Universe Today

August 18, 2022August 18, 2022 by Matt Williams

A New Image From Webb Shows Galaxy NGC 1365, Known to Have an Actively Feeding Supermassive Black Hole

The barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Judy Schmidt

The James Webb Space Telescope continues to deliver stunning images of the Universe, demonstrating that the years of development and delays were well worth the wait! The latest comes from Judy Schmidt (aka. Geckzilla, SpaceGeck), an astrophotographer who processed an image taken by Webb of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365. Also known as the Great Barred Spiral Galaxy, NGC 1365 is a double-barred spiral galaxy consisting of a long bar and a smaller barred structure located about 56 million light-years away in the southern constellation Fornax.

August 18, 2022August 18, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Would We Have Continents Without Asteroid Impacts?

Early Earth was a wild and wooly place. In its first billion years, during a period called the Archean, our planet was still hot from its formation. Essentially, the surface was lava for millions of years. Asteroids bombarded the planet, and the place was still recovering from the impact that formed the Moon. Oceans were beginning to form as the surface solidified and water outgassed from the rock. The earliest atmosphere was actually rock vapor, followed quickly by the growth of a largely hot carbon dioxide and water vapor blanket. Earth was just starting land masses that later became continents. For decades, geologists have asked: what started continental formation?

August 18, 2022August 18, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Spacewalk Cut Short, Cosmonaut Told to “Drop Everything” and Go Back Into the Space Station

Flight Engineer Denis Matveev makes his way back inside the station after being instructed by Russian flight controllers to end the Aug. 17 spacewalk at the International Space Station due to a battery power issue on Artemyev’s Orlan spacesuit. Credit: NASA.

Russian and US flight controllers decided to cut short a spacewalk by two cosmonauts outside the International Space Station yesterday after voltage fluctuations in Oleg Artemyev’s Orlan spacesuit caused concern. About halfway into a scheduled seven-hour EVA, Artemeyev was repeatedly ordered to drop what he was working on and return to ISS’s airlock.

“Drop everything and start going back right away,” was one of the translated messages heard during a NASA livestream of the spacewalk. “Oleg, you must return to the airlock as soon as possible because if you lose power, it is not only the pumps and the fan, you will lose comm. You have to go back.”

August 18, 2022August 18, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Artemis 1 Goes Back to the Launch pad, Getting Ready for its August 29th Blastoff

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard is seen atop the mobile launcher as it moves up the ramp at Launch Pad 39B, Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2022, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Credit: NASA/Joel Kowsky.

The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft now sits on the launchpad, ready for liftoff on a journey around the Moon. This is the first time since 1972 that NASA has a human-rated spacecraft is ready to go beyond Earth orbit.

August 17, 2022August 18, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Here’s the Largest Image JWST Has Taken So Far

Image of CEERS scientists looking at the Epoch 1 NIRCam color mosaic in TACC's visualization lab at UT Austin. Credit: R. Larson

A team of scientists using the James Webb Space Telescope have just released the largest image taken by the telescope so far. The image is a mosaic of 690 individual frames taken with the telescope’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and it covers an area of sky about eight times as large as JWST’s First Deep Field Image released on July 12. And it is absolutely FULL of stunning early galaxies, many never seen before. Additionally, the team may have photographed one of the most distant galaxies yet observed.

August 17, 2022August 26, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

R136 is the Most Massive Star Astronomers Have Ever Found. We Just got Some new Images of it

A cluster of massive stars seen with the Hubble Space Telescope. The cluster is surrounded by clouds of interstellar gas and dust called a nebula. The nebula, located 20,000 light-years away in the constellation Carina, contains the central cluster of huge, hot stars, called NGC 3603. Recent research shows that galactic cosmic rays flowing into our solar system originate in clusters like these. Credits: NASA/U. Virginia/INAF, Bologna, Italy/USRA/Ames/STScI/AURA

Meet R136a1, the most massive star known. Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, it’s a hulking behemoth weighing somewhere between 150 and 200 times the mass of the Sun. Understanding the upper limit of stars helps astronomers piece together everything from the life cycles of stars to the histories of galaxies.

August 16, 2022August 16, 2022 by Matt Williams

NASA Astronaut Nicole Aunapu Mann will be the First Indigenous Woman in Space!

NASA Astronaut Nicole Mann in SpaceX training. Credit: NASA

This Fall, the fifth crewed mission (Crew-5) of the NASA Commercial Crew Program will depart for the International Space Station (ISS). This mission will see four astronauts launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Flordia aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon (atop a Falcon 9 rocket). Once they reach the ISS, they will join the crew of Expedition 67 and conduct science experiments as part of Expedition 68. The mission commander of this flight, Nicole Aunapu Mann, is a naval aviator and test pilot with a distinguished military career. She will also be the first Indigenous woman ever to go to space!

August 16, 2022August 16, 2022 by Brian Koberlein

One Exciting way to Find Planets: Detect the Signals From Their Magnetospheres

Artistic rendering of the Tau Boötes b system, showing the planet and its magnetic field. Credit: Jack Madden/Cornell University

We have discovered thousands of exoplanets in recent years. Most have them have been discovered by the transit method, where an optical telescope measures the brightness of a star over time. If the star dips very slightly in brightness, it could indicate that a planet has passed in front of it, blocking some of the light. The transit method is a powerful tool, but it has limitations. Not the least of which is that the planet must pass between us and its star for us to detect it. The transit method also relies on optical telescopes. But a new method could allow astronomers to detect exoplanets using radio telescopes.

August 16, 2022August 16, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Brand New Stars in the Orion Nebula, Seen by Hubble

New stars seen by the Hubble Space Telescope in the Orion Nebula. ESA/Hubble & NASA, J. Bally; Acknowledgment: M. H. Özsaraç.

The Orion Nebula is a giant cloud of gas and dust that spans more than 20,000 times the size of our own solar system. It one of the closest active star-forming regions to Earth, and is therefore one of the most observed and photographed objects in the night sky. The venerable Hubble Space Telescope has focused on the Orion Nebula many times, peering into giant cavities in the hazy gas, and at one point, Hubble took 520 images to create a giant mosaic of this spellbinding nebula.

Now, Hubble has captured new views of a wispy, colorful region in the Orion Nebula surrounding the Herbig-Haro object HH 505.

August 16, 2022December 16, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Satellites are Tracking Rivers of Garbage Flowing Across the Oceans

garbage patches in Earth's oceans — A a computational model of ocean currents called ECCO-2 that shows how garbage can be distributed across Earth's oceans. Courtesy NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

There’s an ocean of human-made garbage floating through Earth’s seas. From plastic straws to beverage bottles and food wrappers, the ocean waters are this planet’s fastest-growing junkyard. Some of the plastic gets ground into little beads called microplastics, and ends up in the food chain, with humans at the top. For that reason, and many others, the European Space Agency is tracking ocean-bound plastics through the auspices of the MARLISAT project. It’s one of 25 efforts created to identify and trace marine litter as it moves through the world’s waterways. The ultimate goal is to help countries reduce ocean litter, particularly plastics.