Universe Today

September 24, 2023September 24, 2023 by Matt Williams

The OSIRIS-REx Capsule Has Landed! Asteroid Samples Returned!

The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2023. Credit: NASA

The OSIRIS-REx mission has just completed NASA’s first sample-return mission from a near-Earth asteroid (NEA). The samples arrived at the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) near Salt Lake City, where a team of engineers arrived by helicopter to retrieve the sample capsule. The samples will be curated by NASA’s Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate (ARES) and Japan’s Extraterrestrial Sample Curation Center (ESCuC). Analysis of the rocks and dust obtained from Bennu is expected to provide new insight into the formation and evolution of the Solar System.

September 23, 2023September 23, 2023 by Matt Williams

OSIRIS-REx Returns This Sunday!

An artist's concept of OSIRIS-REx obtaining a sample of asteroid Bennu for return to Earth. Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/UofArizona

On September 8th, 2016, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) mission launched from Earth. Its primary mission was to rendezvous with the asteroid Bennu, a carbonaceous Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA), obtain samples from its surface, and return them to Earth for analysis. On December 3rd, 2018, the mission reached Bennu and spent the next two years searching for the optimal place to retrieve these samples. Tomorrow, on Sunday, September 24th, the mission will finally deliver these samples to Earth for analysis.

Last week, on Saturday, September 16th, the OSIRIS-REx mission was spotted by the ESA’s Optical Ground Station (OGS) 1-meter telescope on the island of Tenerife, Spain. The spacecraft was still 4.66 km million (2.9 million mi) from Earth, but well on its way to returning. This will be the last time OSIRIS-REx will be spotted by ground-based telescopes before it reaches Earth to deliver its sample and heads back out into space.

September 23, 2023September 23, 2023 by Scott Alan Johnston

Machine Learning Algorithms Can Find Anomalous Needles in Cosmic Haystacks

The face of astronomy is changing. Though narrow-field point-and-shoot astronomy still matters (JWST anyone?), large wide-field surveys promise to be the powerhouses of discovery in the coming decades, especially with the advent of machine learning.

A recently developed machine learning program, called ASTRONOMALY, scanned nearly four million galaxy images from the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey (DECaLS), discovering 1635 anomalies including 18 previously unidentified sources with “highly unusual morphology.” It is a sign of things to come: a partnership between humans and software that can do better observational science than either could do on their own.

September 22, 2023September 22, 2023 by Evan Gough

The JWST is Forcing Astronomers to Rethink Early Galaxies

The graceful winding arms of the grand-design spiral galaxy M51 stretch across this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. New JWST observations of the early Universe are upending our understanding of galaxy evolution. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Adamo (Stockholm University) and the FEAST JWST team

The JWST has surprised astronomers again. Contrary to our existing understanding, the JWST showed us that the early Universe was full of fully-formed galaxies similar to the ones we see today. The widely-held belief is that the early Universe was too chaotic in its early years, and frequent mergers would’ve disrupted galaxies’ graceful shapes.

September 22, 2023September 22, 2023 by Evan Gough

The JWST Just Found Carbon on Europa, Boosting the Moon’s Potential Habitability

This reprocessed colour view of Jupiter’s moon Europa was made from images taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Most planets and moons in the Solar System are clearly dead and totally unsuitable for life. Earth is the only exception. But there are a few worlds where there are intriguing possibilities of life.

Chief among them is Jupiter’s moon Europa, and the JWST just discovered carbon there. That makes the moon and its subsurface ocean an even more desirable target in the search for life.

September 22, 2023September 21, 2023 by Brian Koberlein

If You Could See Gravitational Waves, the Universe Would Look Like This

A simulation of the sky seen in gravitational waves. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Imagine if you could see gravitational waves.

Of course, humans are too small to sense all but the strongest gravitational waves, so imagine you were a great creature of deep space, with tendrils that could extend a million kilometers. As gravitational waves rippled across your vast body, you would sense them squeezing and tugging ever so slightly upon you. And your brilliant mind could use these sensations to create an image in your mind. The ripples of distant supernovae, merging black holes, the undercurrent of the gravitational background. Creation, and destruction, all seen in your mind’s eye.

September 21, 2023September 21, 2023 by Laurence Tognetti

Solar Sails Could Reach Mars in Just 26 Days

Artist's rendition of the upcoming NASA Solar Cruiser mission due to launch in February 2025, an example of the type of solar sail being developed for this most recent study. (Credit: NASA)

A recent study submitted to Acta Astronautica explores the potential for using aerographite solar sails for traveling to Mars and interstellar space, which could dramatically reduce both the time and fuel required for such missions. This study comes while ongoing research into the use of solar sails is being conducted by a plethora of organizations along with the successful LightSail2 mission by The Planetary Society, and holds the potential to develop faster and more efficient propulsion systems for long-term space missions.

September 21, 2023September 21, 2023 by Evan Gough

NASA’s Perseverance Rover is Setting Records on Mars

This image mosaic shows Perseverance's tracks as it made its way through a boulder field called "Snowdrift Peak." The rover's advanced autonomous navigation system guided the machine through the hazardous area in record time. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s Perseverance Rover has been exploring Mars for more than 900 sols. It’s the most scientifically advanced rover ever built and has opened our eyes wider to Mars and the possibility that it hosted life. The rover’s crowning achievement is preparing samples for eventual return to Earth, an important next step in understanding Mars.

But it can’t do any of its work without moving effectively and efficiently on the Martian surface. And in this regard, Perseverance and its autopilot are setting some serious records.

September 21, 2023September 21, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

This 3D Simulation of a Supernova Needed 5 Million Hours of Supercomputing

The three-dimensional simulation of the exotic supernova reveals the turbulent structures generated during the material ejection in the explosion. Through three-dimensional simulations, scientists gain deeper insights into the physical processes of peculiar supernova explosions and can explain the observed phenomena and characteristics of these extraordinary supernovae. Credit: Ke-Jung Chen/ASIAA.

When the largest stars in the Universe run out of fuel, they detonate as supernovae, collapsing inward and leaving behind a neutron star, black hole, or just wholly vaporizing. What’s happening inside the unfolding explosion is difficult to understand, and especially so for so-called exotic supernovae, the rarest and brightest types of stellar explosions.

To better understand the dynamics of these rare supernovae, astronomers are using powerful supercomputers to simulate the process. After years of real-world research and millions of hours of supercomputer computing time, researchers have completed the first ever high-definition, 3D hydrodynamic simulation of exotic supernovae.

September 21, 2023September 21, 2023 by Brian Koberlein

We Can't See the First Stars Yet, but We Can See Their Direct Descendants

This artist’s impression shows a Population III star that is 300 times more massive than our Sun exploding as a pair-instability supernova. Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/Spaceengine

If you take a Universe worth of hydrogen and helium, and let it stew for about 13 billion years, you get us. We are the descendants of the primeval elements. We are the cast-off dust of the first stars, and many generations of stars after that. So our search for the first stars of the cosmos is a search for our own history. While we haven’t captured the light of those first stars, some of their direct children may be in our own galaxy.