Universe Today

November 27, 2024November 27, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Is There Seismic Activity on Venus? Here’s How We Could Find Out

An artist’s depiction of different methods for measuring seismic and acoustic waves on Venus: a seismometer on the ground, pressure sensors on board balloons, and infrared imagers on board orbiters. Credit: Fabio Crameri

Venus is often referred to as Earths twin but size and mass are the only similarities. A visitor to one of our nearest neighbours would experience a very different world at the surface. Unlike other planets in the Solar System, Venus seems to show very little active volcanism. The environmental conditions on the surface are harsh so a researcher has suggested a combination of an orbiter, a balloon and a lander would be able to work together to detect seismic activity under the surface.

November 27, 2024November 27, 2024 by Evan Gough

The Holiday Fireplace Video We Needed

This holiday season, sit back and enjoy the warming glow of the SLS's rocket engines. Image Credit: NASA

There’s a new contender for your holiday fireplace video. This one comes from NASA, and features rocket engines and boosters to light up your days with Space Launch System holiday cheer.

November 27, 2024November 27, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

An AI Chemist Made A Catalyst to Make Oxygen On Mars Using Local Materials

Breaking oxygen out of a water molecule is a relatively simple process, at least chemically. Even so, it does require components, one of the most important of which is a catalyst. Catalysts enable reactions and are linearly scalable, so if you want more reactions quickly, you need a bigger catalyst. In space exploration, bigger means heavier, which translates into more expensive. So, when humanity is looking for a catalyst to split water into oxygen and hydrogen on Mars, creating one from local Martian materials would be worthwhile. That is precisely what a team from Hefei, China, did by using what they called an “AI Chemist.”

November 27, 2024November 27, 2024 by Brian Koberlein

Asteroid Samples Returned to Earth Were Immediately Colonized by Bacteria

Electron microscope images of sample A0180, showing the presence of life. Credit: Genge, et al

We’ve known for a while that complex chemistry occurs in space. Organic molecules have been detected in cold molecular clouds, and we have even found sugars and amino acids, the so-called “building blocks of life,” within several asteroids. The raw ingredients of terrestrial life are common in the Universe, and meteorites and comets may have even seeded Earth with those ingredients. This idea isn’t controversial. But there is a more radical idea that Earth was seeded not just with the building blocks of life but life itself. It’s known as panspermia, and a recent study has brought the idea back to popular science headlines. But the study is more subtle and interesting than some headlines suggest.

November 26, 2024November 26, 2024 by Mark Thompson

An Insanely High-Resolution Image of the Sun

The solar surface in visible light composed of data from Solar Orbiter’s instrument PHI from March 22, 2023

Our local star the Sun has been the source of many studies from ground based telescopes to space based observatories. The ESA Solar Orbiter has been approaching the Sun, capturing images along the way in unprecedented detail. It arrived at its halfway point in March last year and captured a series of 25 images. They have now been stitched together to reveal an astonishingly high resolution image. You can even zoom in to see individual granules in the solar photosphere.

November 26, 2024November 26, 2024 by Matt Williams

Scientists Reveal a New Way to Study Near-Earth Asteroids

A timelapse image of the fireball event from start to finish. Credit: Western Meteor Group

On November 18th, 2022, shortly before midnight, the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) in Arizona and other observatories worldwide detected a small object (now designated 2022 WJ1) heading toward Earth. For the next three hours, the CSS and the Southern Ontario Meteor Network (SOMN) at the University of Western Ontario monitored the object before it entered Earth’s atmosphere above Southern Ontario. At 03:26 a.m. EST (12:26 a.m. PST) on November 19th, the object appeared as a bright fireball that scattered meteorite fragments across the Niagara region.

This event triggered an international collaboration to hunt down the fragments for analysis, but none have been found yet. In a recent study led by Western University and Lowell Observatory, an international team of scientists described a new approach for studying near-Earth asteroids (NEA) based largely on 2022 WJ1. The study is significant in that the team determined the NEA’s composition—the smallest asteroid characterized to date—and established a new and integrated methodology for studying other NEAs that may impact Earth someday.

November 26, 2024November 26, 2024 by Evan Gough

The Hubble and FU Orionis: a New Look at an Old Mystery

This is an artist's concept of the early stages of the young star FU Orionis (FU Ori) outburst, surrounded by a disk of material. A team of astronomers has used the Hubble Space Telescope's ultraviolet capabilities to learn more about the interaction between FU Ori's stellar surface and the accretion disk that has been dumping gas onto the growing star for nearly 90 years. NASA-JPL, Caltech

In 1936 astronomers watched as FU Orionis, a dim star in the Orion constellation, brightened dramatically. The star’s brightness increased by a factor of 100 in a matter of months. When it peaked, it was 100 times more luminous than our Sun.

Astronomers had never observed a young star brightening like this.

November 26, 2024November 26, 2024 by Mark Thompson

China Tests a Reusable Inflatable Module in Space

Illustration of China's first reusable and returnable test satellite Shijian-19. /China Media Group

Inflatable space modules are not a new concept, NASA have been exploring the possibility since the 1960’s. The Chinese Space Agency is now getting in on the act and is testing its new inflatable module which is part of its Shijian-19 satellite launch. To get it into orbit the capsule was compressed and folded and then inflated once in orbit. Following completion of the tests, it re-entered the atmosphere, landing in the Gobi Desert on 10th October. The goal is for this to be used to extend its space station in the same way NASA have been exploring expansion of ISS.

November 26, 2024November 26, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

OKEANOS – A Mission That Would Have Retrurned Samples From the Trojan Asteroids

Getting a mission to the point of officially being accepted for launch is an ordeal. However, even when they aren’t selected for implementation, their ideas, and in some cases, their technologies, can live on in other missions. That was the case for the Oversize Kite-craft for Exploration and AstroNautics in the Outer Solar system (OKEANOS) project, originally planned as a Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) mission. Despite not receiving funding to complete its entire mission, the project team released a paper that details the original plan for the mission, and some of those plans were incorporated into other missions that are still under development.

November 26, 2024November 26, 2024 by Brian Koberlein

Fantastic New Image of the Sombrero Galaxy From Webb

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently imaged the Sombrero Galaxy, resolving the clumpy nature of the dust along the galaxy’s outer ring. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

NGC 4594 is an unusual galaxy. It was discovered in 1781 by Pierre Méchain, and is striking because of a symmetrical ring of dust that encircles the visible halo of the galaxy. Images taken of the galaxy in 2003 show this dusty ring in detail, where it almost resembles the brim of a large hat. So it’s understandable that NGC 4594 is more commonly known as the Sombrero Galaxy. Now the James Webb Space Telescope has captured an amazingly sharp image of the galaxy, and it’s revealing some interesting surprises.