Universe Today

September 25, 2022September 25, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Gravity Really Tangled up the Light From a Distant Quasar

quasar lensed — The SDSS J1004+4112 gravitational lens creates five images of a distant quasar. Credit: European Space Agency, NASA, Keren Sharon (Tel-Aviv University) and Eran Ofek (CalTech))

Way back in 1979, astronomers spotted two nearly identical quasars that seemed close to each other in the sky. These so-called “Twin Quasars” are actually separate images of the same object. Even more intriguing: the light paths that created each image traveled through different parts of the cluster. One path took a little longer than the other. That meant a flicker in one image of the quasar occurred 14 months later in the other. The reason? The cluster’s mass distribution formed a lens that distorted the light and drastically affected the two paths.

September 25, 2022September 25, 2022 by Brian Koberlein

Life can Thrive Around Even the Smallest Stars

A starlight simulator (left) and when illuminated (right). Credit: La Rocca, et al

Photosynthesis is probably the most important chemical reaction for life on Earth. It is the process plants use to transform sunlight into energy it can use. Through it, plants can produce carbohydrates they can use (and we can eat when we harvest plants), generating oxygen as a by-product. Photosynthesis is why Earth’s atmosphere is about 20% oxygen. No photosynthesis, no life on Earth as we know it.

September 24, 2022September 24, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

NASA’s Juno To Skim the Surface of Jupiter’s Icy Moon Europa

This next week will mark a scientifically valuable achievement for NASA’s Juno mission, as the pioneering spacecraft is slated to fly within 358 kilometers (222 miles) of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa on September 29 at 5:36 a.m. EDT (2:36 a.m. PDT) as part of its extended mission to explore the Jupiter system. A flyby this close to Europa’s surface will allow Juno to acquire some of the highest-resolution images ever taken of the icy moon. For context, the last mission to explore Europa in depth was NASA’s Galileo spacecraft, which got within 351 kilometers (218 miles) of the surface on January 3, 2000.

September 24, 2022September 24, 2022 by Anton Pozdnyakov

JWST’s MIRI Issues, Newborn Quasar, Detecting Exoplanets with Lagrange Points

James Webb is currently experiencing problems with its MIRI instrument. The problem is due to increased friction in one of MIRI’s mechanisms in the Medium-Resolution Spectroscopy (MRS) mode. The observatory is otherwise healthy, but the team decided to stop observations using MRS mode until they find a solution.

September 24, 2022September 24, 2022 by Brian Koberlein

The Moon’s Poles Have “Wandered” Over Billions of Years

A gravity map of the Moon with (left) and without (right) many craters. Credit: Smith, et al

Until 1959, humans had only seen one side of the Moon. The Moon is tidally locked with Earth, and so we can only see one side from the Earth’s surface. It took the soviet Luna 3 spacecraft to capture a blurry image for humans to get their first glimpse of the lunar far side. Because of this, many people imagine that the Moon has always been this way. But as a recent study shows, that isn’t quite true.

September 24, 2022September 24, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

Musk Suggests That Starship Will Probably Make an Orbital Flight in November

SpaceX Founder and CEO Elon Musk recently took to Twitter and hinted that the much-anticipated Starship—currently undergoing upgrades in preparation for its upcoming maiden flight—could launch as soon as November.

Responding to a question from a curious Twitter account asking about updates for Starship’s orbital flight date, Musk responded, “Late next month maybe, but November seems highly likely. We will have two boosters & ships ready for orbital flight by then, with full stack production at roughly one every two months.” As usual, his tweet garnered thousands of likes and hundreds of retweets.

September 23, 2022September 24, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

Space Diamonds are Even Harder Than Earth Diamonds

In a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of researchers led by Monash University in Australia have verified the existence of a rare hexagonal structure of diamond called lonsdaleite, within ureilite meteorites from the inside of a dwarf planet that formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago.

Lonsdaleite is named after Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, a famous British pioneering crystallographer responsible for developing several X-ray methods for studying crystal structures, and was the first woman elected as a Fellow to the Royal Society in 1945. This study holds the potential for further unlocking the secrets of the formation of our solar system, and was conducted with collaboration from RMIT University, the Australian Synchrotron and Plymouth University, and CSIRO.

September 23, 2022September 23, 2022 by Matt Williams

Webb Scans a Nearby Brown Dwarf and Finds it has Clouds Made of Sand

An artist's conception of a brown dwarf. A new study identifies CK Vulpeculae as the remnant of a collison between a brown dwarf and a white dwarf. Image: By NASA/JPL-Caltech (http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/image/114) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons — An artist's conception of a brown dwarf. Brown dwarfs are more massive than Jupiter but less massive than the smallest main sequence stars. Their dimness and low mass make them difficult to detect. Image: By NASA/JPL-Caltech (http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/image/114) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

In its first few months of operation, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is already proving that it was well worth the wait! To date, it has provided astronomers with the most detailed and precise images of the cosmos, conducted observations of iconic galaxies and nebulae, peered to the very edge of the Universe, and obtained spectra from distant exoplanets. These resulting images, made public through the JWST Early Release Science (ERS) program, have provided a good cross-section of what this next-generation observatory can do.

Among its many objectives, the JWST will provide valuable insights into the formation and evolution of exoplanet systems through direct imaging. Using data from the ERS, an international team of astronomers and astrophysicists conducted a direct imaging study of a brown dwarf companion (VHS 1256-1257 b) orbiting within a triple brown dwarf system approximately 69.0 light-years away. The spectra they obtained from this body provided a detailed composition of its atmosphere, which included an unexpected find – clouds made of silicate minerals (aka. sand)!

September 23, 2022September 23, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

There’s a Blob of Gas Orbiting Around the Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) looked at Sagittarius A*, (image of Sag A* by the EHT Collaboration) to study something bright in the region around Sag A*. Credit: ESO/José Francisco Salgado.

Sagittarius A* (Sag A) is usually a pretty quiet object, as supermassive black holes go. It’s not wildly active, like the object at the heart of M87, for example. But, every once in a while, there’s a little action in its neighborhood. Right now, there appears to be a hot blob of gas running rapidly in circles around the black hole. Astronomers detected it using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. The data from that radio astronomy facility tells them more about the environment around Sag A*.

September 22, 2022September 22, 2022 by Alan Boyle

Axiom’s Next Trip to the ISS Will Carry the First Saudi Woman in Space

Illustration: SpaceX Crew Dragon at ISS — An illustration shows SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule approaching the International Space Station. (Credit: SpaceX)

Axiom Space says it’s working with the Saudi Space Commission to send two spacefliers from the Arab kingdom, including the first Saudi woman to go into orbit, to the International Space Station as early as next year.

The inclusion of a female astronaut is particularly notable for Saudi Arabia — where women were forbidden to drive motor vehicles until 2018, and where the status of women is still a controversial subject.