Universe Today

December 14, 2023December 14, 2023 by Matt Williams

Voyager 1 Has Another Problem With its Computer System

For more than 46 years, the Voyager 1 probe has been traveling through space. On August 25th, 2012, it became the first spacecraft to cross the heliopause and enter interstellar space. Since then, mission controllers have maintained contact with the probe as part of an extended mission, which will last until the probe’s radioisotopic thermoelectric generators (RTGs) finally run out. Unfortunately, the Voyager 1 probe has been showing its age and signs of wear and tear, which is unavoidable when you’re the farthest spacecraft from Earth.

This includes issues with some of the probe’s subsystems, which have been a bit buggy lately. For instance, engineers at NASA recently announced that they were working to resolve an error with the probe’s flight data system (FDS). This system consists of three onboard computers responsible for communicating with another of Voyager 1’s subsystems, known as the telemetry modulation unit (TMU). As a result, while the spacecraft can receive and execute commands sent from Earth, it cannot send any science or engineering data back.

December 14, 2023December 14, 2023 by Matt Williams

Breakthrough Listen Scans Entire Galaxies for Signals From Extremely Advanced Civilizations

Breakthrough Listen has released the results of its latest survey - the center of 97 galaxies!

In 1960, Dr. Frank Drake led the first Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) experiment at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia. In the more than sixty years that have since passed, astronomers have conducted multiple surveys in search of technological activity (aka. technosignatures). To date, Breakthrough Listen is the most ambitious SETI experiment, combining data from the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, the Parkes Murriyang Telescope, the Automated Planet Finder, and the MeerKAT Radio Telescope and advanced analytics.

The program includes a survey of the one million closest stars to Earth, the center of our galaxy and the entire galactic plane, and the 100 closest galaxies to ours. In a recent paper, members of Breakthrough Listen presented the results of their radio technosignature search of the centers of 97 nearby galaxies observed by the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope. This search was one of the largest and broadest
searches for radio evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence ever undertaken, surveying trillions of stars at four frequency bands. Unfortunately, no compelling candidates were found.

December 14, 2023December 14, 2023 by David Dickinson

Betelgeuse Versus the Asteroid… What Happened?

Betelgeuse observed by ALMA (image credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/E. O’Gorman/P. Kervella) overlayed with an artist's impression of a moving asteroid.

A rare occultation of the bright star Betelgeuse by asteroid 319 Leona turned up mixed results.

In science and astronomy, sometimes a negative or subtle result can be as interesting as a positive one. That’s just what occultation-chasers where confronted with this past Monday evening on the night of December 11th/12th, when asteroid 319 Leona occulted (passed in front of) the +0.5 magnitude star Betelgeuse.

December 14, 2023December 14, 2023 by Mark Thompson

Dark Matter Could Cause Jupiter’s Night Side to Glow

One of the aspects of our study of the universe that fascinates me is the hunt for dark matter. That elusive material that doesn’t interact with much makes it difficult but not impossible to detect. Gravitational lenses are one such phenomena that point to its existence indeed it allows us to estimate how much there is in galaxy clusters. A paper now suggests that observations of Jupiter by Cassini in 2000 suggest we may be able to detect it using planets too.

December 14, 2023December 14, 2023 by Mark Thompson

DART Showed We Can Move an Asteroid. Can We Do It More Efficiently?

This illustration depicts NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft prior to impact at the Didymos binary asteroid system. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben

Like many of you, I loved Deep Impact and Armageddon. Great films, loads of action and of course, an asteroid on collision course with Earth. What more is there to love! Both movies touched upon the options for humanity to try and avoid such a collision but the reality is a little less Hollywood. One of the most common options is to try some sort of single impact style event as was demonstrated by the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission but a new paper offer an intriguing and perhaps more efficient alternative.

December 13, 2023December 14, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Entropy is the Key to a Planet’s Habitability

We all know that to have life on a world, you need three critical items: water, warmth, and food. Now add to that a factor called “entropy”. It plays a role in determining if a given planet can sustain and grow complex life.

December 13, 2023December 13, 2023 by Evan Gough

Webb Finds Icy Complex Organic Molecules Around Protostars: Ethanol, Methane, Formaldehyde, Formic Acid and Much More

Astronomers have used JWST to study the environments around 30 young protostars and found a vast collection of icy organic molecules. A recent survey identified methane, sulfur dioxide, ethanol, formaldehyde, formic acid, and many more. Image Credit: NASA/ESA/STScI

In the quest to understand how and where life might arise in the galaxy, astronomers search for its building blocks. Complex Organic Molecules (COMs) are some of those blocks, and they include things like formaldehyde and acetic acid, among many others. The JWST has found some of these COMs around young protostars. What does this tell astronomers?

December 13, 2023December 13, 2023 by Evan Gough

Hubble Returns to Science Operations

After a fairly brief pause in operations, the Hubble Space Telescope is back to work. Image Credit: NASA/CSA/ESA/STScI

After a brief interruption, NASA announced that the Hubble Space Telescope is back in business. Problems with one of its gyros put the Hubble into safe mode back on November 19th. Now, the issue has been dealt with, and the world’s most productive space telescope is back online.

December 13, 2023December 13, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Cool New Mission Trailer for Rosalind Franklin Rover

An artist's illustration of the Rosalind Franklin rover on Mars. Image Credit: ESA.

ESA’s Rosalind Franklin Mars rover has been delayed twice due to problems with its parachute deployment and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After ESA formally terminated the mission’s cooperation with Roscosmos in July 2022, Europe found a new partner with NASA and the mission appears to be on track for a 2028 launch.

The agency recently shared a new animated mission trailer showing new details about the rover, including how it will drill two meters into the Martian regolith and examine the samples with its onboard laboratory.

December 13, 2023December 13, 2023 by Evan Gough

JWST Delivers A Fantastic New Image Of Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A

Like a shiny, round ornament ready to be placed in the perfect spot on a holiday tree, supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A) gleams in a new image from the NASA/CSA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope. Image Credit: NASA/CSA/ESA

Astronomy is all about light. Sensing the tiniest amounts of it, filtering it, splitting it into its component wavelengths, and making sense of it, especially from objects a great distance away. The James Webb Space Telescope is especially adept at this, as this new image of supernova remnant (SNR) Cassiopeia A exemplifies so well.