Universe Today

August 31, 2022August 31, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

NASA Gives a Detailed Analysis of all the Landing Debris Perseverance Has Found on Mars

A recent blog by Dr. Justin Maki, Imaging Scientist and the Deputy Principal Investigator on the Perseverance rover Mastcam-Z camera, provides a detailed account about the debris the entry, descent, and landing (EDL) system left scattered around the Martian surface while delivering the Perseverance rover to Jezero Crater. This blog highlights how much hardware goes into sending our brave, robotic explorers to the Red Planet while discussing the importance of imaging such debris.

August 31, 2022August 31, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

A Planet has Been Found That Shifts In and Out of the Habitable Zone

Schematic diagram of the newly discovered Ross 508 planetary system. The green region represents the habitable zone where liquid water can exist on the planetary surface. The planetary orbit is shown as a blue line. Credit: Astrobiology Center.

A super-Earth planet has been found orbiting a red dwarf star, only 37 light-years from the Earth. Named Ross 508 b, the newly found world has an unusual elliptical orbit that causes it to shift in and out of the habitable zone. Therefore, part of the time conditions would be conducive for liquid water to exist on the planet’s surface, but other times it wouldn’t.

August 31, 2022August 31, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

‘For All Mankind’ Gives Harsh Reality Check About Human Space Exploration

* Warning: Mild Spoilers Ahead *

The Apple TV+ series, For All Mankind, just wrapped up Season 3 and is a smash hit for both critics and fans, garnering Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 90% and 81%, respectively. It’s a show that (probably) came about from the Amazon hit, The Man in the High Castle, which depicted a world after the Allies lost World War II, and also garnered favorable ratings of 84% and 81%, respectively, having both fantastic characters and writing.

August 31, 2022August 31, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Astronomers Find the Oldest Planetary Nebula

Abell 39 is a good example of a planetary nebula, similar to the one discovered in M37. Credit: WIYN/NOAO/NSF

Planetary nebulae are short-lived “leftovers” of sun-like stars. Most of these “star ghosts” only last—at most—about 25,000 years. Usually, their clouds of debris disperse so broadly that they fade out fairly quickly. However, there’s one that has lasted at least 70,000 years. That makes it a “grande dame” of planetary nebulae.

August 31, 2022August 31, 2022 by Matt Williams

The Geology at Jezero Crater is Even More Complex Than Scientists Were Expecting

After 5 years and 60 candidates, NASA has chosen Jezero crater as the landing site for the Mars 2020 rover. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/JHUAPL/MSSS/Brown University

On February 18th, 2021, the Perseverance rover landed in the Jezero Crater on Mars. Since then, Perseverance has been exploring the region in search for evidence of past (and possibly present) life – much like its cousin, the Curiosity rover. This includes obtaining samples that will be placed in a cache and retrieved by a future ESA/NASA sample-return mission. These will be the first directly-retrieved samples of Martian rock and soil that will be analyzed in a laboratory on Earth, which are expected to reveal some tantalizing bits about the history of the Red Planet.

But it appears that we don’t need to wait on the sample-return mission since the Perseverance rover is already sending some surprising data back to Earth. According to a new study by a research team led by the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and the University of Oslo, Perseverance’s ground-penetrating radar detected that the rock layers beneath the crater are strangely inclined. These strange sections could have resulted from lava flows that slowly cooled or could be sedimentary deposits from an underground lake.

August 31, 2022August 30, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

A Merger Completely Shut Down Star Formation

star formation stopped by galaxy merger — Scientists observing the newly-dormant galaxy SDSS J1448+1010 found that most of its fuel for star formation had been tossed out of the system as it merged with another galaxy. That gas is not forming new stars for the galaxy but remains nearby in new structures known as tidal tails. This artist’s conception shows the stream of gas and stars that were flung away during the merger. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), S.Dagnello (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

What’s the recipe for forming stars? Yep, lots of gas and dust. Galaxies rich in these materials get to make a lot of stars. When the supply runs out, star formation stops. That’s what’s happened in the galaxy SDSS J1448+1010, but there’s a twist. The galaxy didn’t stop making stars because it made so many it ran out of material. No, that happened because it merged with another galaxy. That action flung most of the available gas and dust out of the galaxy entirely. Essentially, the galaxy to went “dormant” and ceased star-forming operations.

August 30, 2022August 30, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Problem Solved! Voyager 1 is no Longer Sending Home Garbled Data!

Earlier this year, the teams attached to the Voyager 1 mission noticed that the venerable spacecraft was sending weird readouts about its attitude articulation and control system (called AACS, for short). The data it’s providing didn’t really reflect what was actually happening onboard. That was the bad news. The good news was that it didn’t affect science data-gathering and transmission. And, the best news came this week: team engineers have fixed the issue with the AACS and the data are flowing normally again.

August 30, 2022August 30, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

What is ISRU, and How Will it Help Human Space Exploration?

Artist's impression of astronauts on the lunar surface, as part of the Artemis Program. How will they store power on the Moon? 3D printed batteries could help. Credit: NASA

As Artemis 1 prepares for its maiden launch with the goal of putting astronauts back on the Moon’s surface within the next few years, the next question is how will astronauts live and survive its surface? Will we constantly ferry all the necessary supplies such as water and food from Earth, or could astronauts learn to survive on their own? These are questions that a discipline known as ISRU hopes to answer both now and in the years to come. But what is ISRU, and how will it help advance human space exploration as we begin to slowly venture farther away from the only home we’ve ever known?

August 30, 2022August 31, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

NASA Will Try Again on September 3 For First Launch of Artemis

n this black and white infrared image, NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard is seen atop the mobile launcher at Launch Pad 39B, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2022, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky.

After reviewing the data from Monday’s scrubbed launch attempt for the Space Launch System/Artemis- 1 test flight, NASA’s Mission Management Team feels the rocket and the launch team will be ready for another try at the program’s maiden launch on Saturday, September 3. The two-hour launch window starts at 2:17 pm EDT (18:17 UTC).

August 30, 2022August 30, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Science Fiction was an Inspiration for Many Professional Astronomers

Science fiction universe for Star Trek — The Star Trek universe occurs in the Milky Way Galaxy; this show and its memorable characters are cited, along with many other SF works as influences for scientists. Courtesy R.H. Hurt.

What do MINBAR, TARDIS, Cardassian Expansion, BoRG, DS9, Tatooines, and ACBAR all have in common? They’re names of astronomical surveys and software created by astronomers who say that science fiction (SF) influenced their careers. Those names are just one indicator of widespread interest in SF in the science community. It’s not surprising considering how many scientists (and science writers) grew up with the genre.