Posted on by Mark Thompson

Explaining Different Kinds of Meteor Showers. It’s the Way the Comet Crumbles

Comet image from Hubble

The Universe often puts on a good show for us down here on Earth but one of the best spectacles must be a meteor shower. We see them when particles, usually the remains of comets, fall through our atmosphere and cause the atmosphere to glow. We see them as a fast moving streak of light but a new paper has suggested that the meteor showers we see can explain the sizes of the particles that originally formed the comet from where they came. 

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Posted on by Evan Gough

Dark Oxygen Could Change Our Understanding of Habitability

This image shows a bed of manganese nodules offshore of the Cook Islands. Dark oxygen is produced by manganese nodules on the ocean floor. If the same thing happens on the Solar System's ocean moons, it changes our notion of what worlds could be habitable. Image Credit: By USGS, James Hein - https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/cook-islands-manganese-nodules, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115692552

The discovery of dark oxygen at an abyssal plain on the ocean floor generated a lot of interest. Could this oxygen source support life in the ocean depths? And if it can, what does that mean for places like Enceladus and Europa?

What does it mean for our notion of habitability?

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Posted on by Evan Gough

A Surprise Asteroid Lit Up the Sky Over the Philippines

This image shows the predicted path over the Philippines for the surprise asteroid 2024 RW1. It's small and will burn up harmlessly. Image Credit: Catalina Sky Survey/ESA

With all of humanity’s telescopic eyes on the sky, it’s rare for an asteroid to take us by surprise. But that’s what happened this morning in the sky over the Philippines. Only hours after it was detected, it burned up in a bright flash above the island of Luzon.

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Posted on by Matt Williams

A Review of Humanity’s Planned Expansion Between the Earth and the Moon

Artist's impression of astronauts on the lunar surface, as part of the Artemis Program. Credit: NASA
Artist's impression of astronauts on the lunar surface, as part of the Artemis Program. Credit: NASA

Between Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and the Moon, there is a region of space measuring 384,400 km (238,855 mi) wide known as Cislunar space. In the coming decades, multiple space agencies will send missions to this region to support the development of infrastructure that will lead to a permanent human presence on the Moon. This includes orbital and surface habitats, landing pads, surface vehicles, technologies for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU), and other elements that will enable the long-term exploration and development of the lunar surface.

For all parties concerned, Cislunar space holds immense potential in terms of scientific, commercial, and military applications. The vastly increased level of activity on and around the Moon makes space domain awareness (SDA) – knowledge of all operations within a region of space – paramount. It is also necessary to ensure the continued success and utilization of the covered region. In a recent paper, a team of aerospace engineers considered the missions planned for the coming decades and evaluated the state and shortcomings of their space domain awareness.

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Posted on by Mark Thompson

Simulating the Accretion Disk Around a Black Hole

Supercomputer simulations reveals the nature of turbulence in black hole accretion disks

Black holes are by their very nature, challenging to observe and difficult to spot. It’s usually observations of the accretion disk that reveal properties of the hidden black hole. There is often enough material within the accretion disk to make them shine so brightly that they can often be among the brightest objects in space. A wonderful image has been released which shows the highest resolution simulation of a black hole accretion disk ever created. 

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Posted on by Mark Thompson

Europe is Sending a Drill to the Moon to Search for Water

ESA's Prospect package, including drill and a miniaturised laboratory, will fly to the Moon’s South Polar region in search of volatiles, including water ice, as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.

The Moon has been a source of interest of late largely due to the focus on getting humans back to the Moon. Future human explorers though will likely be there to stay in permanent lunar bases. Making this a reality means it is of vital importance to harvest materials from the Moon and water is just one of them. Recently, ESA Announced they have secured a ride to the Moon for their Prospect package in 2027. It consists of a drill and tiny laboratory that will hunt for water and other volatiles, paving the way for human exploration.

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Posted on by Evan Gough

Asking the Big Question: Where Did Life Originate?

Water's Early Journey in a Solar System
Somehow, life originated on Earth. Even without knowing everything about how that happened, can we learn how likely it is to happen elsewhere? Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Where on Earth did life originate, and where else could it occur? A comprehensive answer is most likely a long way off. But it might depend on how many suitable sites for abiogenesis there are on different worlds.

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Posted on by Matt Williams

There Was a Strange Sound Coming From Starliner. It Was Caused by a Speaker in the Capsule

The Starliner spacecraft is pictured docked with the Harmony module at the International Space Station high above the Mediterranean Sea. Credit: NASA

As part of the Commercial Crew Program (CCP), NASA contracted with commercial space partners to develop crew-capable spacecraft to restore domestic launch capability to U.S. soil. In addition to SpaceX’s Crew Dragon vehicle, which was validated in 2020 and has been transporting crews to the International Space Station (ISS) ever since. Concurrently, Boeing developed the CT-100 Starliner, which has suffered a seemingly endless string of technical issues and delays. After undergoing a long checklist of fixes, the Starliner completed its first orbital flight test (OFT-1) in May 2022.

The Starliner then made its first crewed flight to the ISS on June 5th, 2024, carrying two astronauts – Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams. Unfortunately, malfunctions with the spacecraft’s RCS thrusters have forced it to remain in orbit until the necessary fixes were made. In addition to its thrusters, astronaut Butch Wilmore identified a strange pulsing sound coming from the Starliner crew capsule. That sound has since been identified as feedback from one of the capsule’s speakers, apparently due to an audio configuration between the ISS and Starliner.

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Posted on by Carolyn Collins Petersen

The Surprising Source of Radiation Coming From Black Holes

A visualization of how turbulent plasma moves through a black hole accretion disk threaded with strong magnetic fields. Image credit: Jani Narhi.
A visualization of how turbulent plasma moves through a black hole accretion disk threaded with strong magnetic fields. Image credit: Jani Närhi.

Black holes are famous for sucking in everything that crosses their event horizons, including light. So, why do astronomers see energetic radiation coming from the environment of a black hole in an X-ray binary system? It’s a good question that finally has an answer.

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Posted on by Evan Gough

This Ancient Galaxy Merger Will Produce a very Luminous Quasar

This illustration depicts two quasars in the process of merging. There are many unanswered questions around galaxy mergers and the quasars that can result. Image Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Garlick)

In the contemporary Universe, massive galaxies are plentiful. But the Universe wasn’t always like this. Astronomers think that galaxies grew large through mergers, so what we see in space is the result of billions of years of galaxies merging. When galaxies merge, the merger can feed large quantities of gas into their centers, sometimes creating a quasar.

Much of this is theoretical and shrouded in mystery, but astronomers might have found evidence of a galaxy merger creating a quasar.

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