Universe Today

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.

January 9, 2024January 9, 2024 by Scott Alan Johnston

Young Stars in the Outskirts of Galaxies Finally Have an Explanation

Star formation is well understood when it happens in the populous centers of galaxies. From our vantage point on Earth, within the Milky Way, we see it happening all around us. But when newborn stars are birthed in the empty outskirts of galactic space, it requires a new kind of explanation. At the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Association yesterday, astronomers announced that they have observed, for the first time, the unique molecular clouds that give rise to star formation near the remote edges of galaxies.

January 8, 2024January 11, 2024 by Matt Williams

NASA Selects Bold Proposal to “Swarm” Proxima Centauri with Tiny Probes

Swarm of laser-sail spacecraft leaving the solar system. Credit: Adrian Mann

Humans have dreamed about traveling to other star systems and setting foot on alien worlds for generations. To put it mildly, interstellar exploration is a very daunting task. As we explored in a previous post, it would take between 1000 and 81,000 years for a spacecraft to reach Alpha Centauri (of which Proxima Centauri is considered a companion) using conventional propulsion (or those that are feasible using current technology). On top of that, there are numerous risks when traveling through the interstellar medium (ISM), not all of which are well-understood.

Under the circumstances, gram-scale spacecraft that rely on directed-energy propulsion (aka. lasers) appear to be the only viable option for reaching neighboring stars in this century. Proposed concepts include the Swarming Proxima Centauri, a collaborative effort between Space Initiatives Inc. and the Initiative for Interstellar Studies (i4is) led by Space Initiative’s chief scientist Marshall Eubanks. The concept was recently selected for Phase I development as part of this year’s NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program.

January 8, 2024January 8, 2024 by Mark Thompson

The Debate Continues. Do Wide Binaries Prove or Disprove MOND?

The observed gravitational anomaly from 2,463 pure wide binaries free of hidden additional companions: The left panel shows the anomaly derived from the algorithm calculating kinematic acceleration while the right panel shows the anomaly directly from the observed sky-projected relative velocities between the two stars with respect to the sky-projected separations.

The term dark matter was coined back in 1933 and since then, the hunt for it has been well and truly on. However, the concept of dark matter was to describe anomalies from observation for example the rotation of spiral galaxies and the data from gravitational lensing. An alternative soljution is that our model of gravity is simply wrong, enter MOND, Modified Newtonian Dynamics. A new paper just published explores wide binary stars and looks to see if it supports the MOND model.

January 8, 2024January 8, 2024 by Evan Gough

Can Alien Civilizations Detect Humanity?

Is anyone out there? A new study examines how likely it is that an advanced ETI can "see" us. Image Credit: Jon Hrubesch

One of the fascinating things about being a human in this age is that we can do more than wonder about other life and other civilizations. We can actually look for them, although there are obvious limitations to our search. But what’s equally fascinating is that we can wonder if others can see us.

January 8, 2024January 8, 2024 by Nancy Atkinson

JWST and Chandra Team Up for a Stunning View of Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A

This image of Cassiopeia A comes from a combination of data from the Chandra X-ray telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Milisavljevic et al., NASA/JPL/CalTech; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt and K. Arcand

NASA’s long-lived Chandra X-ray Observatory teamed up with JWST for the first time, producing this incredibly detailed image of the famous supernova remnant Cassiopeia A. JWST first looked at the remnant in April 2023, and noticed an unusual debris structure from the destroyed star, dubbed the “Green Monster.” The combined view has helped astronomers better understand what this unusual structure is, plus it uncovered new details about the explosion that created Cas A.

January 8, 2024January 8, 2024 by Andy Tomaswick

The First Launch of ULA’s Vulcan Goes Smoothly, but there’s a Problem with its Lander Payload

Space missions regularly test multiple new technologies in one go. It’s very common to have a single mission test out three or more new technologies, making them “flight-proven.” Unfortunately, that sometimes means that though one particular new technology, or even many of them, might succeed, one technology could work. At the same time, another one could fail, and that single failure might mean that several other technologies might never even get a chance for their day in the Sun. That seems to have happened with NASA’s first Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mission. While the Vulcan rocket, developed by the United Launch Alliance (ULA), lifted off successfully, the Peregrine lander, developed by Astrobotic, seems to have run into an error that jeopardizes the rest of the mission.

January 7, 2024January 7, 2024 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Uranus and Neptune are Actually Pretty Much the Same Color

Scientists reprocessed Voyager 2 images to get the "true" colors of Uranus and Neptune. Turns out they're a pretty blueish-green. Courtesy NASA/Irwin, et al, Anton Pozdnyakov.

In the late 1980s, the Voyager 2 spacecraft snapped the “canonical” up-close images of Uranus and Neptune. In those views, Uranus was a pretty greenish-blue and Neptune appeared a deep azure color. It turns out that both planets are pretty close in color: a greenish-blue more akin to Uranus’s appearance.