Universe Today

April 30, 2022April 30, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

Crew-4 is off to the Station

Name someone who at some point in their life didn’t want to be an astronaut. The answer is no one. Ask any kid what they want to be when they grow up and they all say an astronaut. Being an astronaut is the ultimate dream job for everyone of all ages. Why? Because you get to go to space, and there’s nothing cooler than going into space. For context, even if you’re not a sports fan you have watched the Super Bowl at least once in your life. It is one of the most watched and most lauded sports championship games in the entire world, and yet despite all its media attention and halftime shows and all-time great finishes, the Super Bowl still holds a candle to being able to go to space. Eat your heart out, Tom Brady. Going into space is just awesome, and there’s nothing like it.

April 30, 2022April 30, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Antarctica Lost an Ice Shelf, but Gained an Island

The eastern coast of Antarctica has lost most of the Glenzer and Conger ice shelves, as seen in these satellite images taken between November 15, 1989 - January 9, 2022. Credit: NASA GSFC/UMBC JCET.

Collapsing ice shelves on the eastern coast of Antarctica has revealed something never seen before: a landform that might be an island. But this is not the first newly revealed island off the Antarctic coast. A series of islands have appeared as the ice shelves along the continent’s coastline has disintegrated over the past few years.

April 30, 2022April 30, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Solar Power in a Future Martian Lifestyle

Artist's concept of a crewed Martian manufacturing site powered by photovoltaic cells and capable of creating food, medicines, supplies, and recycling waste. Credit: Davian Ho. — An artist’s concept of a future biomanufacturing lab on Mars, powered by photovoltaic (solar power) technology. It will also synthesize food and medicines, and manufacture other needed materials, while recycling waste. (Credit: Davian Ho.)

Sometime in the next couple of decades, humans will head to Mars for long-term missions of more than 400 days. Such lengthy stays mean building Martian cities, complete with safe habitats, labs, and other infrastructure. Future Martians will have to do a lot to survive. They’ll build their cities, make their own food, distill water, create fuel, manufacture medicines, and create other supplies. To do that, they’ll use manufacturing facilities that they bring along. That all requires power. Lots of it. As we all know, Mars is noticeably lacking in obvious ways to make electricity. So, what will our intrepid explorers do to generate power for their new lives on the Red Planet?

April 29, 2022April 29, 2022 by Laurence Tognetti

Titan is an Alien World, but Surprisingly Familiar

Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is a fascinating and mysterious world, a world literally shrouded in mystery due to thick clouds that cameras imaging in the visible spectrum cannot penetrate. This was made apparent when NASA’s Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to fly past Titan in 1979, and then NASA’s Voyager 1 and 2 in 1980 and 1981, respectively. All three spacecraft were equipped with cameras that were unable to penetrate Titan’s atmosphere of thick clouds, although atmospheric data from Voyager 1 suggested Titan might be the first body, aside from Earth, where liquid might exist on its surface.

April 29, 2022April 30, 2022 by Shawn DiCenza

A New Kind of Stellar Explosion Has Been Discovered: Micronovae

The most energetic explosions in the Universe come from stars called supernovae. These galactic bombs have the energy of about 10²⁸ mega-tons. After they detonate, the only thing left behind is either a neutron star or black hole. Another type of stellar explosion is known as a nova which has much less energy and covers the surface of a white dwarf.

Now, a team of astronomers recently discovered a new type of stellar explosion akin to supernovae and novae but with much less energy, and they’re calling it a micronova.

April 28, 2022April 28, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Prepare Yourself: New Engineering Images from JWST Will Blow Your Mind

Engineering images of sharply focused stars in the field of view of each instrument demonstrate that the telescope is fully aligned and in focus. Credit: Credit: NASA/ESA/STScI

If the phrase “My god, it’s full of stars” was ever appropriate, it’s today, because of these new images from the James Webb Space Telescope. These are ‘just’ engineering images, mind you, but they are incredible. The number of stars and galaxies visible in each image is just remarkable, not to mention the crisp clarity in the fields of view.

April 28, 2022April 28, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Amazing! Ingenuity Helicopter Flies to the Perseverance Backshell and Parachute to See Them Close Up

This image of the Perseverance rover's parachute and backshell was taken by the Ingenuity helicopter during its 26th flight on April 22, 2022. Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech

You may recall we reported earlier this month that the Perseverance rover finally spotted its parachute and backshell off in the distance. This is the hardware that safely brought the rover to Mars surface on February 18, 2021.

But now, the incredible Ingenuity helicopter has snapped better images of those items, while it was hovering in the Martian air during its 26^th flight.

And what a mess! The poor backshell crashed to the surface, splitting into pieces.

April 28, 2022April 28, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Ganymede Casts a Long Shadow Across the Surface of Jupiter

NASA’s Juno spacecraft captured this view of Jupiter during the mission’s 40th close pass by the giant planet on Feb. 25, 2022. The large, dark shadow on the left side of the image was cast by Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Image processing by Thomas Thomopoulos

What is that large dark smudge on Jupiter’s side? It may remind you of a certain scene from the sci-fi film “2010: The Year We Make Contact,” where a growing black spot appears in Jupiter’s atmosphere.

But this is a real photo, and the dark spot is just an elongated shadow of Ganymede, Jupiter’s largest moon. Just like when Earth’s Moon crosses between our planet and the Sun creating an eclipse for lucky Earthlings, when Jupiter’s moons cross between the gas giant and the Sun, they create shadows too.

April 28, 2022April 28, 2022 by David Dickinson

A Partial Solar Eclipse Kicks Off the First Eclipse Season of 2022

A remote solar eclipse this coming weekend sets us up for the first total lunar eclipse of 2022.

The first eclipse season for 2022 is nigh. About twice a year, the two nodes where the Moon’s orbit intersects the ecliptic align and an eclipse season occurs, book-ended by one each solar and lunar eclipses spaced about two weeks apart.

April 27, 2022April 27, 2022 by Matt Williams

In Some Places, Black Holes are Tearing Apart Thousands of Stars at a Time

Close-up of star near a supermassive black hole (artist’s impression). Credit: ESA/Hubble, ESO, M. Kornmesser

At the heart of the more massive galaxies in the Universe, there are supermassive black holes (SMBHs) so powerful that they outshine all of the stars in their galactic disks. The core regions of these galaxies are known as Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), or by their more popular-moniker “quasars.” The ongoing study of these objects has provided a testbed for General Relativity and revealed a great deal about the formation and evolution of galaxies and the large-scale structure of the Universe.

If there’s one thing astronomers have observed repeatedly, it is the fact that these massive black holes have massive appetites. In fact, a new survey of over 100 galaxies by the NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory has shown that some supermassive black holes can consume stars by the thousands! These results indicate that some SMBHs needed to consume amounts of stellar matter rarely (if ever) seen in the Universe to grow and reach the sizes that astronomers see today.