Universe Today

July 21, 2023July 21, 2023 by Evan Gough

Not All Craters are Circular. Sometimes They Look Like This

This unusual looking Martian crater was created when something impacted the planet's surface at an angle. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

Impact craters are nature’s signature from a more chaotic time in our Solar System’s history. A quick glance at the Moon’s disfigured surface makes that clear. Same with Mars, though a telescope is needed to examine it. Or better yet, an orbital spacecraft with a powerful camera.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and its HiRISE camera have been examining Mars’ surface for years, cataloguing the planet’s menagerie of impact craters. One of them, recently chosen as the HiRISE Picture of the Day (HIPOD,) looks like a Thunderbird. Or a dinosaur footprint left in the mud.

July 21, 2023July 21, 2023 by Scott Alan Johnston

China is Working on a New Crew Spacecraft to Carry Up to 7 Passengers

China's Next Generation Spacecraft test vehicle after returning from orbit in 2020. China Central Television (CCTV).

China’s next-generation crew capsule was given an updated timeline this week. According to Yang Liwei, deputy chief designer of China’s Human Spaceflight Program, the new capsule will make its first flight in 2027 or 2028. Meeting this timeline will be a key milestone in China’s recently announced plan to land on the Moon by 2030.

July 21, 2023July 21, 2023 by Brian Koberlein

One Side of This White Dwarf is Covered in Hydrogen While the Other Side is Helium.

Illustration of the newly-discovered white dwarf. Credit: K. Miller, Caltech/IPAC

Sunlike stars and those smaller than the Sun end their lives as white dwarfs. Without a continued source of energy from hydrogen fusion, these stars eventually collapse under their own weight. They would continue collapsing were it not for the pressure of electrons. As long as the remaining mass of a star is less than about 1.4 Suns, the electron pressure and gravitational pull will balance each other, creating a white dwarf.

July 20, 2023July 20, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Carbon-Based Molecules Seen Just a Billion Years After the Big Bang

A crop of the JADES Survey field that JWST observed, using its NIRCAM instrument to search for carbon-based molecules.

The more astronomers look at the early Universe, the more discoveries they make. Some of those finds change what they thought they knew about the infancy of the cosmos. For example, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently found evidence of carbon-based molecules and dust existing only a billion years after the Big Bang. It looks a bit different from the dust observed later in the Universe.

July 20, 2023July 20, 2023 by Evan Gough

Star Factories Haven’t Changed Much Over the Entire Age of the Universe

“Sh 2-209” is a rare and large-scale star-forming region in the outer region of the Milky Way Galaxy. It's notable for its low metallicity, a characteristic it shares with the early Universe. Image Credit: NAOJ/Subaru Telescope

The ancient Universe is weird and secretive. Scientists have made laudable progress in uncovering more and more information on how the Universe began and what conditions were like all those billions of years ago. Powerful infrared telescopes, especially the ground-breaking James Webb Space Telescope, have let astronomers study the ancient light from the early Universe and remove some of the secrecy.

One of the mysteries astronomers want to untangle concerns star formation. Has it changed much since the Universe’s early days?

July 20, 2023July 20, 2023 by Brian Koberlein

Thin Flat Lenses Could Unleash a Revolution in Space Telescopes

A flat lens space telescope design as part of the Nautilus Space Observatory. Credit: Daniel Apai/University of Arizona

Thanks to the laws of physics, there are two basic rules about telescopes. The first is that the bigger your primary lens or mirror, the higher the resolution of your telescope. The second is that lenses and mirrors have to be curved to focus light into an image. So, if you want a space telescope sensitive enough to see the atmospheres of distant exoplanets, Your telescope is going to need a large curved mirror or lens. But neither of these things is technically true, as a newly proposed telescope design demonstrates.

July 20, 2023July 20, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

DART Impact Ejected 37 Giant Boulders from Asteroid Dimorphos’ Surface

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the asteroid Dimorphos was taken on 19 December 2022, nearly four months after the asteroid was impacted by NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission. Hubble’s sensitivity reveals a few dozen boulders knocked off the asteroid by the force of the collision. These are among the faintest objects Hubble has ever photographed inside the Solar System. Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA).

