Universe Today

July 13, 2023July 14, 2023 by Matt Williams

The Final Flight of Ariane 5 Means That Europe is Out of Rockets

The Ariane 5 rocket taking off from Europe's Spaceport in French Guyana. Credit: ESA-CNES

The Ariane 5 rocket, developed by Arianespace for the European Space Agency (ESA), has had a good run! The rocket series made its debut in 1996 and has been the workhorse of the ESA for decades, performing a total of 117 launches from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The many payloads it has sent to space include resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS), the BepiColombo probe, the comet-chasing Rosetta spacecraft, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE), and countless communication and science satellites.

Alas, all good things must come to an end. In 2020, Arianespace and the ESA signed contracts for the rocket’s last eight launches before the Ariane 6 (a heavier two-stage launcher) would succeed it. The Ariane 5‘s final flight (VA261) lifted off from Europe’s Spaceport at 06:00 PM EST (03:00 PM PST) on July 5th, 2023, and placed two payloads into their planned geostationary transfer orbits (GTO) about 33 minutes later. On the downside, this means that the ESA is effectively out of launch vehicles until the Ariane 6 makes its debut next year.

July 13, 2023July 13, 2023 by Matt Williams

How Old is That Star? Ask a Computer

An open cluster of stars known as IC 4651, a stellar grouping that lies at in the constellation of Ara (The Altar). Credit: ESO

When measuring distances in the Universe, astronomers rely on what is known as the “Distance Ladder” – a succession of methods by which distances are measured to objects that are increasingly far from us. But what about age? Knowing with precision how old stars, star clusters, and galaxies are is also paramount to determining how the cosmos has evolved. Thanks to a new machine learning technique developed by researchers from Keele University, astronomers may have established the first rung on a “cosmic age ladder.”

July 13, 2023July 13, 2023 by Brian Koberlein

Celebrate a Year of JWST With This Ludicrous Image of Rho Ophiuchi

JWST image of the star forming region Rho Ophiuchi. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI)

Astronomy is driven by data. We take spectra of distant galaxies, plot the temperatures and brightness of main sequence stars, and graph the gravitational chirps of merging black holes. All of this data allows us to understand the universe around us. We don’t need images to do that, just data. But we still capture images even when we already have the data. We value them for their wondrous beauty, and for the stories they tell. This is why to celebrate a year of gathering data the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) released a stunningly beautiful image that also tells a wondrous tale.

July 13, 2023July 13, 2023 by Andy Tomaswick

After 63 Days of Silence, NASA Has Restored Communications with the Mars Helicopter

One of the most exciting success stories we’ve been able to report on repeatedly here at UT is that of the Ingenuity helicopter. Not only has it racked up several firsts for humanity, most notably the first powered flight of a craft on another planet, but it has provided both a new perspective and new scientific data to its operations team. It’s also consistently stayed ahead of its companion on the Red Planet – Perseverance, the rover it originally launched from. Sometimes, that causes a scary waiting period for the helicopter’s operations team.

July 13, 2023July 13, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Soar Past Thousands of Galaxies in the Early Universe in Thrilling 3D

The Extended Groth Strip that JWST focused on to observe galaxies in the early Universe. The new visualization is a deep dive into this image. Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Davis (University of California, Berkeley), and A. Koekemoer (STScI) — The Extended Groth Strip that JWST focused on to observe galaxies in the early Universe. Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Davis (University of California, Berkeley), and A. Koekemoer (STScI)

Want to visit the most distant galaxy in the early Universe? Now you can via a fantastic visualization created from JWST observations of some of the most distant galaxies ever seen.

July 12, 2023June 13, 2023 by Paul M. Sutter

Magnetar Glitches, Fast Radio Bursts, And…Asteroids???

A massive flare ejected from a magnetar.

Recently astronomers have been able to associate two seemingly unrelated phenomena: an explosive event known as a fast radio burst and the change in speed of a spinning magnetar. And now new research suggests that the cause of both of these is the destruction of an asteroid by a magnetar.

July 12, 2023July 12, 2023 by Brian Koberlein

Titanium Clouds Make This Exoplanet Shine Like a Mirror

An artist impression of exoplanet LTT9779b orbiting its host star. Credit: Ricardo Ramírez Reyes (Universidad de Chile)

Astronomers have found a very unusual exoplanet. It’s a Neptune-sized world that orbits its star every 19 hours, and it’s the brightest exoplanet ever discovered. They are still learning about this world, which is a challenge because at first glance the planet shouldn’t exist.

July 11, 2023June 13, 2023 by Paul M. Sutter

Dynamical Dark Energy Might Explain Strange 21-cm Signal

An artist's representation of what the first stars to light up the universe might have looked like in the Cosmic Dawn -- when early stars and galaxies were coming together. Image Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team

Dark energy may evolve in time, and it may even connect through a new force of nature with dark matter. And a researcher believes that we may have already seen evidence for this.

July 11, 2023July 12, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

The Biggest Telescope in the World is Half Built

This image, taken in late June 2023, shows a night view of the construction site of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope at Cerro Armazones, in Chile's Atacama Desert. Credit: ESO.

The European Southern Observatory continues to build the largest telescope in the world, the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). Construction of the telescope began in 2014 with flattening the top of a mountain named Cerro Armazones in Chile’s Atacama Desert.

ESO just announced that progress on construction has crossed the 50% mark. The remaining work should take another five years. When it finally comes online in 2028, the telescope will have a 39-meter (128 ft) primary mirror of 798 hexagonal segments, making it the largest telescope in the world for visible and infrared light. The new telescope should help to answer some of the outstanding questions about our Universe, such as how the first stars and galaxies formed, and perhaps even be able to take direct images of extrasolar planets.

July 11, 2023July 11, 2023 by Brian Koberlein

Wind Direction on Mars Changed Abruptly About 400,000 Years Ago

Dunes of Mars show a shift in wind direction. Credit: NAOC

Human-driven climate change is a serious threat to humanity. While climatologists continue to improve our understanding of its impact and consequences, they also look at nature-driven climate change going back millions of years. Whereas for human climate change, we only have a case study of one planet, for natural climate change we have a case study of two planets. Like Earth, Mars has undergone significant climate change in the past. We know, for example, that young Mars was both warm and wet. Its climate changed over a billion years to become the cold and dry world we know today. Even more recently, there have been shifts in the Martian weather, as noted in a recent study in Nature.