Universe Today

August 6, 2021August 6, 2021 by Matt Williams

Animals Could Have Been Around Hundreds of Millions of Years Earlier Than Previously Believed

Credit: Elizabeth Turner/Laurentian University

According to the most widely accepted theories, evolutionary biologists assert that life on Earth began roughly 4 billion years ago, beginning with single-celled bacteria and gradually giving way to more complex organisms. According to this same evolutionary timetable, the first complex organisms emerged during the Neoproterozoic era (ca. 800 million years ago), which took the form of fungi, algae, cyanobacteria, and sponges.

However, due to recent findings made in the Arctic Circle, it appears that sponges may have existed in Earth’s oceans hundreds of millions of years earlier than we thought! These findings were made by Prof. Elizabeth Turner of Laurentian University, who unearthed what could be the fossilized remains of sponges that are 890 million years old. If confirmed, these samples would predate the oldest fossilized sponges by around 350 million years.

August 6, 2021August 6, 2021 by Matt Williams

Russia’s new Module Kicks the Station out of Position, Causes a Delay for Starliner

An artist's illustration of Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spacecraft in orbit. Credit: Boeing

On July 28th, the International Space Station (ISS) suffered a mishap after a new Russian module (named Nauka) fired its thrusters just hours after arriving. As a result, the entire station was temporarily pushed out of position, forcibly delaying the Orbital Flight Test-2 (OFT-2) mission. This would have been Boeing’s CT-100 Starliner’s second attempt to rendezvous with the ISS as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP).

The ISS managed to correct its orbit shortly thereafter, while the OFT-2 launch was delayed until the next available opportunity (Wednesday, Aug. 4th). Unfortunately, the mission was delayed again due to an issue with one of the valves on the spacecraft’s propulsion system. This prompted the ground crews to move the Starliner and Atlas V launch vehicle back into Vertical Integration Facility (VIF), so they can look for the source of the problem more closely.

August 6, 2021August 6, 2021 by David Dickinson

The Tears of the Hero: Get Ready for the 2021 Perseid Meteors

A sure-fire summer shower, the Perseid meteors are set to put on a spectacular show this year.

It’s one of my fondest astronomical observing memories of childhood. Growing up in Northern Maine, it was a family tradition to set the lawn chairs out on warm mid-August nights, and watch with my mom and brother as the Perseid meteors slid silently through the inky black sky.

August 5, 2021August 6, 2021 by Matt Williams

Astronomy and Geophysics is Rife With Bullying and Harassment

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden presents an award to Katherine Johnson, the African American mathematician, physicist, and space scientist, who calculated flight trajectories for John Glenn's first orbital flight in 1962, at a reception to honor members of the segregated West Area Computers division of Langley Research Center on Thursday, Dec. 1, 2016, at the Virginia Air and Space Center in Hampton, VA. Afterward, the guests attended a premiere of "Hidden Figures" a film which stars Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan, and Janelle Monae as Mary Jackson. Photo Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

It’s a common reassurance made by adults to teens and adolescents who constantly face the threat of violence, cyberbullying, and ostracism: “It gets better.” Once you graduate, once you grow up and join the workforce, all the mistreatment and abuse will cease and people will appreciate you for who you are. All the hard work and perseverance you’ve shown over these many years will finally pay off.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case, and even the STEM fields are not immune. This was the conclusion reached by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) based on a recent survey of 650 astronomers and geophysicists. What they found was that in 44% of cases, respondents reported bullying and harassment in the workplace during the preceding year, which was disproportionately high for women and minorities.

August 5, 2021August 5, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Two Spacecraft are Flying Past Venus, Just 33 Hours Apart

When Longfellow wrote about “ships passing in the night” back in 1863, he probably wasn’t thinking about satellites passing near Venus. He probably also wouldn’t have considered 575,000 km separation as “passing”, but on the scale of interplanetary exploration, it might as well be. And passing is exactly what two satellites will be doing near Venus in the next few days – performing two flybys of the planet within 33 hours of each other.

August 5, 2021August 5, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Shadows on the Moon Could be Hiding Water, Even in the Daytime

Shadows have been known throughout history to be excellent hiding places. They may even be hiding unexpected things off the Earth as well. According to a new NASA study, there might be water that moves from shadow to shadow on the moon – even in daylight.

August 4, 2021August 4, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Astronomers Find a Huge Planet Orbiting its Star at 6,000 Times the Earth-Sun Distance

Tracking exoplanets is hard – especially when that exoplanet is so far away from its parent star that the normally used “transit” method of watching it dim the light of the star itself is ineffectual. But it really helps if the planet is huge, and has its own infrared glow, no matter how far away from its star it might be. At least those properties allowed a team of scientists from the University of Hawai’i to track a particular exoplanet called (and we’re not kidding) Coconuts-2b.

August 4, 2021August 4, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Scientists Figure out how the Asteroid Belt Attacked the Dinosaurs

How do you track an asteroid that hit the Earth over 60 million years ago? By using a combination of geology and computer simulations, at least according to a team of scientists from the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI). Those methods might have let them solve a long-standing mystery of both archeology and astronomy – where did the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs come from?

August 3, 2021August 3, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

NASA is Going Ahead With a Hopping Lander to Explore the Lunar Surface

Methods of movement for robotic explorers of other worlds have been as varied as the worlds themselves. Some missions have been simple landers, some rovers, and now there’s even been a helicopter flight on Mars. But there is an unexplored hybrid mode of movement that will soon be coming to a Moon near you – hopping. NASA just granted an additional $41.6 million to support development of a hopping lunar lander that will explore the inside of craters that are permanently in shadow.

August 3, 2021August 3, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Two Bizarre red Asteroids Somehow Migrated From the Kuiper Belt all the way to the Main Asteroid Belt

If asked to pick what color asteroids in the asteroid belt would be, red is likely not one that would come to mind for most people. But that is exactly the color of two new asteroids found by Hasegawa Sunao of JAXA and an international team of researchers. The catch is the objects don’t appear to be from the asteroid belt at all, but are most likely Trans-Neptunian objects that were somehow transported into what is commonly thought of as the asteroid belt. How exactly they got there is still up for debate.