Universe Today

August 23, 2022August 23, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Samples From Asteroid Ryugu Contain Bits That Came From Outside the Solar System

Asteroid Ryugu, as imaged by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. The red dot marks the sampling location. Image Credit: JAXA/Hayabusa2

Long before our Sun began to form, stars were dying in our part of the galaxy. One of them exploded as a supernova. The catastrophe created minute grains of dust and the force of the explosion blasted through a nearby cloud of gas and dust. That action seeded the cloud with “alien” materials from the dead star. The shock wave from the supernova also caused the cloud to collapse in on itself to create the Sun. The “leftovers” of the cloud became the planets, moons, rings, comets, and asteroids of our solar system.

August 23, 2022August 23, 2022 by Matt Williams

Gaze Into the Heart of NGC 1365, Captured by Webb

Close up of the NGC 1365 galaxy, based on data obtained by JWST. Credit: Schmidt, J./JWST

Astrophotographer Judy Schmidt (aka. Geckzilla, SpaceGeck) is at it again! Earlier this month, she released a processed image of the Great Barred Spiral Galaxy (NGC 1365). The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently observed this iconic double-barred spiral galaxy, which resulted in the most-detailed look at this galaxy to date. This time, Schmidt shared a series of images via Twitter that provide a closer look at NGC 1365’s core region, a widefield view that shows the galaxy’s long arms, and lovely animation that shows the galaxy in near- and mid-infrared wavelengths.

August 23, 2022August 23, 2022 by David Dickinson

Firefly, Northrop Grumman to Redesign Antares

Northrop Grumman will partner with startup Firefly Aerospace to continue sending cargo to the International Space Station.

It’s truly a time of ‘crisis and opportunity’ out there in the spaceflight industry, as private startups carve out their niche, in a traditionally government-based environment. This was especially apparent last week, when aerospace giant Northrop Grumman stated that it will partner with the small space startup Firefly Aerospace to build the next generation of Antares rockets.

August 23, 2022August 23, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Rare “Red Sprites” Seen From ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile

This picture, taken from ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, shows bright red streaks known as red sprites. Credit: Zdenek Bardon/ESO.

This new image taken of the skies above Chile’s Atacama Desert near the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) La Silla Observatory, shows bright red streaks in the sky known as red sprites. Red sprites are large-scale electrical discharges that occur high above thunderstorm clouds, usually triggered by the discharges of positive lightning between an underlying thundercloud and the ground. However, the red sprites appear high in Earth’s atmosphere, sometimes 50-90 km in altitude.

August 23, 2022August 23, 2022 by Brian Koberlein

The Latest Webb Observations Don’t Disprove The Big Bang, But They Are Interesting

Diagram showing the Lambda-CBR universe, from the Big Bang to the the current era. Credit: Alex Mittelmann/Coldcreation

Okay, so let’s start with the obvious. The big bang is not dead. Recent observations by the James Webb Space Telescope have not disproven the big bang, despite certain popular articles claiming otherwise. If that’s all you needed to hear, then have a great day. That said, the latest Webb observations do reveal some strange and unexpected things about the universe, and if you’d like to know more, keep reading.

August 22, 2022August 22, 2022 by Alan Boyle

Webb Telescope Sees Jupiter and Its Auroras in a New Light

JWST view of Jupiter — The James Webb Space Telescope's NIRCam imager produced this composite image of the Jupiter system using orange and cyan filters. The image shows Jupiter's auroras as bright rims at the poles. The planet's rings and two of its moons, Amalthea and Adrastea, are also visible. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Ricardo Hueso (UPV/EHU) and Judy Schmidt.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is designed to probe the farthest frontiers of the universe, but newly released images of Jupiter prove that the observatory can also bring fresh perspectives to more familiar celestial sights.

The infrared images reveal Jupiter’s polar auroras and its faint rings as well as two of its moons — plus some galaxies in the far background. The planet’s Great Red Spot is there as well, but because it’s seen through three of JWST’s specialized filters, it looks white rather than red.

JWST’s new perspective should give scientists a better sense of how the complex Jupiter system is put together.

August 22, 2022August 22, 2022 by Brian Koberlein

Gravitational Waves Will Give Astronomers a new way to Look Inside Neutron Stars

Illustration showing the merger of two neutron stars. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/CI Lab

It’s difficult to study neutron stars. They are light years away and only about 20 kilometers across. They are also made of the most dense material in the universe. So dense that atomic nuclei merge together to become a complex fluid. For years our understanding of the interiors was based on complex physical models and what little data we could gather from optical telescopes. But that’s starting to change.

August 21, 2022August 25, 2022 by Matt Williams

How Weak Will Astronauts Feel When They First set Foot on Mars After Months in Space?

Artist's concept of a bimodal nuclear rocket making the journey to the Moon, Mars, and other destinations in the Solar System. Credit: NASA

In the coming decade, in 2033, NASA and China intend to send astronauts to Mars for the first time in history. This presents numerous challenges, ranging from logistical and technical issues to ensuring that astronauts can deal with waste and have enough food and water for the months-long transit to and from Mars. But of course, there’s also the health and safety of the astronauts, who will be spending months traveling through space where they’ll be exposed to cosmic radiation and microgravity. There are even concerns that after months of exposure to microgravity, astronauts will have trouble adapting to Martian gravity.

To determine if these fears have merit, a team of space medicine experts from the Australian National University (ANU) developed a mathematical model to predict whether astronauts can safely travel to Mars and perform their duties once they arrive on the Red Planet. This model could be immensely valuable alongside all the other preparations that need to happen before astronauts set foot on Mars. It could also be used to assess the impact of short- and long-duration missions that take astronauts far beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and the Earth-Moon system in the future.

August 21, 2022August 21, 2022 by Matt Williams

Were Phobos and Deimos Once a Single Martian Moon That Split up? Not Likely, says New Study

A composite image of Mars and its two moons, Phobos (foreground) and Deimos (background). Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

The origin of Phobos and Deimos, the two Martian moons, has been a mystery to astronomers. These two bodies are a fraction of the size and mass of the Moon, measuring just 22.7 km (14 mi) and 12.6 km (7.83 mi) in diameter. Both have a rapid orbital period, taking just 7 hours, 39 minutes, and 12 seconds (Phobos) and 30 hours, 18 minutes, and 43 seconds (Deimos) to complete an orbit around Mars. Both are also irregular in shape, leading many to speculate that they were once asteroids that got kicked out of the Main Belt and were captured by Mars’ gravity.

There’s also the theory that Phobos and Deimos were once a single moon hit by a massive object, causing it to split up (aka. the “splitting hypothesis”). In a recent paper, an international team of scientists led by the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) revisited this hypothesis. They determined that a single moon in a synchronous orbit would not have produced two satellites as we see there today. Instead, they argue, the two moons would have collided before long, producing a debris ring that would have created an entirely new moon system.

August 21, 2022August 21, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

Another of the Lucy Mission’s Asteroids has a Moon

There is still so much we don’t know about the asteroids. Various missions have already been sent to some near Earth and in the asteroid belt, but there are just so many that it is hard to keep track of them all. Lucy, NASA’s mission to the Trojan asteroids, is supposed to help with that, but even it doesn’t know what it is getting into. Apparently, there are even more things to explore than the mission designers initially thought when it launched. Rather than visiting seven asteroids as originally envisioned, the discovery of another asteroid in orbit around Polymede means the mission will be visiting nine asteroids in total.