Universe Today

July 23, 2022July 23, 2022 by Matt Williams

Nancy Grace Roman Will be Launching on a Falcon Heavy Rocket

Artist's impression of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, named after NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy. This spacecraft will orbit at SEL2, far from Earth. Credits: NASA

In 2026, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RST) – aka. the “Mother of Hubble” – will take to space and begin addressing some of the deepest mysteries of the Universe. This will include capturing the deepest field images of the cosmos, refining measurements of the Hubble Constant (aka. Hubble’s Law), and determining the role of Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the evolution of the cosmos. Alongside its next-generation partner, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the RST will acquire infrared images with over 200 times the surveying power of its predecessor with the same rich level of detail.

On Tuesday, July 19^th, NASA announced that it had awarded SpaceX with a Launch Services (NLS) II contract to provide the rocket that will deploy the RST mission to space. As specified in the NLS II, the launch will take place in October 2026 (May 2027, at the latest) and consist of a Falcon Heavy rocket transporting the RST from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to orbit. This indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract is valued at approximately $255 million and covers the launch and other mission-related costs.

July 23, 2022July 23, 2022 by Brian Koberlein

Gamma-ray Bursts can Help Astronomers Measure Vast Distances Across the Universe

An illustration of a powerful gamma ray burst. Credit: NAOJ

Now that the James Webb Space Telescope is operational, astronomers can study some of the most faint and distant galaxies ever seen. By some accounts, we may have already captured the image of a galaxy from when the universe was just 300 million years old. But we can’t be entirely sure of its distance, and that is a big problem for astronomers.

July 23, 2022July 23, 2022 by Anton Pozdnyakov

SLS Launch Date, Falcon Heavy Gets Flagship NASA Telescope, Dormant Black Hole

SLS finally gets a launch date for Artemis I, JWST keeps giving the goodness, Percy finds another weird thing on Mars, astronomers find a dormant black hole and NASA will launch a flagship telescope on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy.

July 22, 2022July 22, 2022 by Matt Williams

NASA Wants Your Help Designing a Starshade to Observe Exoplanets

Artist's concept of the prototype starshade, a giant structure designed to block the glare of stars so that future space telescopes can take pictures of planets. Credit: NASA/JPL

The field of exoplanet study has come a long way in recent decades. To date, 5,063 exoplanets have been confirmed in 3,794 systems beyond our own, with another 8,819 candidates awaiting confirmation. In the coming years, tens of thousands of more planets are expected to be found, thanks to next-generation observatories. The ultimate goal in this search is to find planets that are “Earth-like,” meaning they have a good chance of supporting life. This is no easy task, as rocky planets located within their parent star’s habitable zones (HZs) tend to orbit closely, making them harder to see.

To make this process easier, NASA is designing a hybrid observatory consisting of a “Starshade” that will block out a star’s light so that a ground-based telescope can directly image planets orbiting it. The concept is known as the Hybrid Observatory for Earth-like Exoplanets (HOEE), and NASA is looking for public input to make it a reality. To that end, they have launched the Ultralight Starshade Structural Design Challenge, where participants are asked to develop a design for a lightweight starshade structure that could be used as part of the HOEE concept.

July 22, 2022July 22, 2022 by Evan Gough

Astronomers Have a New Way to Find Exoplanets in Cataclysmic Binary Systems

Artist’s impression of a cataclysmic variable system as seen from the surface of an orbiting planet Credit Departamento de Imagen y Difusion FIME-UANL/ Lic. Debahni Selene Lopez Morales D.R. 2022 Licence type Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Have you heard of LU Camelopardalis, QZ Serpentis, V1007 Herculis and BK Lyncis? No, they’re not members of a boy band in ancient Rome. They’re Cataclysmic Variables, binary stars that are so close together one star draws material from its sibling. This causes the pair to vary wildly in brightness.

Can planets exist in this chaotic environment? Can we spot them? A new study answers yes to both.

