Universe Today

November 5, 2021November 5, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Supercomputer Simulates What Happens When Meteors Strike the Atmosphere

In space, it’s almost always raining dust. Most of that dust is so small a microscope would have a hard time seeing it. Created by asteroid impacts, millions of these fine dust particles collide with Earth’s upper atmosphere every second. When they hit that atmosphere, they start a complex dance of plasmas and energy that can be difficult to see and understand.

November 5, 2021November 5, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Hubble Science Instruments are Malfunctioning, Putting the Telescope in Safe Mode

Hubble is getting a bit long in the tooth. Initially launched in 1990, it has been one of the most spectacularly successful orbital satellites in history. But it has also had its fair share of errors, starting almost immediately upon its launch. Now the instruments on the telescope have been operating in a “safe mode” for more than a week, and it appears that they will remain so for at least another one.

November 4, 2021November 4, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Magnetic Chamber can Simulate Microgravity (or Mars Gravity) Here on Earth

There are plenty of processes that might be easier in lower gravity. So far, the biggest hindrance to developing those processes has been the expense of launching equipment to the low gravity environments of the ISS or other space-based research stations. Testing on the ground would be preferable both for ease of use and much lower cost, but the Earth’s gravity usually puts a stop to that. Some scientists see another way. Using magnetic fields can artificially simulate a zero-gravity environment, and now a team from Florida State University’s (FSU’s) National High Magnetic Field Laboratory has developed a system that can hold a much larger sample than previous iterations.

November 4, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

NASA is Getting Serious About the Search for Life in the Universe

Frameworks are a valuable tool in science. They give context to sometimes abstract concepts such as “how powerful can an alien civilization be” (Kardashev scale) or “how developed is this technology?” (Technology Readiness Levels). Now, NASA has developed a new scale to help give context to what some consider one of the agency’s most critical missions – the search for extraterrestrial life.

November 3, 2021November 3, 2021 by Evan Gough

What’s Snuffing Out Galaxies Before Their Time?

The VERTICO—Virgo Environment Traced in Carbon Monoxide—Survey observed the gas reservoirs in 51 galaxies in the nearby Virgo Cluster and found that the extreme environment in the cluster was killing galaxies by robbing them of their star-forming fuel. In this composite image, ALMA’s radio wavelength observations of the VERTICO galaxies’ molecular gas disks are magnified by a factor of 20. They are overlaid on the X-ray image of the hot plasma within the Virgo Cluster. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/S. Dagnello (NRAO)/Böhringer et al. (ROSAT All-Sky Survey)

In the Milky Way, the formation rate of stars is about one solar mass every year. About 10 billion years ago, it was ten solar masses every year. What happened?

Stars are born in giant molecular clouds (GMCs), and astronomers think that the environment in galaxies affects these clouds and their ability to spawn new stars. Sometimes the environment is so extreme that entire galaxies stop forming new stars.

Astronomers call this “quenching,” and they want to know what causes it.

November 3, 2021November 3, 2021 by Evan Gough

Astronomers Might Have Found a Planet in Another Galaxy

An illustration of an X-ray binary with a possible planet. Image Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss

Not that long ago,, astronomers weren’t sure that exoplanets even existed. Now we know that there are thousands of them and that most stars probably harbour exoplanets. There could be hundreds of billions of exoplanets in the Milky Way, by some estimates. So there’s no reason to think that stars in other galaxies don’t host planets.

But to find one of those planets in another galaxy? That is a significant scientific achievement.

November 2, 2021November 2, 2021 by Matt Williams

Could our Universe be Someone’s Chemistry Project?

This is a rendering of gas velocity in a massive galaxy cluster in IllustrisTNG. Black areas are hardly moving, and white areas are moving at greater than 1000km/second. The black areas are calm cosmic filaments, the white areas are near super-massive black holes (SMBHs). The SMBHs are blowing away the gas and preventing star formation. Image: IllustrisTNG

It is a pivotal time for astrophysicists, cosmologists, and philosophers alike. In the coming years, next-generation space and ground-based telescopes will come online that will use cutting-edge technology and machine learning to probe the deepest depths of the cosmos. What they find there, with any luck, will allow scientists to address some of the most enduring questions about the origins of life and the Universe itself.

Alas, one question that we may never be able to answer is the most pressing of all: if the Universe was conceived in a Big Bang, what was here before that? According to a new op-ed by Prof. Abraham Loeb (which recently appeared in Scientific American), the answer may be stranger than even the most “exotic” explanations. As he argued, the cosmos as we know it may be a “baby Universe” that was created by an advanced technological civilization in a lab!

November 2, 2021November 2, 2021 by Matt Williams

Is the Universe Fine-Tuned for Life?

For decades, various physicists have theorized that even the slightest changes in the fundamental laws of nature would make it impossible for life to exist. This idea, also known as the “Fine-Tuned Universe” argument, suggests that the occurrence of life in the Universe is very sensitive to the values of certain fundamental physics. Alter any of these values (as the logic goes), and life would not exist, meaning we must be very fortunate to be here!

But can this really be the case, or is it possible that life can emerge under different physical constants, and we just don’t know it? This question was recently tackled by Luke A. Barnes, a postdoctoral researcher at the Sidney Institute for Astronomy (SIA) in Australia. In his recent book, A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos, he and Sydney astrophysics professor Geraint F. Lewis argued that a fine-tuned Universe makes sense from a physics standpoint.

November 2, 2021November 2, 2021 by Brian Koberlein

Moons are Planets too

Moons of the solar system compared to Earth. Credit: NASA

What makes a planet a planet? The answer turns out to be rather contentious. The official definition of a planet, as defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is that a planet must satisfy three conditions:

It must orbit the Sun.
It must be in hydrostatic equilibrium.
It must have cleared its orbital neighborhood.

By this definition there are just eight planets in our solar system, most notably excluding Pluto. This has stirred all manner of controversy, even among astronomers. Several alternative definitions have been proposed, but a new study argues we should look to history for the solution.

November 2, 2021November 2, 2021 by Nancy Atkinson

Ingenuity Back in Action on Mars on its 14th Flight

Mars Helicopter Sol 241: Navigation Camera: NASA's Ingenuity Mars Helicopter acquired this image using its navigation camera. This camera is mounted in the helicopter's fuselage and pointed directly downward to track the ground during flight. This image was acquired on Oct. 24, 2021 (Sol 241 of the Perseverance rover mission) at the local mean solar time of 12:34:15. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter took a short hop flight on October 24, giving the mission team both a sigh of relief and an anticipatory look to future flights. This 14^th flight of Ingenuity’s mission was a short 23-second hover, with a peak altitude of 16 feet (5 meters) above ground level, with a small sideways translation of 7 feet (2 meters) to avoid a nearby sand ripple.