Universe Today

February 7, 2023February 7, 2023 by Evan Gough

This Exoplanet Orbits Around its Star’s Poles

Astronomers have found another hot Jupiter in a polar orbit around its star. This illustration shows the exoplanet WASP-79 b following a polar orbit around its star. Image Credit: NASA/GSFC

In 1992, humanity’s effort to understand the Universe took a significant step forward. That’s when astronomers discovered the first exoplanets. They’re named Poltergeist (Noisy Ghost) and Phobetor (Frightener), and they orbit a pulsar about 2300 light-years away.

Even though we thought there must be other planets around other stars, and entire science fiction franchises were built on the idea, we didn’t know for sure and couldn’t just assume it to be true. A quick glance at human history shows how wrong our assumptions about nature can be.

February 7, 2023February 8, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Sierra Space Tests Another Inflatable Space Station Module … to Destruction

The moment of boom for Sierra Space's LIFE Habitat during a Accelerated Systematic Creep Test. Credit: Sierra Space.

Oops! They’ve done it again. Sierra Space blew up their space habitat for the third time – intentionally — all in the name of testing.

The commercial space company conducted a new duration test called an Accelerated Systematic Creep Test for their LIFE Habitat (Large Integrated Flexible Environment), putting a 1/3 size scale model of the space module under gradually increasing excess pressure until it failed. The habitat burst after more than 150 hours of constant pressure, exceeding NASA’s certification target of 100 hours.

Sierra Space told Universe Today that the results of the test indicate that the test article exceeded the pressure shell on orbit lifetime performance requirement of 15 years with margin. That means astronauts could live and work in a full-size version of the inflatable habitat for up to 60 years in space.

The video below shows the impressive explosion:

February 7, 2023February 7, 2023 by David Dickinson

Check Out This Great View of Comet 96P Machholz, Courtesy of SOHO

Now’s the time to catch periodic Comet 96P Machholz on its encore dawn performance, before it slides out of view.

So, have you been following the touted ‘green comet,’ E3 ZTF? To be sure, it’s nothing more than a fuzzy patch, a binocular comet sliding through the constellation Auriga looking like a globular cluster that refuses to resolve into focus. Though E3 ZTF may not live up to the hype, it does have one thing going for it: it is currently well-placed for northern hemisphere viewers. It also put on a great show for astrophotographers as it recently completed an orbital plane-crossing, as seen from our Earthly vantage point.

February 6, 2023February 6, 2023 by Evan Gough

Earth-Sized Planet Found At One of the Lightest Red Dwarfs

Artist’s conception of a rocky Earth-mass exoplanet like Wolf 1069 b orbiting a red dwarf star. If the planet has retained its atmosphere, chances are high that it would feature liquid water and habitable conditions over a wide area of its dayside. Image Credit: NASA/Ames Research Center/Daniel Rutter

Astronomers have found another Earth-sized planet. It’s about 31 light-years away and orbits in the habitable zone of a red dwarf star. It’s probably tidally locked, which can be a problem around red dwarf stars. But the team that found it is optimistic about its potential habitability.

February 6, 2023February 6, 2023 by Evan Gough

Hubble’s New View of the Tarantula Nebula

A snapshot of the Tarantula Nebula (also known as 30 Doradus) is the most recent Picture of the Week from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray, E. Sabbi; Acknowledgment: Y. -H. Chu

The Tarantula Nebula, also called 30 Doradus, is the brightest star-forming region in our part of the galaxy. It’s in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) and contains the most massive and hottest stars we know of. The Tarantula Nebula has been a repeat target for the Hubble since the telescope’s early years.

February 6, 2023February 6, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Face-on View of Galaxy NGC 4303 Reveals its Arms are Filled with Active Star Formation

NGC 4303, a galaxy rich in star formation. It lies about 55 million light-years away in the Virgo Cluster. This view shows both visible-light and millimeter-wavelength views of the galaxy. Credit: ESO/ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/PHANGS

Galaxies fill a lot of roles in the universe. The most obvious one is star formation factories. Without that activity, the cosmos would be a very different place. The European Southern Observatory and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array recently zeroed in on the galaxy NGC 4303. Their goal: to take a multi-wavelength view of its star formation activity.

February 6, 2023February 6, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

JWST Unexpectedly Finds a Small Asteroid During ‘Failed’ Observations

Illustration of Asteroid (Artist’s Impression). Credit: N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb), ESO/M. Kornmesser and S. Brunier, N. Risinger

While astronomers and engineers were trying to calibrate one of the James Webb Space Telescope’s instruments last summer, they serendipitously found a previously unknown small 100–200-meter (300-600 ft) asteroid in the main asteroid belt. Originally, the astronomers deemed the calibrations as a failed attempt because of technical glitches. But they noticed the asteroid while going through their data from the Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), and ended up finding what is likely the smallest object observed to date by JWST. It is also one of the smallest objects ever detected in our Solar System’s main belt of asteroids.

“We — completely unexpectedly — detected a small asteroid in publicly available MIRI calibration observations,” explained Thomas Müller, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, in a press release. “The measurements are some of the first MIRI measurements targeting the ecliptic plane and our work suggests that many, new objects will be detected with this instrument.”

February 5, 2023February 5, 2023 by Anton Pozdnyakov

Rolls-Royce Space Reactor, Close Call in Orbit, Webb’s Back

Webb is fully operational again, Rolls-Royce is building a nuclear reactor for the Moon, and the space debris worst-case scenario almost happened.

February 5, 2023January 30, 2023 by Paul M. Sutter

A.I. Finds a New Way to Build Multiple-Star Systems

A false-color image of NGC 6334 from multiple telescopes. The area is believed to be a hotspot of furious star birth. Credit: S. Willis (CfA+ISU); ESA/Herschel; NASA/JPL-Caltech/ Spitzer; CTIO/NOAO/AURA/NSF

Over over 50% of high mass stars reside in multiple star systems. But due to their complex orbital interactions, physicists have a difficult time understanding just how stable and long-lived these systems are. Recently a team of astronomers applied machine learning techniques to simulations of multiple star systems and found a new way that stars in such systems can arrange themselves.

February 4, 2023January 30, 2023 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomers use Earthquakes to Understand Glitches on Neutron Stars

Simulation of a possible quadrupole magnetic field configuration for a pulsar with hot spots in only the southern hemisphere. Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

A team of astronomers have used a model of earthquakes to understand glitches in the timing of pulsars. Their results suggest that pulsars may have interiors that are far stranger than can be imagined.