Universe Today

October 11, 2021October 7, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

Gravitational-Wave Observatories Should be Able to Detect Primordial Black Hole Mergers, if They’re out There

The early universe. Credit: Tom Abel & Ralf Kaehler (KIPACSLAC)/ AMNH/NASA

The tumultuous era of the big bang may have been chaotic enough to flood the universe with primordial black holes. Eventually some of those black holes will find each other and merge, sending out ripples of gravitational waves. A comprehensive search for those gravitational wave signatures hasn’t found anything, putting tight constraints on the abundance of these mysterious objects.

October 10, 2021October 7, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

Wind Speeds in Jupiter’s Great Red Spot are Picking up

The Great Red Spot of Jupiter – the largest storm in the solar system – has been raging for centuries. Over the past 100 years however, the cyclone has been dwindling, but recent observations with Hubble show that the wind speeds may be picking up again. Is this just temporary, or will the storm return to its former glory?

October 9, 2021October 6, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

Next-Generation Gravitational Wave Observatories Could Detect the First Stars When They Exploded as Supernovae

The first stars to appear in the universe are no longer with us – they died long ago. But when they died they released torrents of gravitational waves, which might still be detectable as a faint hum in the background vibrations of the cosmos.

October 8, 2021October 8, 2021 by Matt Williams

IBM Space Tech Wants to “Democratize Space” with ENDURANCE.

Three small CubeSats are deployed from the International Space Station on October 4, 2012. Credit: NASA

Between the rise of the commercial space industry and the proliferation of agencies and programs, it is clear that we live in a new space age. A cornerstone of this new age is how reusable rockets, small satellite technology, and other advances are reducing the cost of launching payloads to orbit. This, in turn, increases access to space and allows more people and organizations to participate in lucrative research.

In January of 2020, IBM chose to build on its many years of working with the space sector by launching its own commercial space venture known as IBM Space Tech. In early 2022, IBM Space Tech will be launching its first CubeSat space mission, named ENDURANCE, to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). By leveraging IBM/Red Hat software and the IBM Cloud, this CubeSat will give students all over the world access to space!

October 8, 2021October 6, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

Early Massive Galaxies ran out of gas, Shutting Down Their Star Formation

This image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows the galaxy NGC 4237. Located about 60 million light-years from Earth in the constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenice's Hair), NGC 4237 is classified as a flocculent spiral galaxy. This means that its spiral arms are not clearly distinguishable from each other, as in “grand design” spiral galaxies, but are instead patchy and discontinuous. This gives the galaxy a fluffy appearance, somewhat resembling fluffed cotton. Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, P. Erwin et al.

Galaxies that formed within the first few billion years after the Big Bang should have lived long, healthy lives. After all, they were born with rich supplies of cold hydrogen gas, exactly the fuel needed to continue star formation. But new observations have revealed “quenched” galaxies that have shut off star formation. And astronomers have no idea why.

October 8, 2021October 8, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

This Object is Both an Asteroid and a Comet

In astronomy, comets and asteroids are defined very differently. Comets have a “nucleus,” usually made of ice and dust, and a tail when they get near the sun, which is the nucleus material shedding off from the comet itself. Asteroids, on the other hand, are small balls of rock orbiting the sun. Occasionally though, some objects meet the criteria to be both an asteroid and a comet – and a team from the Planetary Science Institute (PSI) think they have found a new one.

October 7, 2021October 7, 2021 by Scott Alan Johnston

Perseverance Sees Evidence of Flash Floods in Jezero Crater

Nearly eight months into the Perseverance rover’s mission on Mars, researchers have confirmed that Jezero crater is (as was believed) an ancient lakebed, but more significantly, that it once experienced powerful flash floods that pushed boulders from tens of miles upstream into the crater basin.

October 7, 2021October 11, 2021 by Matt Williams

Nancy Grace Roman Just Passed a Critical Design Review

High-resolution illustration of the Roman spacecraft against a starry background. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

By 2027, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope – or Roman Space Telescope (RST), for short – will take to space and build on the legacy of the venerable Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Combing a large primary mirror, a camera as sensitive as its predecessors, and next-generation surveying capabilities, Roman will have the power of “One-Hundred Hubbles.” It’s little wonder then why the telescope is named after Dr. Roman (1925 – 2018), NASA’s first Chief Astronomer and the “Mother of Hubble.”

As part of its journey towards realization, this next-generation space telescope recently passed a crucial milestone. This would be the all-important Mission Critical Design Review (CDR), signaling that all design and developmental engineering work is complete. With this milestone reached, the next-generation space telescope is now ready to move from the conceptual stage into the fabrication and assembly phase.

October 7, 2021October 7, 2021 by Evan Gough

An Exoplanet Reaches 2400 C in One Hemisphere. Does it Really Rain Iron?

This artist's illustration shows the fiery exoplanet WASP-76b. Previous study shows the planet rains iron it's so hot. Now astronomers have detected barium in its atmosphere. Image Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

WASP-76b is an ultra-hot Jupiter about 640 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Pisces. A few years ago it gained notoriety for being so hot that iron falls as rain. It’s tidally locked to its star, and the planet’s star-facing hemisphere can reach temperatures as high as 2400 Celsius, well above iron’s 1538 C melting point.

Scientists have been studying the planet since its discovery in 2013, and new evidence suggests that it’s even hotter than thought. But, almost disappointingly, there might be no iron rain after all.

October 7, 2021October 6, 2021 by Paul M. Sutter

Are the Burned-Out Remnants of the First Stars all Around us?

An artist's illustration of the Universe's first stars, called Population 3 stars. Pop 3 stars would have been much more massive than most stars today, and would have burned hot and blue. Their lifetimes would've been much shorter than stars like our Sun. Image Credit: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1582286

The first stars to appear in the universe lived fast and died young. Today, none of them likely remain. But their remnants, the black holes and neutron stars, might still wander around the cosmos. Unfortunately, they’re extremely difficult to detect unless they merge, and according to new research the only way to see them would be to conduct an unprecedented survey of the local volume of the universe.