Universe Today

January 10, 2024January 10, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Chinese Rocket Lofts the Einstein Probe and its “Lobster Eyes”

Any astronomical instrument dubbed “Lobster Eyes” is bound to grab attention. It’s actually unlike scientists to give anything creative names, take the big red coloured storm on Jupiter which resembles a spot…aka the Great Red Spot! Lobster Eyes is the name adtoped by the X-ray telescope that just been launched from China and will scan the sky looking for X-rays coming from high-energy transients.

January 10, 2024January 11, 2024 by Laurence Tognetti

Impact Craters: Why study them and can they help us find life elsewhere?

Image of a fresh impact crater with a diameter of approximately 30 meters (100 feet) with corresponding ejecta rays obtained by NASA’s High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on Nov. 19, 2013. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

When we look at the Moon, either through a pair of binoculars, a telescope, or past footage from the Apollo missions, we see a landscape that’s riddled with what appear to be massive sinkholes. But these “sinkholes” aren’t just on the Moon, as they are evident on nearly every planetary body throughout the solar system, from planets, to other moons, to asteroids. They are called impact craters and can range in size from cities to small countries.

January 10, 2024January 10, 2024 by Evan Gough

A Giant Star is Fading Away. But First, it Had an Enormous Eruption

Astronomers from Georgia State University’s CHARA Array have captured the first close-up images of a massive star known as RW Cephei that recently experienced a strange fading event. The images are providing new clues about what’s happening around the massive star approximately 16,000 light years from Earth. Image Credit: GSU/CHARA, Anugu et al. 2023

About 16,000 light-years away, a massive star experienced an unusual dimming event. This can happen in binary stars when one star passes in front of the other. It can also be due to intrinsic reasons like innate variability. But this star dimmed by as much as one-third, a huge amount.

What happened?

January 10, 2024January 10, 2024 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Another Example of a Fantastic Einstein Ring

The gravitationally lensed galaxy HerS J020941.1+001557 (red ring) has its imaged distorted by the gravitational effect of a foreground galaxy. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, H. Nayyeri, L. Marchetti, J. Lowenthal; CC BY 4.0 — The gravitationally lensed galaxy HerS J020941.1+001557 (red Einstein ring) has its imaged distorted by the gravitational effect of a foreground galaxy. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, H. Nayyeri, L. Marchetti, J. Lowenthal; CC BY 4.0

The most evocative astronomy images take us across space and time to stars and galaxies billions of light-years away. Nestled at the center of this one, taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, is a collection of three galaxies. They’re not all that close together, although they appear to be in this image. What’s fascinating about this image is that it’s a fine example of an Einstein gravitational ring—and its discovery was enabled by members of the public!

January 10, 2024January 10, 2024 by Evan Gough

The Youngest Planetary Disks Ever Seen

The evolutionary sequence of protoplanetary disks with substructures, from the ALMA CAMPOS survey. These wide varieties of planetary disk structures are possible formation sites for young protoplanets. Image Credit: Hsieh et al. in prep.

How long does planet formation take? Maybe not as long as we thought, according to new research. Observations with the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA) show that planet formation around young stars may begin much earlier than scientists thought.

January 10, 2024January 10, 2024 by Mark Thompson

Astrobotic Confirms it Won’t be Landing on the Moon

It’s a real shame that spaceflight is seen as routine by the world’s media. In reality, our exploration of the Solar System is still in its infancy, problems are still seen and sadly missions do still fail. We are reminded of this with the recent launch of the Astrobotic Peregrine lander on Sunday. It was launched atop a Vulcan rocket but it soon became apparent that there was a problem with the lander propulsion system. A leak has been discovered and unfortunately there is insufficient fuel to support a soft landing on the Moon.

January 10, 2024January 10, 2024 by Nancy Atkinson

A Solo Brown Dwarf Found With Auroras

This artist concept portrays the brown dwarf W1935, which is located 47 light-years from Earth. Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope found infrared emission from methane coming from W1935, generating an aurora, a very unexpected discovery. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Leah Hustak (STScI)

Astronomers have used JWST to find a brown dwarf with polar auroras like the Earth, or Jupiter. This is surprising because the brown dwarf, dubbed W1935, is a free-floating object, meaning it isn’t part of another star system. Therefore, there’s no solar wind available to generate any Northern Lights. Instead, the auroras are seemingly generated from methane emissions in the planet’s atmosphere, interacting with the interstellar plasma. Another theory is that it perhaps has an active but unseen moon contributing to the emissions.

January 10, 2024January 10, 2024 by Mark Thompson

NASA is Pushing Back its Moon Landings to 2026

I wasn’t around for the Apollo program that took human beings to the Moon. I would have love to have seen it all unfold though. With NASAs Artemis program the opportunity will soon be with us again to watch humans set foot on another world, just not for the first time. Alas NASA announced on Tuesday that the Moon landings which form part of Artemis 3, have been pushed back one year to 2026.

January 9, 2024January 10, 2024 by Evan Gough

Three Iron Rings Around A Star Show Where Planets are Forming

Observations with the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) found various silicate compounds and potentially iron, substances we also find in large amounts in the solar system's rocky planets. Credit: Jenry

Researchers using the ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) have found three iron rings around a young star about 500 light-years away. The rings indicate that planets are forming. What can these rings tell us about how Earth and the other planets in our Solar System formed?

January 9, 2024January 9, 2024 by Evan Gough

1,500 New Type 1A Supernova Found as Part of the Dark Energy Survey

An example of a supernova discovered by the Dark Energy Survey within the field covered by one of the individual detectors in the Dark Energy Camera. The supernova exploded in a spiral galaxy with redshift = 0.04528, which corresponds to a light-travel time of about 0.6 billion years. In comparison, the quasar at the right has a redshift of 3.979 and a light-travel time of 11.5 billion years. Image Credit: DES Collaboration/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani

Supernova explosions are fascinating because they’re so cataclysmic, powerful, and awe-inspiring. They’re Nature’s summer blockbusters. Humans have recorded their existence in ancient astronomical records and stone carvings, and in our age, with telescopes.

Now, the Dark Energy Survey (DES) has uncovered the largest number of Type 1A supernovae ever found with a single telescope.