Meet the brown dwarf: bigger than a planet, and smaller than a star. A category of its own, it’s one of the strangest objects in the universe.
Continue reading “What Makes Brown Dwarfs So Weird?”What Makes Brown Dwarfs So Weird?
Archaeology On Mars: Preserving Artifacts of Our Expansion Into the Solar System
In 1971, the Soviet Mars 3 lander became the first spacecraft to land on Mars, though it only lasted a couple of minutes before failing. More than 50 years later, it’s still there at Terra Sirenum. The HiRISE camera NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter may have imaged some of its hardware, inadvertently taking part in what could be an effort to document our Martian artifacts.
Is it time to start cataloguing and even preserving these artifacts so we can preserve our history?
Some anthropologists think so.
Continue reading “Archaeology On Mars: Preserving Artifacts of Our Expansion Into the Solar System”Building the Black Hole Family Tree
In 2019, astronomers observed an unusual gravitational chirp. Known as GW190521, it was the last scream of gravitational waves as a black hole of 66 solar masses merged with a black hole of 85 solar masses to become a 142 solar mass black hole. The data were consistent with all the other black hole mergers we’ve observed. There was just one problem: an 85 solar mass black hole shouldn’t exist.
Continue reading “Building the Black Hole Family Tree”Need to Accurately Measure Time in Space? Use a COMPASSO
Telling time in space is difficult, but it is absolutely critical for applications ranging from testing relativity to navigating down the road. Atomic clocks, such as those used on the Global Navigation Satellite System network, are accurate, but only up to a point. Moving to even more precise navigation tools would require even more accurate clocks. There are several solutions at various stages of technical development, and one from Germany’s DLR, COMPASSO, plans to prove quantum optical clocks in space as a potential successor.
Continue reading “Need to Accurately Measure Time in Space? Use a COMPASSO”A Binary Star Found Surprisingly Close to the Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole
Binary stars are common throughout the galaxy. Roughly half the stars in the Milky Way are part of a binary or multiple system, so we would expect to find them almost everywhere. However, one place we wouldn’t expect to find a binary is at the center of the galaxy, close to the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. And yet, that is precisely where astronomers have recently found one.
Continue reading “A Binary Star Found Surprisingly Close to the Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole”New Research Suggests Io Doesn’t Have a Shallow Ocean of Magma
Jupiter’s moon Io is the most volcanically active body in the Solar System, with roughly 400 active volcanoes regularly ejecting magma into space. This activity arises from Io’s eccentric orbit around Jupiter, which produces incredibly powerful tidal interactions in the interior. In addition to powering Io’s volcanism, this tidal energy is believed to support a global subsurface magma ocean. However, the extent and depth of this ocean remains the subject of debate, with some supporting the idea of a shallow magma ocean while others believe Io has a more rigid, mostly solid interior.
In a recent NASA-supported study, an international team of researchers combined data from multiple missions to measure Io’s tidal deformation. According to their findings, Io does not possess a magma ocean and likely has a mostly solid mantle. Their findings further suggest that tidal forces do not necessarily lead to global magma oceans on moons or planetary bodies. This could have implications for the study of exoplanets that experience tidal heating, including Super-Earths and exomoons similar to Io that orbit massive gas giants.
Continue reading “New Research Suggests Io Doesn’t Have a Shallow Ocean of Magma”The Mysterious Case of the Resurrected Star
The star HD 65907 is not what it appears to be. It’s a star that looks young, but on closer inspection is actually much, much older. What’s going on? Research suggests that it is a resurrected star.
Continue reading “The Mysterious Case of the Resurrected Star”The JWST Looked Over the Hubble’s Shoulder and Confirmed that the Universe is Expanding Faster
It’s axiomatic that the Universe is expanding. However, the rate of expansion hasn’t remained the same. It appears that the Universe is expanding more quickly now than it did in the past.
Astronomers have struggled to understand this and have wondered if the apparent acceleration is due to instrument errors. The JWST has put that question to rest.
Continue reading “The JWST Looked Over the Hubble’s Shoulder and Confirmed that the Universe is Expanding Faster”Astronaut Don Pettit is Serious, He Rigged up Astrophotography Gear on the ISS
Astrophotography is a challenging art. Beyond the usual skill set of understanding things such as light exposure, color balance, and the quirks of your kit, there is the fact that stars are faint and they move.
Continue reading “Astronaut Don Pettit is Serious, He Rigged up Astrophotography Gear on the ISS”Drone Test Flights Are Being Tested for Flights on Alien Worlds
We’ve already seen the success of the Ingenuity probe on Mars. The first aircraft to fly on another world set off on its maiden voyage in April 2021 and has now completed 72 flights. Now a team of engineers are taking the idea one step further and investigating ways that drones can be released from satellites in orbit and explore the atmosphere without having to land. The results are positive and suggest this could be a cost effective way to explore alien atmospheres.
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