Universe Today

June 5, 2022June 5, 2022 by Brian Koberlein

Does a “Mirror World of Particles” Explain the Crisis in Cosmology?

Why create one universe when you could create two? Credit: NASA/WMAP Science Team, modified by Brian Koberlein

The idea of a mirror universe is a common trope in science fiction. A world similar to ours where we might find our evil doppelganger or a version of us who actually asked out our high school crush. But the concept of a mirror universe has been often studied in theoretical cosmology, and as a new study shows, it might help us solve problems with the cosmological constant.

June 3, 2022May 31, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

Hubble Sees a Surviving Companion Star After its Partner Went Supernova

Artist’s impression of gamma-ray burst with orbiting binary star. Credit: University of Warwick/Mark Garlick

When stars die they’re often not alone, and for the first time astronomers have found a companion to a supernova, lingering long after its sibling destroyed itself.

June 3, 2022June 3, 2022 by Matt Williams

What is the Best Radiation Shielding for the Surface of Mars?

Artist’s rendering of a solar storm hitting Mars and stripping ions from the planet's upper atmosphere. Credits: NASA/GSFC

The planet Mars is calling to us. At least, that is the impression one gets when examining all the planned and proposed missions to the Red Planet in the coming decade. With so many space agencies currently sending missions there to characterize its environment, atmosphere, and geological history, it seems likely that crewed missions are right around the corner. In fact, both NASA and China have made it clear that they intend to send missions to Mars by the early 2030s that will culminate in the creation of surface habitats.

To ensure astronaut health and safety, both in transit and on the surface of Mars, scientists are investigated several means of radiation protection. In a recent study, a team from the Blue Marble Space Institute of Science (BMSIS) studied how various materials could be used to fashion radiation-protective structures. This included materials brought from Earth and those that can be harvested directly from the Martian environment. This is in keeping with the In-Situ-Resource-Utilization (ISRU) process, where local resources are leveraged to meet the needs of the astronaut crews and the mission.

June 3, 2022June 3, 2022 by Evan Gough

The Early Solar System was Total Mayhem

An artist's illustration of a chaotic young solar system. Image Credit: Tobias Stierli, flaeck / PlanetS

There’s no question that young solar systems are chaotic places. Cascading collisions defined our young Solar System as rocks, boulders, and planetesimals repeatedly collided. A new study based on chunks of asteroids that crashed into Earth puts a timeline to some of that chaos.

June 3, 2022June 3, 2022 by David Dickinson

See All Naked Eye Planets This Month… in Order

June 2022 offers early risers the chance to trace out the naked eye planets, from Mercury to Saturn.

Sometimes, the Universe offers up an illustration of a ready-made science lesson. Just such an alignment occurs this month, as all of the naked eye planets are in order, from innermost Mercury to outermost Saturn.

June 3, 2022June 3, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Astronomers Find 116,000 New Variable Stars

This Hubble image shows RS Puppis, a type of variable star known as a Cepheid variable. Credit: Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-Hubble/Europe Collaboration Acknowledgment: H. Bond (STScI and Penn State University)

What do two guys from Ohio, the GAIA mission, a worldwide network of ground-based telescopes, machine learning, and citizen scientists all have to do with each other? Thanks to this interesting combo of people and computers, astronomers now have more than 116,000 new variable stars to study. Until now, they knew of about 46,000 of these stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. They had observed maybe 10,000 or so in other galaxies. The discovery gives astronomers even more chances to study variables and understand why they behave the way they do.

June 3, 2022June 3, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

Objects That Share the Same Orbit are Common in the Solar System. But we’ve Never Seen co-Orbital Exoplanets. Why?

“Where are all the Trojans” is a question valid in both the study of ancient history and the study of exoplanets. Trojan bodies, which share orbital paths with other, larger planets, are prevalent in our solar system – most obviously in the Trojan asteroids that follow Jupiter around on its orbital path. However, they seem absent from any star system found with exoplanets. Now, a team of researchers from the SETI Institute and NASA’s Ames Research Center thinks they have found a reason why.

June 2, 2022June 2, 2022 by Matt Williams

A Pulsar has Been Found Turning so Slowly Astronomers Didn't Even Think it was Possible: Once Every 76 Seconds

Astronomy is progressing rapidly these days, thanks in part to how advances in one area can contribute to progress in another. For instance, improved optics, instruments, and data processing methods have allowed astronomers to push the boundaries of optical and infrared to gravitational wave (GW) astronomy. Radio astronomy is also advancing considerably thanks to arrays like the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa, which will join with observatories in Australia in the near future to create the Square Kilometer Array (SKA).

In particular, radio astronomers are using next-generation instruments to study phenomena like Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) and neutron stars. Recently, an international team of scientists led by the University of Manchester discovered a strange radio-emitting neutron star with a powerful magnetic field (a “magnetar”) and an extremely slow rotational period of 76 seconds. This discovery could have significant implications for radio astronomy and hints at a possible connection between different types of neutron stars and FRBs.

June 2, 2022May 31, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

The Stars in Other Galaxies are Generally Heavier Than the Milky Way’s Stars

The Fornax Galaxy Cluster is one of the closest of such groupings beyond our Local Group of galaxies. This new VLT Survey Telescope image shows the central part of the cluster in great detail. At the lower-right is the elegant barred-spiral galaxy NGC 1365 and to the left the big elliptical NGC 1399.

How many of what kinds of stars live in other galaxies? It seems like a simple question, but it’s notoriously hard to pin down, because astronomers have such a difficult time estimating stellar populations in remote galaxies. Now a team of astronomers has completed a census of over 140,000 galaxies and found that distant galaxies tend to have heavier stars.

June 1, 2022June 1, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

Even if you can’t see Auroras, You Can Sometimes Hear Them. Here’s What They Sound Like

Auroras are some of Earth’s most spectacular natural phenomena. Travelers come from far and wide to see the incredible Northern Lights and wonder at their beauty. Once thought to be magical in nature, most science fans understand that the lights are formed by the solar wind interacting with our magnetosphere. But did you know they also make sounds?