When the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft intentionally slammed into asteroid moonlet Dimorphos on September 26, 2022, telescopes around the world and those in space watched as it happened, and continued to monitor the aftermath.

Of course, the Hubble Space Telescope was focused on the event. In looking at Hubble’s images and data from post-impact, astronomers discovered 37 boulders that were ejected due to the impact. These boulders range in size from 1 meter (3 feet) to 6.7 meters (22 feet).

However, these boulders were not debris created by the spacecraft’s impact. Instead, they were boulders that were already on the surface of Dimorphos, and the impact event “shook” the boulders loose. A team of astronomers, led by David Jewitt and Yoonyoung Kim say in their paper detailing the findings that these boulders are some of the faintest objects ever imaged in the Solar System, only visible because of Hubble’s keen sensitivity. The images here showing the boulders surrounding Dimorphos were taken on December 19, 2022.

July 20, 2023July 20, 2023 by Alan Boyle

Threats From Above Lead the List of Space Concerns in New Survey

Vapor trail from 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor — This vapor trail was left behind by an asteroid that zoomed over the Siberian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013. (Credit: Alex Alishevskikh via NASA)

Sending astronauts to the moon is OK — but more Americans think NASA should instead put a high priority on monitoring outer space for asteroids and other objects that could pose a threat to Earth, according to the Pew Research Center’s latest survey focusing on Americans’ perspectives on space policy.

The nonprofit research center’s report was released today, on the 54th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. It follows up on a similar survey that was done in 2018 to mark NASA’s 60th anniversary.

The earlier survey suggested that slightly more Americans saw monitoring climate change as a top priority (63% vs 62%). This year, the rankings were reversed, with 60% putting cosmic threats at the top of their list, as opposed to 50% for climate concerns. Only 12% of the respondents said sending astronauts to explore the moon was a top priority, and 11% said sending astronauts to Mars led their list. That translates into less support than those missions had five years ago.

The survey, conducted online from May 30 to June 4, is based on responses from 10,329 randomly selected U.S. adults who are part of the research center’s online panel. The results were weighted to reflect current demographics.

July 19, 2023July 19, 2023 by Matt Williams

Does Beaming Power in Space Make Sense at the Moon?

Greater Earth Lunar Power Station. Credit: ESA

Space-based solar power (SBSP) is considered one of the most promising technologies for addressing Climate Change. The concept calls for satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to collect power without interruption and beam it to receiving stations on Earth. This technology circumvents the main limiting factor of solar energy, which is how it is subject to the planet’s diurnal cycle and weather. While the prospect of SBSP has been considered promising for decades, it’s only in recent years that it has become practical, thanks to the declining costs of sending payloads to space.

However, the technology has applications beyond providing Earth with abundant clean energy. The European Space Agency (ESA) is also investigating it as a means of proving power on the Moon through the “Clean Energy – New Ideas for Solar Power from Space” study, which recently yielded a technology demonstrator known as the Greater Earth Lunar Power Station (GEO-LPS). This technology could provide a steady supply of power for future operations on the Moon, which include creating a permanent lunar base like the ESA’s proposed Moon Village.

July 19, 2023July 19, 2023 by Andy Tomaswick

Is This The First Exoplanet Trojan, or the Result of an Epic Collision Between Worlds?

This image, taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner, shows the young planetary system PDS 70, located nearly 400 light-years away from Earth. The system features a star at its centre, around which the planet PDS 70b (highlighted with a solid yellow circle) is orbiting. On the same orbit as PDS 70b, indicated by a solid yellow ellipse, astronomers have detected a cloud of debris (circled by a yellow dotted line) that could be the building blocks of a new planet or the remnants of one already formed. The ring-like structure that dominates the image is a circumstellar disc of material, out of which planets are forming. There is in fact another planet in this system: PDS 70c, seen at 3 o’clock right next to the inner rim of the disc.

It seems like every week, researchers are finding more and more interesting exoplanets. Many of them have analogs in our own solar system – hot Jupiter or Super Earth are commonly used as descriptions. However, there is a feature of a solar system that doesn’t exist in our solar system but might somewhere out in the galaxy – a Trojan planet. Now researchers from the Centro de Astrobiologia in Madrid and colleagues in the UK, EU, and US have found what they believe to be the first possible evidence of a Trojan planet.