July 21, 2022July 22, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

JWST Sees the Most Distant Galaxy Ever, Just 300 Million Years After the Big Bang

By now, almost everyone has seen the first-release images from JWST and marveled at these amazing views of the infrared universe the telescope was launched to explore. The view of SMACS 0723 seen above illustrates the promise JWST holds. While there are many more early-release images in the observation pipeline, we’re starting to see the first research papers come out. As expected, studies of distant galaxies are grabbing headlines already.

Wow, are these findings amazing! In the last couple of days, websites and social media have been alive with images of a blob that, in reality, is one of the oldest (earliest) galaxies ever seen. It’s one of two—GL-z11 and GL-z13—that show us what they looked like when the Universe was extremely young, about 300 million years after the Big Bang. When confirmed, they’ll mark a milestone in studies of the infant Universe.

July 21, 2022July 21, 2022 by Matt Williams

Japanese Researchers Show how Microgravity Affects Astronauts’ Muscles and Nerves

Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk using the exercise bike on the ISS. Exercise is one way of combatting muscle atrophy in space. Image Credit: NASA

It’s well-known that spending long periods in microgravity can adversely affect astronaut health and physiology. According to decades of research performed aboard the International Space Station (ISS), like NASA’s much-popularized Twins Study, these effects include the loss of muscle mass and bone density, as well as changes to cardiovascular health, eyesight, organ function, and gene expression. There’s even the possibility that astronauts will experience mood swings and psychological problems while in space or during recovery here on Earth.

According to a recent study by a team of Japanese researchers, one of the lesser-studied effects is how long periods spent in microgravity can damage the skeletal muscles that are important to maintaining our posture. This group of muscles – located mostly in our limbs, back, and neck – are rightly known as our “anti-gravity” muscles because they are load-bearing and allow us to stand upright and move against the force of gravity. This research and the countermeasures they propose could have significant implications for astronauts returning from long-term stays in space.

July 21, 2022July 18, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

Gravitational Wave Telescopes Could Detect Clumps of Dark Matter Drifting Through the Solar System

This image shows the galaxy MCS J0416.1–2403, one of six clusters targeted by the Hubble Frontier Fields programme. The blue in this image is a mass map created by using new Hubble observations combined with the magnifying power of a process known as gravitational lensing. In red is the hot gas detected by NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory and shows the location of the gas, dust and stars in the cluster. The matter shown in blue that is separate from the red areas detected by Chandra consists of what is known as dark matter, and which can only be detected directly by gravitational lensing.Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, HST Frontier Fields. Acknowledgement: Mathilde Jauzac (Durham University, UK) and Jean-Paul Kneib (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland).

Attempts to directly detect dark matter have come up empty. A team of physicists have proposed a brand new method: if dark matter exists in clumps that occasionally pass through the solar system, we may be able to detect their slight influence with ultra-sensitive gravitational waves detectors.

July 21, 2022July 21, 2022 by Evan Gough

Here’s M74 Like You’ve Never Seen it Before, Thanks to Judy Schmidt and JWST

The JWST recently imaged NGC628, also knows an M74. Well-known astronomy image processor Judy Schmidt reworked the image to show more detail. Image Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI/JUDY SCHMIDT CC BY 2.0

The JWST is grabbing headlines and eyeballs as its mission gains momentum. The telescope recently imaged M74 (NGC 628) with its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI.) Judy Schmidt, a well-known amateur astronomy image processor, has worked on the image to bring out more detail.

July 21, 2022July 21, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

An Ambitious Plan to Find Earth 2.0

When it comes to astronomy, the more instruments watching the sky, the better. Which is why it has been so frustrating that the world’s rising superpower – China – has long lacked focus on space-science missions. In recent years, with some notable exceptions, China’s space agency has focused on lunar exploration and human spaceflight, as well as some remote monitoring capabilities, leaving the technical know-how of arguably the world’s second more capable country on the sidelines when it comes to collecting space science data. Now, a team led by Jian Ge of the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory has suggested the most ambitious Chinese-led space science mission to date. And it plans to search for one of the holy grails of current astronomy research – an exoplanet like Earth.