Deepfake of Nixon Giving a Eulogy for the Apollo 11 Astronauts if Their Mission Failed

A screenshot from the Deep Fake video of Nixon reading his Apollo 11 bad news speech. Image Credit: In Event of Moon Disaster Project

It’s July 16th, 1969. The Apollo 11 crew have completed their training, and they’re in the Columbia Command Module atop a Saturn V rocket, to this day the most powerful rocket ever built. At 9:32 EDT the rocket lifts off, delivering the crew into Earth orbit 12 minutes after launch.

November 19, 2019November 19, 2019 by Evan Gough

Water Vapor Was Just Found on Europa, More Evidence There’s Liquid Water Beneath All that Ice

The fascinating surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa looms large in this newly-reprocessed color view, made from images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. This is the color view of Europa from Galileo that shows the largest portion of the moon's surface at the highest resolution. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute

What’s been long-suspected has now been confirmed: Jupiter’s moon Europa has water. As we’ve learned more about the outer Solar System in recent years, Europa has become a high-priority target in the search for life. With this discovery, NASA has just painted a big red bulls-eye on Jupiter’s smallest Galilean moon.

November 1, 2019November 1, 2019 by Evan Gough

Return to the Moon with Blue Origin’s Rockets and Lunar Lander Made Out of LEGO

The LEGO New Glenn 2nd stage. Image Credit: Roche/Nolan

Indulge your inner man-child (or woman-child) with these LEGO versions of the Blue Origin Blue Moon lunar lander, New Glenn rocket, and launch tower. This new design is currently gathering supporters on the LEGO Ideas website. If it gets enough supporters, LEGO will review it and possibly build it.