Universe Today

February 1, 2022February 1, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

Astronomers Lined up Under an Asteroid’s Shadow to Measure its Size Precisely

Astronomers will go to great lengths for science. Recently, dozens of astronomers had the misfortune of traveling to one of the most tempting locales in the southwestern US – Las Vegas. But they weren’t there for the city’s bright lights – they were there to observe a very dim light of a star thousands of light-years away. And what they specifically wanted to see was the light from that star blink out for a few seconds. That lack of light provided the exact kind of data they needed to help them determine the size of Eurybates, one of the Trojan asteroids that will be the focal point of NASA’s Lucy mission.

January 31, 2022January 31, 2022 by Evan Gough

During a Solar Flare, Dark Voids Move Down Towards the Sun. Now We Know Why

Solar flares are complex phenomena. They involve plasma, electromagnetic radiation across all wavelengths, activity in the Sun’s atmosphere layers, and particles travelling at near light speed. Spacecraft like NASA’s Solar and Heliophysics Observatory (SOHO) and the Parker Solar Probe shed new light on the Sun’s solar flares.

But it was a Japanese-led mission called Yohkoh that spotted an unusual solar flare in 1999. This flare displayed a downward flowing motion toward the Sun along with the normal outward flow. What caused it?

A team of researchers think they’ve figured it out.

January 31, 2022January 31, 2022 by Matt Williams

The Big Spaceflight Stories You Should be Watching in 2022

Credit: (clockwise from upper left) NASA/NASA/SpaceX/ESA/VCRO/Saggitarius A; Wikimedia/

The year 2021 was a big one as far as stories from space are concerned! From start to finish, 2021 witnessed innumerable milestones and groundbreaking missions mounted by space agencies and the commercial space industry. Among them, the long-awaited launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, the arrival of the Perseverance mission, the launch of Double-Asteroid Redirect Test (DART), multiple test flights with the Starship, and the inauguration of space tourism. There was something for everyone!

However, looking at what’s planned for the year ahead, one might get the impression that 2021 was the appetizer and 2022 is the main course! That may sound like an idle boast, but not when you consider all of the ambitious missions, programs, and developments that are scheduled and anticipated for the next twelve months! So exactly what’s in store for space in 2022? We’ve provided a helpful list below:

January 31, 2022January 31, 2022 by Evan Gough

It Turns out, We Have a Very Well-Behaved Star

Our Sun is a Population II star about 5 billion years old. It contains elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, including oxygen, carbon, neon, and iron, though only in tiny percentags. Image: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Should we thank our well-behaved Sun for our comfy home on Earth?

Some stars behave poorly. They’re unruly and emit powerful stellar flares that can devastate life on any planets within range of those flares. New research into stellar flares on other stars makes our Sun seem downright quiescent.

January 31, 2022January 31, 2022 by Brian Koberlein

Binary Black Holes can Unlock Another of Einstein’s Predictions

Artist view of a binary black hole system. Credit: LIGO/Caltech/MIT/Sonoma State (Aurore Simonnet)

In the grand scheme of things, the structure of a black hole is pretty simple. All you need to know is its mass, electric charge, and rotation, and you know what the structure of space and time around the black hole must be. But if you have two black holes orbiting each other, then things get really complicated. Unlike a single black hole, for which there is an exact solution to Einstein’s equations, there is no exact solution for two black holes. It’s similar to the three-body problem in Newtonian gravity. But that doesn’t mean astronomers can’t figure things out, as a couple of recent studies show.

January 29, 2022January 29, 2022 by Matt Williams

Want to Know What James Webb Looks Like in Powerful Earth Telescopes? Prepare to be Underwhelmed

The past month has been an exciting time for the James Webb Space Telescope! After launching on Christmas Day, the telescope spent the next few weeks deploying its mirrors, checking the individual segments, and then maneuvering to L2, where it will spend the next ten to twenty years unlocking the mysteries of the cosmos. According to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, the Chief Science Communications Officer (CSCO) for the JWST and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) for the ESA, James Webb will begin collecting light this summer.

To mark the occasion, the Virtual Telescope Project (VTP) captured images of James Webb to give people a sense of what it looks like in orbit. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot to see there, other than a bright dot in the night sky. But like Carl Sagan’s famous “Pale Blue Dot” picture of Earth (taken by Voyager 1 on its way out of the Solar System), or Cassini’s “The Day Earth Smiled” image, there’s a tremendous amount of significance in that small point of light.

January 29, 2022January 29, 2022 by Brian Koberlein

Astronomers Discover a Mysterious Star That Flashes Every 20 Minutes. But What is it?

A radio map of the Milky Way showing the location of the new transient. Credit: Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker (ICRAR/Curtin) and the GLEAM Team

Just 4,000 light-years from Earth is a strange, star-sized object. It’s been observed by radio telescopes, but astronomers aren’t sure what it is. They call it a long period transient.

January 29, 2022January 29, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Rings Inside a Martian Crater Reveal its Ancient History

An unusual crater on Mars, as seen by the CaSSIS camera onboard the ESA/Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) on 13 June 2021 in the vast northern plains of Acidalia Planitia. Credit: ,ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS,

Is this a closeup look at a tree stump, or an orbital view of an impact crater? At first glance, it might be hard to tell. But this image of a crater on Mars provides planetary scientists almost the same kind of climate history data about the Red Planet as tree rings provide to climate scientists here on Earth.

This picture was taken by the Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging (CaSSIS) camera onboard the ESA/Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), which arrived at Mars in 2016 and began its full science mission in 2018.

January 28, 2022January 28, 2022 by Evan Gough

Is the Underground Lake on Mars Just Volcanic Rock?

Ice at Mars' south pole. Image Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/Bill Dunford

Is Mars home to an underwater lake? Different researchers are reaching different conclusions. Some say remote sensing from the Mars Express orbiter shows liquid water in an underground lake at Mars’ south polar region. Other researchers say clays or minerals explain the data better.

Who’s right? Maybe none of them.

A new study says that volcanic rock can explain the Mars Express data and that it’s a more plausible explanation.

January 28, 2022January 28, 2022 by Matt Williams

What is Einstein’s Theory of Relativity?

Einstein Lecturing — Albert Einstein during a lecture in Vienna in 1921. Credit: National Library of Austria/F Schmutzer/Public Domain

In the history of science and physics, several scholars, theories, and equations have become household names. In terms of scientists, notable examples include Pythagoras, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Planck, and Hawking. In terms of theories, there’s Archimede’s “Eureka,” Newton’s Apple (Universal Gravitation), and Schrodinger’s Cat (quantum mechanics). But the most famous and renowned is arguably Albert Einstein, Relativity, and the famous equation, E=mc². In fact, Relativity may be the best-known scientific concept that few people truly understand.

For example, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity comes in two parts: the Special Theory of Relativity (SR and the General Theory of Relativity (GR). And the term “Relativity” itself goes back to Galileo Galilee and his explanation for why motion and velocity are relative to the observer. As you can probably tell, explaining how Einstein’s groundbreaking theory works require a deep dive into the history of physics, some advanced concepts, and how it all came together for one of the greatest minds of all time!